...I Hope You Dance

I am not too proud to pilfer a line from a Dolly Parton Song, but if you don't want to listen to it yourself, I will spell it out for you.

You will have many opportunities to do things in your life.  I mean get up off the couch and go kind of things, take a risk kind of things, try something new or even a little scary kind of things.  Try out for a local tennis club.  Take a poetry writing class.  Go out on a blind date.  Eat chicken feet.  Take a trip to a strange and exotic country.  Go hang-gliding.  Introduce yourself to that cute kid next door.  Go to the Dance.  Jump off the High Dive.  Get the Henna Tattoo.  You get the picture.

Much of the time we miss these opportunities.  We tell ourselves we are too busy, or we wouldn't like it (or they wouldn't like us), or we just let the time pass until it is too late.  Really we were just too chicken to try this new thing, to take the risk of looking like an idiot.

I don't know about you, but in my life, almost all of my regrets haven't been things I tried that didn't go well (and there have been plenty, but now they are mostly funny to me).  What I regret the most are those opportunities to try something that I passed on.  I will never know how they might have turned out, who I might have met, what adventures or miseries I have missed.

To be Crystal Clear:  I am NOT saying you now have my Blessing to engage in any risky behavior you can Dream up.  This is not Carte Blanche to start using Heroin, or try that Cross-Atlantic hot air Balloon trip.  If something has a good chance of killing you, leaving you brain damaged, or getting you arrested for a long time then it is probably a good idea to avoid it.

But most of the things we avoid are actually pretty safe.  A new food is really unlikely to hurt you too bad.  If other people eat it and seem OK, then you will likely survive as well.  If you try windsurfing in front of a beach full of people and fall about a thousand times, I can tell you from experience you will definitely look stupid, but seriously, So What?  I promise you that other people spend much less time and energy thinking about you than you worry about.  You can be the kid who threw up in the Lunchroom one day, but other than a good laugh or two, people will stop caring in the time it takes them to update their own Facebook status.  Everyone you know thinks so much more about themselves than they think about you, and if you realize this you can free yourself from your imaginary shackles of self consciousness and Let Go.  Who cares if you are a goof, or if that girl or guy laughs at you when you ask them out.  Don't let what other people might think of you hold you back from trying things that might turn out to be fun or just a really good story one day.

When faced with a new (and intimidating) opportunity try imagining yourself at 97 years old, all wrinkled and diapered up on some hospital bed waiting to die, reminiscing about your life.  What will you be more likely to remember fondly, you trying this new thing (and maybe risking an Epic Fail) or just sitting there on your Butt and watching one more Drake & Josh re-run?   Sorry Drake & Josh.