Memo to Self: Don’t be Afraid to Look Stupid

You will never be completely prepared for the important tasks:

• Living a good life
• Mending a frayed or broken relationship
• Building a better world for those who will come after you.
• Sharing your creativity with others. That means sharing the things that come out of your heart, shape with your mind, and create with your hands and your voice and your presence, like:
  • A Painting or Photograph
  • A Song or a Story
  • A Frittata or a Feast.
  • A Quilt or a Quatrain
  • A Custom Car or a Community (a family, a group of friends, a cooperative, a social movement.)
• Supporting a friend in trouble, in grief, or in making their own unique contribution to the world.
• Dying well.
  

You can do your best. But nothing will ever be perfect, so:

• You will be tempted to do one more thing, first.
• You will be tempted to get lost in your need for safety and stability — your need not to look stupid.
  

Nevertheless, you are here to give the world the gift only you can give.

The stupidest thing is not to attempt any of these because you are afraid to look stupid.