I had to do a short TV inteview yesterday morning for our local theatre’s upcoming production of Life With Father.

Holy crap, I was TERRIFIED!

How strange is that?  I’m an actress.  I’m a writer. I post my life on Facebook.  I post my life on this blog.  I tell the world anything they want to know (and plenty more that they don’t).  So, why on Earth would having to sit in front of a TV camera for 5 minutes make me feel like I was going to hyperventilate? 

But, alas.  I survived.

I saw the video clip of the interview this morning.  In fact, I’m going to suck it up and just share it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgkZoP_f7TU&feature=youtu.be

Yep, that was it.  Five minutes of answering a few easy questions and then it was over. 

And now?

Well…now I think it’s kinda cool. 🙂

All that worry and fear over nothing.  Now I have this clip of this little interview I did on this little show and I can send it to my mom and she can be all proud of her little girl and whatnot.  And that’s it.  It’s all a memory now.

Kind of makes you think about how silly fear usually ends up being in the end after all, doesn’t it? 

You spend all this time psyching yourself out over something and then it turns out to really not be all that bad.  Sometimes it even turns out to be something kinda cool.  In this case, I just sucked it up and overcame the fear and just went ahead and did it.  But it makes me think about all the times that I may not have done that.  All the times in my life that I had the chance to do something that scared me, but I opted out and chose safety instead.  How many “little video clips” do I not have stashed in my memory bank?  Seems a little ridiculous now that I think about it.  How much success did I manage to pass up?

I should probably stop that. 

You should probably stop that.

Let me leave you with some powerful, somewhat prophetic words by Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, Inc., who passed away in October 2011:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

We only get one go-around, people.  Only one.  Make it count.

***

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power…
You are free.”
– Jim Morrison