Terrifying yourself every day

“Terrify yourself! Every day!”

That’s what Jef Mallett, accomplished cartoonist, illustrator, triathlete, author and creator of the crazy successful, award-winning Frazz comic strip, advised at a writer’s conference I attended a few weekends ago.

Simple advice but it echoed in my mind for a while. Like the last two weeks, to be exact.

Grownups should feel terrified more often. Seriously.

When we were kids, we knew fright well.

Everything was new. Everything! We didn’t even know about stuff we didn’t know, we didn’t know! (That sentence kind of makes my head hurt, too. Sorry.) Not knowing what to expect and imagining how each experience would unfold was nerve racking!

Our whole existence was wrapped around the happenings minor to the world but ginormously catastrophic or a helping of great fortune, to us.

There were how-to-make-a-whatever speeches that the fourth grade teacher insisted were good for us. Public speaking…yikes.

For me, there was playing co-ed soccer (because my mom made me) with the boys who were all serious about the game and didn’t appreciate including a girl who was always a second too late in reaction to everything.

“Thanks a lot, Jody!” A kid shouted after a close game. “We lost because you’re in slow mo!” Little jerk, I know! I was trying, I really was!  Plus, I warned the coach it was unwise to put me in as goalie.

Chilling movies gave us horrible heebie jeebies that forced us to sleep with the light on and check behind the shower curtain before we brushed our teeth. Yeah, they’re so funny now. (I’m nodding unconvincingly. I’m a total wuss today. I run from those movies like I did from that kid in kindergarten who threatened to wipe a booger on me.)

There was the fear of someone telling Perfect Guy that I was utterly nuts about him.

The unpredictability. The lack of control. The Who Am I puzzle.

Oh, the terror of little kid life.

Grownups burst into Grownup Land excited and eager. What I’ve noticed about some of us, however, is that it only takes a few years before they settle into their comfy world and days pass without a single wave of terror.

No more challenges. No doing new stuff for the fun of it. No pushing themselves beyond the cozy comfort. They become flubbery in the mind, maybe without even realizing it.

Thinking about us this is enough to make me slip on my running shoes, bolt out the door, sprint around the block a hundred times until I feel totally alive or do something crazy like audition for a band even though I have zero musical talent or skills.

I scold myself for having blah blah days in which I coast through the hours like a robot. Jody Little Kid would be so disappointed.

So, every day, I’ve decided, must be marked with something, minor or major, that tugs or yanks me out of my comfort zone.

The scariest thing I’ve done recently is submit my novel manuscript to the literary world. And here, right now, writing about my personal life, sharing embarrassing stories and publically showing what a complete nerd I am, I guess that takes some tiny level of bravery.

Not enough on a daily basis, though.

This morning, I woke with the grand idea of planning one week this summer that’s packed with terrifying/challenging/new activities.

There’s not a chance you’ll ever get me to jump out of an airplane with nothing but a backpack of fabric or off of a bridge with an elastic rope tied around my waist.

But any other ideas?