This past weekend, I had the honor of celebrating one of my oldest friends at her bachelorette party. We went to New Orleans — a place I’d never traveled to but wanted to — and the trip made me realize something:
Life is worth experiencing.
Everyone knows the drill: on Bourbon street you can flash your tits and people will throw beads at you. It’s common knowledge and, I’m sure, to a lot of people the practice is looked down upon. It’s crude or demeaning; not socially acceptable.
But, and hear me out, it’s also an experience. Where else can you walk around, surrounded by other revelers, flashing your boobs for beads? And then, when you look next to you, a stranger is flashing her boobs, too?
It’s almost wrong to go to New Orleans and not flash your boobs, at least once, to collect beads. It’s part of the culture there. It’s tradition. And who am I… who are you… do look down on tradition?
After I did it once, I kept doing it. Why? Because it was fun. I wasn’t alone. I was having a new experience. And that’s when it really, truly hit me: we should be having as many experiences as we can. When in Rome and all that.
I know it’s easy to stay the course. It’s easy to do what everyone else does; what society deems acceptable. But I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart:
What you want to do for yourself is more important than what society thinks you should do.
Life is worth experiencing even if it might not be what someone else likes. Go lay out on a naked beach. Flash your tits on Bourbon street. Eat guinea pig in Peru. Drink an entire gallon of beer at 10am at Oktoberfest. Go to Scotland and eat haggis. Party until 7am in Miami. The list goes on.
Give yourself the gift of not caring what anyone else thinks and write your own story, don’t just live a Mad Libs existence where someone has written the story for you and you’re just filling in the blanks.
So don’t be afraid to do as the locals do. Don’t be afraid to experience life, even if you’re making a choice someone else frowns up (again, we’re not talking about committing crimes or murder we’re talking about exposing your boobs in public or bungee jumping in New Zealand or eating aligator).
Life is worth experiencing. So experience it.
Flash your tits and do the damn thing. We’ve only got one life, might as well live it.
xo
Jenn