Four seconds on the pavement

It's Thursday evening and you're putting the bins out.

The woman from number fourteen is doing the same. You know her to nod to. She waves, comes over, and says the residents' association has its summer fair a week on Saturday and they're short of people. Could you run the tombola? It's eight till four, in the church hall. "You couldn't, could you?" she says, and smiles, and waits.

You know the answer before she's finished. That Saturday is the first one in five weeks with nothing in it. You'd been looking forward to the nothing. You were going to sleep late, read the paper and possibly do something about the garden. What you say is, "Yes, of course. Happy to." It takes about four seconds. She says you're a star and goes back to her bins, and you go back to yours, and for a minute you feel rather good. You've been kind to someone and it's all been pleasant.

A week on Saturday you're in the church hall by eight. There's a trestle table with bubble bath, tinned peaches and a bottle of sherry on it, each with a raffle ticket taped to the side. Tickets ending in a five or a nought win. You explain this about two hundred times. The tea from the urn tastes of the urn. You get home at half past four with sore feet and a jar of chutney, too flat to do anything with the evening. On Sunday you do Saturday's washing and shopping. On Monday you're back at work, and your next free Saturday is three weeks off.

Nothing here is a disaster. The fair is a good thing and someone has to run the tombola. Your neighbour isn't a villain. She asked a fair question and would have been entitled to a fair answer. I'm not going to tell you that you were used.

What I'd like you to look at is one odd fact. Suppose she hadn't caught you at the bins. Suppose a slip of paper had come through the door instead. "Could you run the tombola on Saturday the 14th, eight till four? Please tick yes or no." You'd have ticked no. You might have felt a small pang, but you'd have ticked it and put the slip back through her door without losing any sleep.

It's the same request, from the same person, to the same you, about the same Saturday. On paper the answer is no. On the pavement the answer is yes. Whatever made the difference, it wasn't your wishes, your diary or your feelings about the residents' association. None of those changed. What changed was that a person was standing in front of you, smiling and waiting.

I'll use a few terms all the way through, so here they are. The moment is the few seconds between the end of someone's request and the start of your answer. An unwilling yes is a yes you'd have ticked as a no on the slip of paper. A willing yes is any other kind, and that includes plenty of things you don't feel like doing. You might not fancy driving your brother to the airport at five in the morning, but you'd tick yes on the slip. That's a willing yes, and this book has no quarrel with it.

Unwilling yeses have four features, as far as I can tell. This list is my own observation and not a research finding.

They're fast. Hardly anyone deliberates for a minute and then agrees to something they don't want. The yes is out before any thinking has been done.

They're said to a face, or to a voice on the phone. It's rare to give one by letter.

The thing agreed to is in the future, usually more than a few days off.

And the cost arrives when the asker isn't there. She saw you smile and say "happy to". She didn't see you on Sunday with the washing.

Each of those features comes up again later, because each one is part of why the habit works and each one suggests something you can do about it.

Here's something you can do before chapter 2, if you'd like to. Look back through the last month in your diary or your messages. Pick out the things you did because somebody asked. For each one, imagine the request had come on a slip of paper with two boxes. Count how many you'd have ticked no. You're not going to do anything about the number. It's only so you know how much of your month we're discussing.