[Failing]

Before you begin reading please watch this video of me attempting to sled down a hill. Ok now that that's done let's begin.

Failing. It is so embarrassing. It is our worst nightmare.. To fail. On the news. With Joe Dubin.

Except it's not really that bad.

When you are not afraid to fail you try new things. When you try new things life is so much more exciting. There is this huge reservoir of life that so many people are missing out on because they are too afraid to fail, to get out of their comfort zone, try something new, risk looking goofy.

When did life get so serious? When did we all start caring so much about what other people think of us that we are too afraid to truly live? I think failing is one of the greatest things that could ever happen to us. It makes us not take ourselves too seriously. It's so important that we can laugh at ourselves when we make mistakes.

Recently, I started trying to skateboard. I'm a night owl so around 2am'ish I would ride down this parking garage while rocking to Michael Jackson. One time I was riding back to my house on the street and while crossing the cross-walk there were some of those small yellow bumps on the road (I think their exact purpose is to prevent skateboarding, but I thought I could manpower through them). Anyways, I was excited because there was a Dominoes truck waiting at the stop light and I was gonna look super cool in front of the Dominoes driver. Exact opposite happened. I lost my balance on the bumps, tried to maintain it by leaning backwards, ended up getting air, then eating it SO HARD. As I staggered up, the Dominoes driver was cracking up in the car and gave me a thumbs up. I failed so hard! It was so embarrassing. Then I started laughing at myself and thought to myself "That was pretty funny". And then I couldn't stop laughing. It was SO funny because I thought I was so cool and I ended up looking like a total goon. It actually ended up making my night.

There's a Freedom that comes in looking like a fool and not caring so much about what people think. We care too much about what people think of us and I think that is a big reason why we are so afraid of failing and thus we miss out on so much of life.

But I'd rather be a free fool than a professional prisoner.

May your love be strong,

Joey