Today, I Choose to Be Courageous
This piece is inspired by Brené Brown’s The Call to Courage Netflix Special (2019). Check it out here.
The outcome is not always guaranteed, but showing up regardless is what matters and what differentiates a life that’s truly been lived or not. So be vulnerable, step up, dream, and act.
Sometimes this is much easier said than done. Sometimes it’s easier to just succumb to the corner of not being seen and heard so as not to feel hurt as well. But how painful is that? How painful is it to let life pass you by then by the end of it all you look back and then feel the ache in your heart on knowing your dreams and true potentialities but not being courageous enough to be vulnerable and at least try? So before life passes us by, by all means — live.
Accept though that living vulnerably will leave you bruised, breathless, and confused at times that it’s so magnetizing to just go back building ourselves a shell against everything. But ‘everything’ is not all bad, and in hiding, we shield ourselves away from the good too. Maybe the bruises, tears, and pangs are worth the possibility of joy, love, happiness, wisdom, and lessons learned. Maybe you’ll find your dreams materializing right before your eyes. Maybe criticisms will be hurled your way. Maybe you will make it, maybe you won’t (yet). Are you willing to find out?
I have come to realize that the only way to live, to truly live, is through being courageous — courageous enough to be seen, to be heard, to feel vulnerable, to understand, to try to be understood, to love, to feel joy, to be in the moment, to dream, to act, to do, to be grateful, and to be. It’s all scary.
