Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

CommentGo Back

Download

Winners are Made of Fail,Losers are Made of Excuses

I have come to the realization that there is only one reasonable way to live life. Itconsists of facing my fears and my failures, overcoming each one of them as they surface,and then reveling in the peaceful wake of their destruction. Until recently, I've lived my lifewith an ever-present fear of pain and how I assumed it would cripple me. I have alwaysthought that a life without pain is a life with happiness; that the path best taken is the onewith the least to be avoided. I thought that being not-unhappy was the same as beinghappy.If you're reading this then I'll assume that you or someone you know is an introvert.Socially anxious and all too ready to duck out of the crowd in favor of hiding at home. Tothose who fit this description, I want what I talk about with you here to lead you to questionwhat pains you. What is it that you really fear and can you rethink whether you are trulyenjoying your life or utilizing rationalization as an aide to swallow the most jagged of pillsthat are your personal failures?I used to be that way too but then I discovered social skydiving: The act of conversingwith strangers every day for thirty days straight. If you're curious enough to be reading thisthen, like me when I first started, you are probably nervous just thinking about it.For more than a year prior I had been wishing I had the strength to go through with theidea. I had read about it on a blog written by someone named Brad Bollenbach. He hadwritten about a thirty day experiment where he had started a conversation with a newperson every day. He said it had changed his life and been one of his biggest adventures. Iadmired him for thinking of and attempting something so radical. I wished that I could livemy life like that but instead I just returned to my computer and my video games. I was allset to live my life vicariously through other people's words and creations.

After a year or two of "thinking" about it and wanting it, I decided one night, about twoweeks prior to writing this, to commit to it. There I was sitting alone in my living room, theblack night sulking silently at the window. I was also utterly bored and I didn't want to be. Ihad a great job, awesome friends, a family who cared, and the cutest black dog who lovedto just be near me, "How can I really be bored?" I thought. I couldn't figure out why I wason the brink of a depression when everything in life seemed to be going so well. Suddenly,my mind snapped together like one more rubber band being added to a slowly growingrubber band ball. Some times knowing what you need in life is like listening to a largeorchestra. I can't predict every note that they will play but I can feel what sounds need tocome next. Just like that, I knew deeply that I needed to finally undertake this project."What could go wrong?" my mind reasoned. Seriously. It was impossible to really fail atit. I could essentially get away with just saying hi to someone daily if I absolutely needed. If the person decided to not talk to me, that rejection would be my own personal secret noone would need to know. If that were true though, why would I follow through at all then?Before I undertake a new project I like to envision seriously the demands that will be placedupon me. I try to think of everything else I know that I will want to do and make surewhatever I want to do is important enough to stick. That's when I knew I had an idealizedimage of myself in my mind that I was guarding. Egotism like that would easily defeat sucha lofty goal if it wasn't kept in check so I decided to broaden my goal.I decided to publically blog my experience with complete humility and sincerity. I figuredthis would have the following effects: Once my friends knew what I was doing I figured itwould be harder to stop because I wouldn't want them to think I was scared of somethingso trivial. I also figured that if I was successful it would act as a way of inspiring orcomforting other introverts and I figured it would serve as a living record of an enormousaccomplishment that I could reference whenever I needed some encouragement to keepchallenging my status quo.It's become so much more than that.

The night I took up the social skydiving challenge, I created my blog and posted anarticle explaining my intentions. "Today is the day I decide that now is the time to tacklethis social anxiety once and for all." I wrote. "Tomorrow is the day I take action." I had livedin fear of social interaction for my whole life and become so worried that I might have a badexperience that I stopped trying to talk to anyone. Enveloped in this self-imposed fog, Iwould only talk to people who approached me first. Unless someone said something to me, Iwould keep completely to myself. That next day I took the plunge.Where I would normally sit on the bus with my headphones firmly planted in my ears andhead lodged in a book, I left my headphones in my backpack that day and while keeping myfavorite book out I focused my attention outward.At one point a woman with the samephone as me, only a bit older, sat down on my seat. I asked her how she like the olderversion of her phone and discussed it with her for a bit and she responded in the mostunexpected way.She so easily and energetically offered input and discussed what she did and didn't likeabout it. She seemed genuinely excited to talk to me. I was floored at the ease with which I just had a conversation with a stranger. How could it be so easy? All of a sudden my mindwas flooded with the presence of opportunities and the knowledge of all of the opportunitiesI had missed through the years. The corner stone of modern scientific thought is to form ahypothesis and then test it, yet, I had been so afraid all of my life because I had assumedso much and never tested my assumptions. I owed more to my life than to just accept theworld the way I was told it existed. Why is it that I had formed this life limiting hypothesisof not belonging in society and never taken the time to prove it?As it turns out I had proven that hypothesis to myself, just in a severely flawed way.Time and again I resisted fitting in all of my life. I was somewhat poor growing up andbought most of my clothes from a thrift store. I didn't know how to fit in and I wanted itdesperately but I knew better than to try and get the latest fashions. I dealt with that bypurposefully rejecting fitting in. By highschool I was buying cheap clothes that were uglyand then ripping them up to make them uglier still. Shaving my head in patches. I couldn'tcontrol that I couldn't dress nicely and I felt ugly so I decided to take control and dress as