It all started with trashy TV night... I suppose this is not the most glamorous way to receive life-altering messages from the universe, however there is no way to sugar coat the truth here. My best friend, Angela and I were curled up on the couch, eating Ben and Jerry's directly from the carton, and were watching... well... OK... we were watching a reality television show about a Playboy bunny.
Let me redeem myself for a moment by letting you know that in my normal life I don't even have a subscription to cable, let alone a reality television addiction. My husband and I cancelled our service after the birth of our son, and it's been almost two years since we've had easy access to this quality of television programming. However, there I was at our mutual friend's house taking advantage of her premium cable subscription while she was out of town doing work for her educational nonprofit in an economically disadvantaged country. She was saving the world, we were watching trashy television.
In much the same way that people read Playboy for the articles, it was the storyline that captured our interest and kept us watching. One of the characters was having panic attacks and subsequently decided to comparison shop for a psychotherapist. I just happen to be a psychotherapist who specializes in treating panic attacks, (among other things), so we settled in to see what these therapists would say and do. While we were critiquing our colleagues, a brief shift of the camera caught a sign hanging up in one of the therapist's offices that stated, "What would you do if you were guaranteed not to fail?" And without realizing it at the time, this question led to a line of thinking and chain of events that has culminated in the launching of this project and blog.
What would you do if you were guaranteed not to fail? This question stuck with me for days... I statused about it on Facebook... I had conversations about it with family and friends... I posted it on my business page... and I thought about how I would answer it for myself. I knew what I would do if I was guaranteed success. Answering this question was the easy part for me. It was the question that logically followed that started to haunt me: WHY THE HECK DO YOU NEED TO BE GUARANTEED SUCCESS TO GIVE IT A TRY?
So here I sit, launching the Novel Experience Experiment. For a variety of psychological and personal reasons that I'm sure I'll get into in the future, I am taking on the challenge of exposing myself to, (at least), one brand new experience a day for the next year and will be documenting my activities on this blog. (And, by the way, creating this blog for the sake of blogging rather than business, is the first of 365 novel experiences I will be having!) I look forward to the challenges ahead and hope that you will consider joining me on this journey!
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