Acting Lesson Number 1: Take a Risk

Despite being a creative writing major for a whole semester in college (I switched to Spanish and Education, because I figured I could never teach myself those things), the best class I ever took as far as writing goes was actually an acting class.
I learned more about myself, more about characters, more about drama and plot, etc etc etc in that class than I have anywhere else. I've decided to share some of that here, bit by bit...
So...
Lesson One! Which was in fact my first assignment in class:
Take a risk.
We had to take a risk (a personal, emotional risk, as opposed to sky-diving risk) then write an essay about it.
Sounds simple, right? Well, it was probably one of the most life-changing assignments of my life. I hate taking risks. I do not like trying things I might fail at. Though I now succeed at it most days, it is still a conscious effort to look people in the eye. So my assignment had me sweating. I decided--gulp--that I would find a stranger who was sitting all alone in the cafeteria, you know, poor lonely freshman, and eat lunch with her. I was pretty sure that I might develop hives at such a drastic act, pretty sure that said freshman would think I was crazy and probably tell the whole campus what a weirdo I was, but I was so terrified of getting a B on my assignment that I forced myself.
And...it was easy. Once I sat down.
So, I determined that it probably didn't count. At dinner, pushing myself further, I sat with a whole group of people I didn't know. And...they were nice to me. They waved at me the following day and made small-talk in the breakfast line.
I pushed myself further and further, until finally I realized: that is the point. The risk lay in making the decision to do something I feared. The actual experience would never be as bad as I had imagined.
I'm not sure if I would have ever finished a book if I hadn't learned this lesson. I would not have entered it in any competitions, or submitted it to agents and editors. (I certainly never would have started a blog!)
Thus...your assignment: take a risk. Take several, daily. And, if you'd like, share a past risk that has changed your life. I'd love to hear about it!