Hear me out here. This is kind of a New Year's realization too.

I've suffered from, and still suffer from, approach anxiety. You can read myriad posts about it; it's debilitating. And, really, all it stems from a combination of confidence, or rather a lack thereof, and fear (rejection, failure, etc). Your body opens up the ol' book of insecurities and activates your fight/flight system and opts for you to run. It's biology, and, as a medical professional, that's something I understand.

My solution? Beat biology. Face your primal fears in an alternative manner and beat it.

What did I do? Well, I jumped off a bridge...with bungee cords, of course. Bungee jumping always seemed like one of those crazy things crazy people did. But then I had the opportunity to do it...and I thought, "Why the fuck not?"

When you're standing on that platform with nothing between you and a rocky crag/rushing river hundreds of feet below, your fight or flight response will normally go into a fucking frenzy. You will forget you're connected to a harness and cords that are rated at quadruple your weight. All you'll think about is how far the drop is, how you'll be traveling at speeds cars travel at on highways, and how you might just die if any of the equipment tethering you to a rusty old bridge fails. You'll forget that the jump master trained you to not think about these things. You'll forget that he told you to just breath, to look out, jump far, and to spread your arms wide.

And then you'll hear the jump master yell "THREE. TWO. ONE. DIVE!" and in that split second you have a huge choice to make - cower in fear, hesitate and stutter step off the platform, or just fucking go for it. And by just fucking go for it, I mean straight up embracing your situation wholeheartedly, trusting that what will happen will happen, for better or for worse, and brazenly diving like a beautiful swan into the abyss.

I chose the third option. I wanted to make sure this was epic. That this would go down in the books as the best dive ever. I got into the typical squatting position I get into at the gym so I could explode out. And when I heard "DIVE!" I just fucking went for it. Just absolutely thrust through my hips, drove down into the balls of my feet, pushed my arms out wide, and jumped like I knew I was going to fly. It was beautiful.

And as I plummeted to my possible death, my fight/flight system definitely kicked in. I produce the most guttural yell I have ever produced in my life, my vision tunneled in as I saw the ground rushing towards me, and my heart was just about pounding outside of my chest. And then the bungee got taut, stopped me from falling, and shot me back up.

And on the way up I started laughing. Hard. I just did what 90% of the population would balk at and I did it with style and, more importantly, confidence. Confidence that I didn't know I had until I was there. In the moment. It came out of nowhere and when I was hoisted back up to the platform, the jump masters said that I looked like an experienced diver.

I was stoked. So stoked, in fact, that I told them I want to do it again. Because why the fuck not? But this time I want to do it with my back to the drop, so I can't see where I'm going. They laughed and said yes. So I did it again! I jumped backwards, and holy shit, it's 20x scarier than jumping forwards. I didn't even scream because my lungs froze up from fear. But, god damn it, I did it. And I survived. And I had a great time.

So what's this got to do with r/seduction?

Confidence and courage. I beat biology. I looked at my flight response overreacting and said "Fuck you." and did it anyway. I felt what it would feel like if I were to ever free fall to my death and decided that I wanted to do it again, but make it even scarier the second time.

I faced death headfirst and laughed. Now, tell me, how many people can say that?

So, now, whenever I feel anxious about approaching, I remember that experience, from beginning to end. When my mind starts calculating all the terrible rejections as possibilities, I remind myself that it had calculated death as a risk and jumped anyway. And it helps me so much. Maybe it'll help you.

As an added bonus, I put the videos and photos on social media. Within a few hours, I had comments/texts from girls I hadn't heard from in ages saying they were super impressed, guys three times my size and strength saying that I had bigger balls than them, and mad respect from all of my friends. While I would not advocate doing this solely for the popularity boost or social aspect (I would advocate more for personal development, which was my reason), it certainly doesn't hurt.

So go bungee jump, sky dive, base jump, horseback ride, pet a dog, ride a motorcycle, ask the girl. Face your fear. Conquer it. Go create the life you want. Happy New Year, r/seduction.