Just Do It

Life is scary y’all.

There are so many ways to screw up. You can make a mistake in your job, and it can cost your career. You can move to a new city, and you can end up alone. You can vote for someone, and people can define you by that vote alone.

Why would we want to take any risks?

Why would we want to do anything?

Most of us choose to be passive. We choose to avoid confronting those who have helped or hurt us. We choose to take the easy way out. We choose to stay in the same place, not taking a single risk. We choose to let the world define us, and we do not try to make any corrections.

It’s easier to play the passive role.

But it doesn’t help anyone.

In fact, by not taking risks and trying new things, we can hold everyone around us back.

This has been the case in my lab for the past few months. Because the older graduate student does not want to step forward and share what he wants, I have been taking the majority of the work for the lab. I actively try to work, but there is just too much for me to do. It killed my sleep, my academics, and most importantly, my relationships with the rest of the lab. However, because he was the senior member of the lab, I chose to take the “easy” path and not try to make any changes.

For two months I essentially  ran the lab on my own.

It sucked.

Eventually I talked to our boss about it. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being a jerk to my coworker, and I wanted to fix the problem. Not just for myself, but for the other graduate student.

Our boss was very understanding, and he was surprised that I didn’t mention anything sooner. I usually would bring up issues as soon as I noticed them, but because I didn’t want to take a risk, I ended up hurting the lab dynamics. At the end of the brief conversation, we made a plan to improve communication so that we could be more active.

And suddenly I felt the weight lift off my shoulders.

I think the main place where we do not want to take risks is with relationships. For some reason, our culture has taken on this idea that asking someone on a simple date is asking them to be in a committed relationship. We fear their reaction to our feelings, and we avoid telling people how we feel about them. We listen to love songs, flirt, and pretend that nothing is going on.

We don’t want to lose our friendship.

The thing is, we can’t just keep sitting on our thumbs. I’ve never been offended by someone expressing an interest in me, even if I did not want to date them. The mere fact that someone was interested in getting to know me better was truly flattering. In a world where women are beat down for not being “good enough,” it is comforting to hear the phrase, “we should hang out more.”

Asking someone on a simple coffee date doesn’t express some deep rooted emotion. It just lets them know that you are worthy of their time.

But we don’t take the risk. We don’t let people know how we feel. We let them live in a quandry, thinking that maybe you’re just flirting with them because you’re a flirty person, or thinking that they are insane for sharing emotions.

We fear rejection more than we wish to see our crush’s smile.

But do we ever think about what our secret affections do to them?

One of my strongest moments in undergrad was when I was a sophomore and way too interested in my best guy friend for my own good. I kept it secret from him for months because I didn’t want to lose him. So every time he noticed a pretty girl or didn’t prioritize me, I felt a little dejected. I would walk away from the front desk, and I felt the pain of rejection without even sharing how I felt.

I told my best guy friend how I felt about him, and I told him that regardless of his response that I would still be his friend.

He didn’t like me back.

But he did understand why I reacted to things differently, and he was more sensitive to how I used to feel. Yes, it took some time for both of us to get over the shock of that moment, but eventually we came around. My friend was able to help me deal with following crushes even!

A year later I asked my friend why he didn’t like me back.

What he said changed my view on every rejection I had following that day.

“It’s not that I don’t like you, Felicity. Me not being romantic with you does not mean that I have a problem with you. I like everything about you. If I had a problem with you, I would not hang out with you. You would not be my friend. But I like everything about you, and that’s why you are my best friend.”

My friend knew how much he meant to me, but he wanted me to know how much I meant to him in return. Sometimes romantic relationships don’t happen. Sometimes you get a date or two and realize that it would not work out. However, the love that does exist at the friendship level is real, and we should not fear taking the risk to let them know how we truly feel.

Fearing the future does not help us move forward.

Today is National “Take a Risk” Day, and I encourage everyone to take a risk today. Do something that will move your career forward. Tell someone how you feel. Have a dance party in a public place. Wear that outfit you think people will judge you for owning.

Be confident.

Take a risk.

I promise you that it’ll be worth it.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

and-which is more- you’ll be a Man, my son!

~If, Rudyard Kipling