There is so much fear at the moment about failure, rejection, looking foolish or being called out. These are not new fears by any stretch but they seem to have become more pervasive as each of us lives a half-public life. At times, I feel slightly sorry for the people who have grown up in a world with the internet and social media. Largely because they’ve never known anything different. Since I am not a digital native (first time on the internet was in college), I remember a time where I could fall flat on my face and only the people there to see it could really laugh. So taking chances on things that might not work felt “safer”. Although it may not always seem that way, it is a choice to feel safe or afraid.
In my early twenties, my best friend, Schaef, was about to get married in two months. At the time, I was living in NJ but was spending a lot of weekends in Baltimore. One particular night, I was hanging out in the Fell’s Point area with my friend, Damion. A problem was lurking for me because I did not have a date to my friend’s wedding. So I decided in that moment to ask the most attractive girl in the place to be my date. I don’t remember exactly what Damo said but I’m pretty sure it was along the lines of “that’s not going to work.” And common sense would tell anyone that he was probably right. Random guy, asks random girl to a wedding two months in advance when he lives in a different state. Slim to no chance!
This is not exactly what I said but it is pretty close. “Hi! I was wondering if you could help me. I’ve got an issue with my best friend. You see, he’s getting married in two months and he made his brother his best man. I’m a little upset with him because we’ve been extremely close for years now and I should really be his best man. So in order to get back at him, I’m going to bring a date to his wedding that is so beautiful that no one will look at the bride and that woman is you!” I did not get a yes right away but what I did get was a date for the next weekend and an eventual yes to the wedding.
Most of the time the problem isn’t that other people tell us “no”. It’s that we tell ourselves “no” before we even make the attempt. The world gets very few chances to reject us because we cower in the shadows afraid to gamble our self-image. And therein lies the problem of the day. We are protecting the image that we have of ourselves and it seems magnified by the device that sits in our pocket. The fact that we can beam out our most perfectly angled selfie for all the world to see, also makes us afraid that anything less than that level of perfection will be chastised. The world is not waiting for you to fall. It’s actually not waiting for anything from you at all. But maybe… just maybe… if you’re willing to risk those slim odds that you’ll end up finding out what you’re truly capable of. Then next time it will be easier for you to say “YES!” to yourself because until you do, no one else will get the chance!
Put that first foot forward today!
Pete
My first car was a 1977 Chevy Nova! I inherited it from my great aunt and it was the perfect first car. It had holes in the floor boards where you could actually see the road below you. It had an 8 Track tape player in it that never really worked. It was pale blue and covered with rust spots, as you can tell from the description, I loved it! There were plenty of reasons to love it that had nothing to do with how looked or how it ran. And now looking back on it, I understand even better that it was the perfect first car exactly because it was a piece of junk. At no point did I ever have to worry about messing it up. I learned how to change the oil, replace the bulbs and change tires on that car. At no point did I think, “If I mess this up, I’m screwed!”
In 1998 my best friend and I traveled to Europe for the World Cup which was held in France. Despite our main goal being to watch soccer games, we also made side trips to other cities inside and outside of France. One of our stops was the Spanish city of Barcelona. It’s a beautiful city on the coast with the architecture of Gaudi, the shopping of Las Ramblas and hosted the Olympics only a few years prior. Despite all of those magnificent characteristics, whenever I talk about that trip, I usually talk about the Police Department. Let me explain!
Geometry was probably one of the easiest classes for me in high school. Despite its relative ease, I had trouble staying engaged with it. I found it tedious to give all of the reasons why something was true. It was usually pretty obvious whether a problem was going to withstand the scrutiny of the different theorems that we were learning at the time. So it seemed like a relative waste to my teenage self to write out all of the steps in proving or disproving a problem. Especially when the answers (to the odd problems usually) were in the back of the book.
Cautionary tales like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” seem to be less prevalent than in the past. Perhaps that is just my perception or my own implementation of life lessons to my kids. I remember exactly who told me this story and for what reason. It had the desired effect. In third grade, I would frequently “not feel well” in order to be sent down to the nurse’s office. Once my visits became frequent enough, the nurse recounted the story of the boy who cried wolf. My visits to her office became more legitimate.
Cups are an everyday thing that we rarely take much notice of. They are a utility that must have a few very simple features. They need to have walls of some sort and a bottom. Without the bottom, it is just a cylinder. The bottom is the essence of the cup. It does not have to sit flush to the table. It can be raised to any height within the walls that the designer wants. Tops are completely optional. Sometimes they are useful but the majority of cups have no need for a top.
Huryk Unlimited 