Growing up, there was a five-word phrase that made me cringe. Shrink. Tense up.

Whether or not I showed it on the outside, it filled me with dread, annoyance, and even a sense of resentment.

The phrase?

“But it will be fuuuuuuun!”

I remember I was at summer camp in Ontario, maybe nine years old, when a fellow camper led me up to the high diving platform — three metres up — and said these exact words before she grabbed my hand and tried to get me to jump. Fortunately, my hands were wet and slippery. I managed to slide mine out of hers as she leaped off the platform and down she went, leaving me standing there, alone and motionless, with my skinny legs and polka dot bathing suit for all the campers around me to see.

The pressure was on.

I stood there, frozen. It was as if my feet were glued to the wooden planks. I simply didn’t want to jump.

But then the voices began chanting.

“You can do it, Meghan!”

“Don’t think about it, just jump!”

I think it was meant to be encouraging, but it only added to the pressure.

As I stood there, the seconds ticked by as hours. The longer I stood, the more embarrassed I felt. I took some breaths and debated going back down the ladder.

Would it be better to do the thing I hated than to be known as a chicken?

We know fun when we feel it 🎢

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