Do something every day that scares you

Soundtrack: Everybody's free to wear sunscreen (watch it first, then put it on again while reading... :))


Written August 17th
I went swimming today, and in the showers they have this huge bucket mounted so it can be tipped and spill like 25 L of water over whoever is brave enough to pull the rope. It reminded me of the Bazz Luhrman speech/song "Everybody is free to wear sunscreen" - an excellent speech to a graduating class full of advice for life. One of them is "Do something every day that scares you" (at 1.30 mins in the video).

And I started wondering... What scares me?

That bucket of water scares me. And now that I am sitting here, working on my thesis, needing some action, I almost regret that I didn't pull the robe. Well, next time I will. I promise...!


September 1st
So, now I have been to the pool twice after I wrote that I would pul that robe, and....... (drum roll)... I have become a very big fan of the cold water bucket! Really so refreshing - not just because of the cold water, but also having to face yourself, saying "DO IT!", realising it will be a shock. And then afterwards, feeling proud and vikingly, it can only be a good day. :)

I have continued thinking about what scares me. I posted the question "What scares you" on my Facebook profile, expecting that people would post some suggestions that I could learn from... Instead, they pointed out that the things that scares them (such as jumping out of the window from the 9th floor), is not the kind of thing you would like to do. Especially not one thing every day, though one would be unlikely to survive even day 1.

That made me think more about the meaning of the phrase, or maybe more about the purpose. For me, the point is that facing my fears helps me grow, because I move my boundaries each time. Of course the literal statement needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but still I find it to be a very useful challenge!

I went on to google it. "What scares you" - it led to other blogs, where the same question has been discussed, with some thought evoking results. There are different levels of scary things I suppose: Obviously there are the things that might kill you, leading to a very healthy fear indeed... There are bad things that might happen that you cannot prevent (death, disease, and other unfortunate events). Also, there are things such as letting people down, not living your dreams, etc., which are also not the kind of fears you wanna put to the test every day, just because it scares you.

No, the kind of scary things I am after are the challenges. I will keep my eyes open and inform in a later post what I figure out. As always, suggestions are very welcome! :)