Monday, June 20, 2011

My Year With Eleanor




Maybe 2 or so weeks after I got let go from my job I happened to be up in time to watch some of the 4th hour of the Today show and they had the author on and I kind of took that as a sign that I should read this book.



When Noelle gets let go from her magazine job just before she turned 29 (my age!), she's not quite sure what to do. One day she's at a coffee shop and on the chalkboard was the quote "Do One Thing Everyday That Scares You" by Eleanor Roosevelt. She took that as a sign that she needs to for the person she used to be. She realizes that she doesn't go out as much as she used to, and even her friends have mentioned that she's not as adventurous as she once was. So she decides that starting on her 29th birthday that for the next year she is going to face a fear a day.



So this book tells of some of her scary adventures like shark cage diving (which sounded fun until I watched Jaws this past weekend, lol), skydiving, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, taking Trapeze lessons, doing stand up, etc.



Since Eleanor Roosevelt was what gave her the idea, throughout the book she tells the story of Eleanor, who I didn't know anything about before reading this and she seemed like a pretty cool woman.



While I don't have the funds or friends willing to do scary stuff like this with me, I really do think of the quote that started it all often. I'm afraid of everything, people, the dark, etc. So I often remind myself to stop being scared, to go out and do things, even if its hanging out with someone I don't like when it means I can hang out with friends I do like at the same time. And hopefully I will keep this up throughout my life and do wild things like she does, because if you are going to be alive, you might as well live life.

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