5.20 Lessons - Don't Be Afraid

Bestest Friend and I are in the middle of a blog project. Each day of the month we will post a picture on a pre-determined theme and write a little something about it. The theme for the twentieth day of each month is "Lessons."
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I was a perfectionist when I was a child, afraid to try things until I knew I could do it perfectly. Anything that was attached the idea that “practice makes perfect” was something I would steer away from because if I couldn’t do it right, I wasn’t going to do it.  But then I spent summers with Uncle Lenny and Aunt Debbie.  

What? You can’t swim? That’s ridiculous. Let me teach you. I would never have tried if they weren’t there to reassure me that everyone had to begin sometime.  It was the first time I was really introduced to the idea of hands on learning and it’s something I’ll never forget.

I'm not so much smiling as grimacing here. I was leaning off a platform into a tree!

Last fall I desperately wanted to do this ziplining course, but it was expensive , we ran out of weekends, and it just didn’t get prioritized. But I thought about it all year and at the end of this past summer, I made a plea that we do it this year no matter what.  And last weekend we did it.  

I’ve never been on a zipline before. I’m actually a little bit afraid of heights. But it was glorious and beautiful and fun and empowering and hilarious and worth every penny we paid.  Sometimes you just have to stop being afraid and try something new. It's always worth the risk.

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To see what Bestest Friend wrote about the theme of the day, check out her blog, Too Legit to Quit.