#98. Get Rejected 100 Times - 1

Yesterday I was driving in my car on the way to a meeting when I was possessed by a sudden urge to address some lingering issues in my life. In quick succession I made four phone calls to have or initiate four conversations with four different people I've been having difficulties with. Ranging from short term discomfort to fights going back years, I decided I wasn't going to be worried about how those conversations (or confrontations) might go, but to dive in head on and HAVE them. Rather than live in avoiding the issues, I was going to DEAL with them. That is a tremendous risk, or at least felt like one. Making that call, initiating - that can be intimidating, especially once things have been left to simmer and fester. The problem becomes the status quo. In one case in particular we're talking anger, hurt, and resentment that has been building for years, with someone who was once one of my closest friends. Fear of actually, definitively losing that friendship kept me confined to this limbic state of being extraordinarily frustrated and yet too worried to get in there and figure it out.

Well, fuck that noise.

Fear is a shitty reason not to do what you should or want or need to do, unless there's a gun involved.

So I made some calls.

And along those lines, tonight I was sitting around with friends, looking at and thinking about one in particular. About how she has consistently been one of the smartest, coolest, prettiest people I know.

And how in that moment, I knew I wanted to kiss her someday.

I had also been drinking.

So rather than sitting on that thought or stifling it, once everyone else ran to the bathroom I asked her if she wanted to get dinner, as a date. She said no.

And aside from the unfortunate timing of her contact lens having issues just as she responded (leading to some weird and awkward faces totally separate from the ones you make when your friend asks you out) it was that simple.

And while my ego was slightly bruised for two minutes, I am much happier for having created a potential opportunity than sitting on possibility.

Because people are so afraid to feel bad that they avoid anything that will make them feel.

There is a freedom to being a man without fear that I will continue to seek.

1 down, 99 to go.