Do The (Healthy) Things That Scare You

Throughout my life, I’ve heard some version of this piece of advice:

If something scares you, that means you should do it.

To which the smartass in me will often reply: “Oh good, because I’ve always been skittish about trying Heroin”.

Of course, not everything that scares a person is some kind of indictment on them for not conquering it. Fear can exist for very valid reasons. But there are situations where that fear might be holding you back. Those are the ones that you want to take a closer look at.

I didn’t something recently that, for all intents and purposes, terrifies me. Those that only know me tangentially may not be aware that I deal with serious depression and, especially, social anxiety. You might be thinking that I picked a hell of career for someone who deals with that…but the truth is, the anxiety doesn’t hit me with auditioning, acting or back when I was doing stand-up comedy. I know I have a talent in those areas and, professionally, I am confident in who I am and what I can do.

Put me in unfamiliar social situations and that can be a completely different story.

For example, I had a party for my recent birthday and invited people that have taken class with me over the past year. I was both looking forward to the party and also dreading it. In fact, the day of I got so anxious (Why? Who knows?! Cuz….reasons?) that I had a panic attack. It also caused me to not eat anything all day which resulted in me getting drunk and feeling nauseous towards the end of the night, having to remove myself from the proceedings.

I am a big baseball fan and have been wanting to find some kind of casual softball league for awhile. For the past year, I’ve been invited to a pickup “no hustle” weekly game by a friend and always had a reason why I couldn’t make it. This year, I made a commitment to myself to actually play. My only two issues were: 1) the friend who invited me was not going to be able to play that week so I wouldn’t know a single person there and 2) I haven’t played in an actual game in a few decades. Some games of catch and some swings in batting cages but no actual games. But I was determined to go and get over this.

I get up on the Sunday of the game and get my stuff together and hop in the car. As I’m getting on the highway ramp, I realize I forgot my hat. In the past, this would have been enough of an omen for me to turn around, go home and stay there. Good game everyone, better luck next time. I stopped myself from doing that, though, and just went ahead to the game. I got there very early and just kind of hung out in my car until people showed up. I introduced myself to a few people, played some warm-up catch with another dude from Boston and ended up playing Shortstop for the game. I made some decent grounder plays and even made a running catch over my head that took me off my feet. I think I went like 2 for 5 at the plate and even scored the winning run of the game. It was a totally casual game, just a bunch of guys and a few ladies getting out and playing and having some fun. We even had a little kid playing on one of the teams. I had a really good time and was proud of myself for not bailing.

I plan on going back, if not every week, more often than not. I even bought a pair of molded cleats to kick myself in the butt with if I try to bail next time.

Not everything that scares us is something for us to do but there are plenty of things that people do everyday that we might have some kind of aversion to despite it being something we’d like to do very much. Those are the moments to try to conquer them, even if it doesn’t work out the first time. Show yourself some grace and have some fun.