What's the challenge?
To ask for money on the street.
What are you afraid of?
Being invisible or going unnoticed. I like attention, I like likes and I like comments. I get noticed, therefore I exist.
How has this fear affected your life so far?
By needing so much attention all the time, I end up doing things to get noticed rather than to satisfy a personal desire. This allows me to get in touch with the outer world by deeply understanding the behavior of people around me, but it distances me from the internal world and the ability to listen to my inner voice.
How was the experience?
Ever since I moved to NY, the homeless has been a conversation subject between me and my husband. We were shocked by the amount of people living on the streets and we felt the need to help. A few months after and a couple bucks less, we practically became immune to homeless people and they became invisible to us.
In an effort to go unnoticed and deal with the feeling for a day (or a couple of hours), I sat down on the subway and on the streets holding a sign asking for money to buy Prada shoes. For the first two hours no one noticed me. At first, I was ashamed to do it, then, it was just uncomfortable and finally, I kind of enjoyed being invisible. For once, I was not running from one place to another worrying to be late for a meeting or checking my phone every 2.5 minutes. I was relaxed looking at the people passing by and getting in touch with my inner self. At the end of the day, I finally got 6 people to donate a dollar each, which I then gave to a person in need.
What will change from now on?
Oded Ezer, the amazing Israeli typographer, once told us that we are not that important and that we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. After this experience, I truly understood the meaning of his wise words. I will try to live my life acknowledging this thought because when we become invisible to others we are finally able to look inside and enjoy life as we want to, not as we should.