Earlier this year, I was at a conference in Chicago when I heard an idea at once so simple and obvious, I wondered how it had never been put to me that way before. The keynote speaker was addressing a crowd of at least 1000 people. He asked us to raise our hand if we could draw. I looked around…and not a single person in the entire auditorium had raised their hand. He then told us that he once asked the same question to a kindergarten class, and every single child raised his or her hand excitedly.

By the time we grow up, we have been so slowly conditioned to fit in and succeed that without even realizing it, we lose that childlike confidence to just go for it and have fun, and in it’s place is the mantra, “Oh no, I can’t sing karaoke/draw/dance/play a sport,” accompanied by a self-deprecating grin. But you know what? I CAN. Life is more fun when you don’t spend your time embarrassed of yourself.  No one is good at everything, so why are we so afraid to just let people see our real selves and have fun? Granted, I recognize that I probably will not be the next American Idol, but I can’t live my life worried about what several dozen strangers might think of my two-drinks-in version of “Don’t Stop Believin,” (my obsession with that song is a whole other column).

I remember when I was little, I would make faces and whine to get out of eating whatever vegetable my grandmother had put on my plate for dinner. Her response was always, “It won’t kill you to try it, you know.” I wasn’t as convinced, but survive I did. This summer, I’ve been having the time of my life & doing things I would never even think I’d be capable of by just saying yes. I’ve survived 4 days in a tiny packed-to-the-brim car road tripping to Bonnaroo, gotten up on the water the first time I tried to water-ski (off the boom), cliff-jumped into the lake below, learned to play Call of Duty and MarioKart as well as my male roommates, and accepted several…let’s say interesting…dates. It hasn’t always worked out perfectly - I still haven’t caught a fish; an eight year old out-shot me on the basketball court; I swallowed several gallons of water moving from water-skiing on the boom to the rope, and I’m still single. Yet years after she’s passed, my Nani is still right – these things haven’t killed me to try. Nor am I any worse off for having tried and failed. The answer is always no unless you try.

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