Last night I was watching Arsenio, and during the monologue he made fun of Bill Nye for looking awkward during a recent performance on Dancing With The Stars. Since in this instance Arsenio is a comedian doing his job, and since TV contestants presumably know that getting made fun of by comedians is part of their job, I think this sort of teasing is fine.

But then I got to thinking about the rest of us. In order to succeed at something, it's clear we must first attempt to do the thing. And if we attempted more things, we'd infinitely increase our likelihood of succeeding at those things. But a lot of the time we don't attempt things because we know there's a good chance we'll get made fun of if we look awkward or fail.

Imagine all the things you would attempt, and potentially succeed at, if you knew people wouldn't make fun of you but would instead show support. Imagine what we could all learn, share, and accomplish if a willingness to look awkward while trying something new was celebrated instead of used against us as ammunition for ridicule.