The Best Things in My Life Usually Started with "I Don't Want To"

When I was in sixth grade, our class had an end-of-the-year celebration. The first part was at a roller skating rink. The second part was back at school for a party. There was only one problem. I didn't know how to roller skate. I had NEVER roller skated in my life.

To my eleven-year-old brain, this wasn't a small inconvenience. It felt catastrophic. I was convinced I would make a fool of myself. Everyone would laugh. I'd spend the afternoon falling all over the rink while everyone else glided effortlessly around me.

So I came up with what I thought was the perfect solution. I asked my mom if I could just skip the skating rink and meet everyone later for the party at school. To my absolute eleven-year-old horror, she said no.

I pleaded. I argued. I cried. No, seriously, I remember bawling my eyes out to get her to understand. Surely she could see that I was trying to avoid a social disaster. She didn't budge.

Eventually, with all the enthusiasm of someone headed to their own execution, I went. And something unexpected happened. I wasn't very good. But neither were a lot of other kids. No one seemed nearly as interested in judging me as I imagined they would be.

In fact, one of the girls in my class, who I happened to think was incredibly cute, spent part of the afternoon holding my hand and helping me skate around the rink. I can still remember it. What I had imagined would be one of the worst days of my young life became one of the best.

I think about that afternoon more often than you'd expect. Not because it made me a better roller skater - I still won't do it. Ice skating, either... much to my lovely wife Dr. Erica's chagrin.

But because it reminds me how spectacularly wrong anxiety can be. Our minds are remarkably good at creating movies about the future. They convince us that embarrassment will be unbearable. That failure will define us. That everyone is watching. That we're safer staying home, staying quiet, staying comfortable.

But those movies are fiction - the only way to find out what the story really is... is to show up.

As a therapist, I think about that roller rink almost every week. Sometimes I'm asking a client to have the difficult conversation. Sometimes I'm encouraging a couple to stop protecting themselves long enough to be vulnerable. Sometimes I'm challenging someone to apply for the job, join the group, ask the question, apologize first, make the phone call, or simply walk through the door.

Almost every meaningful change begins with someone deciding to do something they really don't want to do. The same is true with my own children. And, if I'm honest, it's true for me too.

There are still conversations I'd rather avoid. Opportunities that make me nervous. Moments where I'd much rather protect myself than risk looking foolish. But then I remember a scared sixth grader who desperately wanted permission to stay home.

I'm grateful my mom loved me enough to say no.

Because sometimes the greatest gift someone can give us isn't rescue. It's refusing to let fear make our decisions.

You may not find yourself holding hands with the cutest person in the room. But you also might. =]

More importantly, you might discover that the life you've been hoping for has been waiting just outside the thing you were most afraid to do. Sometimes courage isn't about feeling brave. Sometimes it's just about putting on the roller skates.