For the Love of God. Just Do What You Want.

Normalize having some audacity

The thing about anything worth doing:

Someone might think you're weird.

For instance, say—on your way to check out the latest offering in the super soap opera that is the MCU—you want to snap some photos of the old arthouse theater hosting the show. It's a sunny Saturday afternoon (matinee for you, always) so the barbershop next door to the theater is full of men.

And you, a woman, are pacing just outside the window. Phone in the air, whispering to yourself, looking for the perfect shot.

Are you being watched? Maybe the men are too busy not knowing they'll see a 6'2 white boy from the G League win the Dunk Contest in a few hours. Maybe they're like "why is this woman in slacks and white sneakers talking to herself outside this window?"

And that's before we get to the people outside. Walking by. Who can hear you muttering that the frame isn't...quite...

Ah. There it is.

You could have passed on the photo op. The movie would have been just as enjoyable. Your hands would have been warmer (the sun belied the actual temperature). And those five to six minutes worrying if people were looking at you? Never happen.

You also wouldn't have captured this photo.

Did it change your life? No. But most of your photos of late have been of yourself. You needed to get back into your surroundings. The shining sun on a tolerable Midwestern winter day when you watched the most commanding actor you've ever seen scream at a guy who talks to ants. At a historical theater you really hope survives the movie theater apocalypse.

The point? You like it.

It was worth doing.

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Let me tell you what we've "normalized":

• Canned water-juice-liquors that taste neither like water, juice, or liquor. But make you feel better about binge drinking because healthy.

• Standing on platforms at parties, pretending to dance. Trying not to get beaned in the head by the camera whirring around at 15 mph for "look at us having fun in cool slow motion" videos.

• Sobbing on TikkyReelToks. When phoning a friend is right there.

• 40-year-olds whining about super hero movies without wondering if...maybe...being FORTY has anything to do with their growing discontent.

• Pete Davidson as sex symbol.

And that's not even a comprehensive list.

We live in a—categorically—absurd world. Where adults film themselves run-skip-jumping down the street for TikTok. And people surgically alter their faces because an AI-generated filter gave them an eyelid lift they really liked. Yet we can't approach low stake activities—repeating outfits, eating alone, learning new physical skills as an adult—without blanket permission from strangers.

Please normalize this so I don't feel weird.

What if you decided the thing, whatever it may be, is worth feeling a little weird? And you simply accepted it as the cost of doing what's good for you?

The money you save repeating that outfit. That dinner you enjoyed while literally no one noticed you because they barely looked up from their phones at the person they dined with; let alone at you.

Picking up your first pair of roller skates at 42 can't possibly be weirder than kissing Pete Davidson in the mouth. Or whatever the fuck people are doing with these boots.

Daniel Zuchnik/Getty Images

So, please.

Stop asking.

Do the thing.

And let the joy of doing be all the validation you need.

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