This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 2716, the best reason to do scary things by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr. Kelly Flanagan.com

and I'm just a molecule personal narrator reading to every day including holidays.

Now let's get right to it and start optimizing your life.

The best reason to do scary things by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr. Kelly Flanagan.com

I used to hide on the floor of the car when I was seven in our family cross the vast Mississippi river on the big bridges around St. Louis.

I'd become so terrified that I would huddle on the floor of the car until we had reached the other side.

Long bridges over water terrify me. I had recurring nightmares about them as a child.

I have no idea where this fear came from. It's been with me for as long as I can remember.

I don't have any other fears like it. And I don't need them. This one is stubborn enough.

A quarter of a century after I huddled on the floor of an old Buick over the wide Mississippi, I drove my young family from Illinois to Maryland where my wife's family lived at the time.

My bridge fears were mostly forgotten.

Suddenly, however, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was looming ahead of us arching into the sky like an evil cannibal stunned for the ordinary motorist.

And I had my first panic attack. I drove us across the bridge that day, but it happened again on our way home.

And then it happened again and again and again every time we traveled to Maryland.

Several years after that first panic attack, I was telling my therapist about it.

And his reaction was the grace I needed at the time as a recovering perfectionist.

And then he said, maybe you don't need to be the best at everything. Why don't you let your wife drive the bridge?

So for the last few years every time we crossed the Bay Bridge, we pull over at the last gas station before the bridge.

And my wife and I switched seats and my kids tease me as we crossed the bay.

Which is fine, after all at some point every kid needs to learn their old man is human.

So the plan had worked perfectly over the years.

Last month I'll schedule to speak at and participate in a dad's retreat.

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