This all came about in a frenetic moment of crisis and ruthless self-examination brought on by bar trivia.

That’s right.

Bar trivia is what pushed me over the edge to take on this sort of experiment of a project. Let me explain, though if you are anything like me (a hardcore introvert who prefers deep, serious conversations over loudly fighting for the chance to speak and show off how smart you are for your superior ability to display cold recall of facts), I won’t have to, you got me.

I was hornswoggled by Jeopardy-loving mother into attending a night of family and old family friend bar trivia, and prepared to enjoy the food and company while loathing every minute of the ostentatious game. I often say that “I don’t do trivia,” like “I don’t do ball sports” (really just kickball or baseball, or anything where there’s a pause for it to all come down to me to win or lose for the team), or “I don’t do charades” (there’s always one fill-in-the-blank who’s just too competitive, who takes it way to seriously for my preference, no offense if that’s you). I was pretty much right. I loved seeing the people, and the game was just a typical game of bar trivia with a house so packed you could barely squeak through to use the bathroom.

Until the end.

Of course, 99% of the game was spent with me chatting or quietly watching our one or two best players come up with our answers immediately and then inform the rest of us. They were correct. And correct again. And again. And I sat quietly, knowing some of the answers, pretending to know some of the answers, and openly having no clue about some of the answers. Or having misheard or misinterpreted the question entirely, which happened way more frequently than I’d like to admit.

And then the last question, worth the most points, came.

What year did the following events occur?

-Space event I don’t remember

-The Sopranos aired

-Sports event I don’t remember

My first instinct was to say 1999. I’m pretty good with my 90’s, and even better with TV and my love of HBO. Even though I was a kid when it came out, and my parents didn’t become HBO subscribers until much later, I lived for movies and TV and remember wishing my parents were keeping up with the show that won Emmy after Emmy, and be attuned to the big cultural moment in entertainment history. Plus, that theme song was just so cool. Later I devoured The Sopranos along with Sex and the City and any other show (many of which were HBO) that were known for changing the game of television.

Then the Smash Mouth All Star came on, and I was instantly transported back to 1999, and I realized they must be giving us a subtle hint. And then I watched my family deduce that it must be 1998, and I convinced myself that they must be right. I pushed that nagging feeling that it was 1999 down deep, because all I could think about was how awful it would feel if I pushed 1999 and we were wrong, and I costed us the win after we’d be winning the entire game.

Of course it was 1999, and I didn’t anticipate feeling even worse that my inaction had cost us the game. My fear of being wrong and embarrassed, cost us the game. And I couldn’t get over it. I decided I never wanted to feel that again.

I know, it doesn’t matter, that it’s just bar trivia. But it felt so defining of me as a person. Why couldn’t I muster the confidence to stick to my guns, especially when others were clearly not that confident in their answer?

Because I wasn’t playing to win, I was playing not to lose. I put my fear of embarrassment over my instincts and confidence in myself and what I believed to be true. After torturing myself until 1 a.m. that night, I thought about something I once heard Sarah Silverman say on the Tim Ferriss podcast:

“I always think of how it was for me to be a woman in comedy as how it was for me to be a woman in basketball. …That feeling of going to pickup games and you can feel guys rolling their eyes and having to prove yourself so much. Every shot as a woman that you shoot and miss, is like missing 100 baskets. Because you feel the weight… And you carry this weight and it doesn’t help you… Watch how many times these guys shoot and miss. And shake it off and shoot again and shoot again and shoot again. That’s how you get better. You cannot take on that feeling that if I shoot and miss, I’d better not shoot for awhile.”

“You cannot take on that feeling that if I shoot and miss, I’d better not shoot for awhile.”

I had a crisis, because I realized that is how I’ve been living my life. It was how I was living in seventh grade when I tried out for the basketball team and the ball came right to me and I froze and couldn’t attempt the shot. It is how I’ve been living as a closeted writer, who feels like I can’t be open about my writing or what I truly want to do, until I magically find a level of external success that proves I am worthy enough to openly call myself a writer. It’s embedded in how I will take a shot, miss, and then feel badly and not be able to muster up the courage to take another shot for awhile.

It’s such a painful way to live, and when I look at it on paper, it seems silly and the obvious “wrong answer.” But it’s not enough to intellectually know the right answer— This pattern of living is going to take a lot of deprogramming and relearning in order to get myself to the point where I can take shot after shot after shot and just shake off miss after miss after miss so that I can learn and grow and the pace I want to learn and grow.

I can only do that by treating every failure as a win, and deliberately seeking out failure— especially if it makes me uncomfortable. It’s scary. I have a feeling I am going to be scared a lot this year. I also know that the best way for me to do something scary is be more afraid of not doing it than of doing it. The best way for me to be more afraid of not doing something is to give myself social pressure so I “have to” do it.

So this blog is my social pressure for continuing to do scary things and shooting my shots.

Thanks for holding my feet to the fire, and may we all have a 2024 that pushes us to grow in the most joyful way possible.

After all, “only shooting stars break the mold.”