In my first year of university, I instantly bonded with this girl I met in the very first week of the semester and we literally ended up spending the rest of the semester together.
For our very first date, I took her out to a nice dinner and while we were waiting for our food to arrive, a group of girls sitting right across us were having a birthday celebration. The whole table was filled with balloons and decorated with different props that made it stand out in the entire restaurant.
My date suddenly turns to me and says “I dare you to go to that table and get that purple balloon for me”. Now you should remember that I was a reticent and a shy person at that time which my date knew so that was her way to put me in an uncomfortable situation. Initially, I hesitated but after a couple of minutes, I finally took the courage to get up and approach that table.
As soon as I reached the table, in a very shaky voice I asked the girls if I could have that purple balloon for my date. All of them started laughing and that made me even more uncomfortable after which they said yes.
I got back to my table, gave the balloon to my date, and avoided any eye contact with the girls in front of whom I just made a fool of myself. It was so embarrassing that I immediately wanted to leave that place. While I was in that state of humiliation my date eventually says
“Well, atleast now you have a crazy story to share with someone”
This one sentence turned that whole experience from a huge embarrassment to one crazy experience that I then started embracing. Since that day, I have become more comfortable in such situations and I believe this one incident is the reason behind that.
Now, what was the point of this story? Why am I telling you this? This actually brings me to the bigger picture and that is
Everyone writes their own story but the decisions we make today define what that story is going to be. A lot of people completely fixate on end goals as if that is all that matters. While setting and reaching goals is important, don’t choose your struggles simply based on the outcome.
Seeing life as a story gives you a much different outlook than most other people. It becomes a source of motivation to seek out new experiences that can add to your story and create awesome memories by focusing on the journey instead of the outcome.
No doubt some of these experiences will be failures or in my case embarrassing but when you see the value of creating stories, even those failures will start to look like wins. Also, you have the ability to look back on some of these stupid things you’ve done and just laugh.
Honestly, I’d rather try something new and fail instead of sitting in my comfort zone all the time and make my life story completely dull. Of course, this might mean I make a lot of mistakes.
In fact, I consider myself to be a failure. I have failed ventures, poor academic records, and even got placed on probation in the very first year of university but let me rephrase my statement.
I love to be a failure
You know why?
I’m more willing to try new experiences simply because I don’t care as much about how it ends. I’m not as concerned about failing or looking stupid but I’m more interested in the experience itself.
Ultimately, it’s your life story you are creating. What do you want it to say? 😉
Subscribe to my mailing list and I will make sure the next super-awesome blog post reaches your inbox directly.
