Tonight’s monthly ChicagoNow Blogapalooza topic just came out and my initial thought was, “Huh? I’m pretty sure I’ve covered this before and don’t know that I’ve got anything else to say on it.” My second thought was “And THAT’s why I need to accept the challenge.”

What’s the topic? “Write about fear, or lack thereof, and the role it has played in any aspect of your life.” So here goes.

Twenty-one years ago I was in the second semester of my senior year at Lake Forest College when I found myself standing at a reception with the Board of Trustees. As I was making small talk with a number of my classmates and a few trustees, one trustee asked the question every college senior gets asked at least a million times during their second semester. “So what are your plans after graduation?”

My heart was in my throat as my classmates went around and shared their lofty plans of law school, medical school, traveling through Europe for a year, and a job at fancy Wall Street firm. The guy standing next to me said he was going to pack up his Jeep, drive to Washington D.C., and get himself a job. Then it was my turn. I gave the answer I’d rehearsed for months. I planned to accept the paralegal job I’d been offered at a white-shoe Chicago law firm and move into the city. After a year or two, I’d head to law school.

That cocktail party changed my life.

Standing there listening to my classmates speak of the adventures that awaited them and for days afterwards, I couldn’t stop thinking about my classmate going to D.C. If a bubble had appeared over my head as he spoke, it would have read, “Huh. He’s not exactly the smartest guy I know and he thinks he can make it in D.C. If he can do that, SO CAN I!” In my opinion, his plan had one major flaw. He was waiting to find a job until after graduation.

Spring Break was just a few weeks away and I had no plans. I called the airlines, redeemed a free ticket I had, found a hotel on DuPont Circle that I could afford, bought a guide book, and prettied up my resume. I packed a couple of business suits and off I went to a city where I knew no one, had no contacts for prospective jobs, and had only visited once when I was 13, almost a decade earlier.

I had one week. One week to find a job that would start shortly after graduation.

Looking back, I suppose that fear should have entered my mind, but it didn’t. This was a few years before the internet, so I didn’t even have that to help me research companies. At that time, career services was almost non-existent at Lake Forest (note: It’s incredibly robust now and provides incredible guidance to students starting on day one and even to alumni.), so I received no assistance there. I was so naive that I didn’t know what that I should be scared or that I was doing something out of the ordinary. As far as I was concerned, this was how everyone got jobs.

Once I arrived in D.C., I immediately began to pound the pavement. I visited NOW, Planned Parenthood, my Congressman’s office, and more places than I can remember all these years later. I spoke with anyone who’d speak with me. I spoke with so many people I ran out of resumes and had to find a Kinko’s to make additional copies.

In between all of my spur of the moment interviews, I visited all the typical tourist stops: Arlington National Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian Museums and National Zoo, the Jefferson Memorial, the Supreme Court, the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum, the Capitol, and the White House. I’d managed to score some gallery tickets for the House and Senate and one of the VIP White House tours. I also attended a breakfast with my Senators, Paul Simon and Carol Moseley-Braun.

Towards the end of the week, I had a wonderful meeting with a woman who worked at the headquarters of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This was less than two years after the famous Anita Hill testimony in the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings and shortly after the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act and the EEOC was front and still front and center. Or at least it was in my feminist mind. The woman told me that she wasn’t hiring, but she thought she knew some people who were and said she’d be happy to pass along my resume.

I returned home a few days later without a job, but with incredible new interviewing and networking skills. I could work a room like no one’s business and talk my way past any receptionist in order to speak with anyone who’d give me and my resume five minutes.

Maybe two weeks later my phone rang early one morning as I was rushing to get ready for an 8:30 a.m. class. On the other end of the line was Tulio Diaz, the Director of the Washington Field Office of the EEOC. He’d received my resume from the woman I’d met with while I was in D.C. and he was calling to offer me an internship for the summer.

I said yes without thinking about any logistics or even about the job in Chicago I’d already accepted because I believed that I’d made much of my dream come true and I would work out those pesky details.

Eight weeks later on Memorial Day I moved to Washington, D.C. where I spent my twenties and never once experienced fear or let being scared and unsure hold me back.

Somewhere along the line I developed fear. I don’t know where it came from or why, but I suppose I it’s about time I took a lesson from my 22-year-old self and quit being scared.

So tonight I declare once and for all I’m no longer afraid. I’m getting out of my own way and going after exactly what I want in life. I jumped off a cliff a couple of weeks ago, but have been a little paralyzed and terrified to take the next steps. I’m done with that. To paraphrase President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, “the only thing I have left to fear is fear itself.” And that’s nothing.

Like Little Merry Sunshine on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and see my pictures on Instagram to keep up with the latest goings on.

You can also receive immediate notification of each blog post by typing your email address in the box below and clicking the “create subscription” button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.