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Scary things

I once rode "The Loch Ness Monster", which is a roller coaster in a near-by amusement park... a theme park, if you will. It starts you off with a long climb to the top of a hill and then drops you down the other side. There are loops, twists, dark tunnels and you're even upside down twice during the ride. I sat strapped in a plastic molded chair and rode that coaster.

After I was done, I went to this area just under 'the big drop' and watched the other roller coaster cars go by. Before I had ridden it, I would take a few steps back and partly turn away when they went flying by, riders screaming.

Now that I had tamed the beast, I was impervious to its growl. I had ridden that roller coaster and now I was unafraid.

It's like anything we try... we're a little bit fearful of it before we try and much more confident after. It's like the first time you go swimming or have sex or steal a car -- wait -- scratch that last one. What are we really afraid of? I'll tell you.

We're afraid to look stupid.

We'll try just about anything if we're alone, no one watching, no one to criticize. We're afraid of being clumsy or messing something up. We're just afraid.

For swimming, it's the fear of drowning. With sex it's the fear of performing badly and being thought of as a bad partner. In the case of stealing a car, we're afraid of being caught and going to jail.

Then why do we do these things? Because there is an innate need in each of us to do something dangerous. Yes, there's a bad-boy in each of us.

The first time we go swimming, it's like we've cheated the gods and fooled mother nature by floating on top of the water and not sinking to the bottom. Ah HA!

With sex, we know it's going to feel good and afterwards you feel like you could take on even the best of sexual partners. Oooohhh....

With stealing a car... man, it's that rush of adrenaline. When you're in the driver's seat and you feel that tightening in your belly and you feel like you've got to pee so bad it hurts -- that's the best! You gun it and the car goes flying out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell, well, it doesn't get any better than that. "Drive it like you stole it" -- truer words were never spoken, my friend. Woo-Hoo!

It's all about the scary things you used to think were there and, now that you've conquered them, they just don't have the same meaning anymore. Say any word seventeen times and it will sound so stupid you will laugh. Conquer your fears and you will have learned a valuable lesson about life. What am I really saying here? I'll tell you:

It's about taking risks. In the coming year, I will attempt to take 7 risks... that's one risk every 50-something days -- one risk every 2 months. How hard is that?

Earlier this year, Superman tasked me to "Win a victory for humanity". I can't say that I'll live up to that but I'm going to try to take seven risks in 2006. Why seven? Arbitrary -- I won't lie to you... I just came up with a number that was less than 10.

Have I been thinking about this a long time? Hell no. It just came out as I was writing the sentence... but I kinda like it. I'm going to try to make that happen.

7 risks.

Small ones, though... nothing major. I don't want one of the risks to be "end up in jail". I'll drive the car back tomorrow and say it was an accident.

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