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Each day, many of us are forced to face our fears—our big fears and our little ones—in order to go about our daily tasks. For author Courtenay Hameister, every day was once an endless cycle of fear and anxiety—until she decided to face up to her fears and write about her adventures in Okay Fine Whatever: The Year I Went from Being Afraid of Everything to Only Being Afraid of Most Things.
The story follows the comedy writer and former radio host in a year-long quest to do things that made her incredibly uncomfortable. Since she suffers from an anxiety disorder, 40-something Hameister avoided a lot of things in life—but, after one especially debilitating panic attack, she realized that it was time to make some changes. And as she took her life in a new direction, she decided to take on a new project, called her Okay Fine Whatever Project, in which she would spend a year doing all of the things that scared her—from dating to cuddling to sensory deprivation.
Okay Fine Whatever follows the author as she attempts to break out of her shell and try something new—like spending time in a sensory deprivation tank or learning poses with a professional cuddler or attempting to find comic inspiration with her writing staff through legal marijuana. And she explains each new adventure in the most candid of ways. She may suffer from all kinds of anxieties, but her style is anything but weak. Her bold and comical voice comes shining through—as if she were telling the story to her closest friends—and you can’t help but love her openness, her self-deprecating wit, her completely natural sense of humor, and her sometimes brutal honesty.
Still, while readers might be expecting more wild and crazy adventures through Portland—things like ziplining or mountain biking or maybe a fancy coffee crawl—much of the book focuses on relationships. Through years of anxiety and struggles with her weight, Hameister had spent most of her adult life shying away from relationships—so, during her year-long project, she decided to set up an online dating profile and go on a whole lot of first dates. But while the stories of her dating experiences are often comical, they seem to take up a little too much space in the book.
In the end, though, all of these anecdotes and adventures come together to teach the author—and her readers—a few valuable lessons about trying something new, no matter how strange or scary or uncomfortable it may seem. The project helped Hameister take more chances—and reading about it could just do the same for others, too. Or if nothing else, it’s at least good for some laughs.
Listen to the review on Shelf Discovery:
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