On Courage
Toward the end of 2024, I asked a friend if he planned on enacting a New Year’s resolution. He shared with me that, at one point, he had opted to pick a word that defined the changes he wanted to make. A logophile at heart, this resonated with me far more than any specific goals ever had.
I spent some time pondering the best word for me to embody, with the ultimate goal of becoming more aligned with the person I want to be. With anxiety playing such an often overpowering role in my life, something akin to bravery felt apt.
I settled on courage. To be brave is to step forward and face something you fear. Courage is stepping forward to face something whose nature or consequences are unknown.
Anyone who has read my entries knows that, to me, anxiety is like splitting my fear into a thousand strands, spreading them out to cover as much possibility space as I can imagine. They search the darkness, the nooks and crannies, the curves and branches—all in an attempt to carry back to me a general idea of what I can expect when I finally make a decision.
I also know that this is a flawed, impossible system that has done nothing for me except freeze me in inaction and amplify the sense of betrayal when something happens outside my carefully curated expectations.
Embracing the concept of courage stands in direct opposition to my anxiety. It says, I don’t know what’s going to happen if I do this, but I will do it anyway. It says, I don’t know how this person will take what I am about to say, but I will say it anyway. It says, I don’t know what sitting with these uncomfortable thoughts and feelings will do to me, but I will sit with them anyway.
I close my eyes, take one breath, and say, Well, here it goes.
It has been hard. No, scratch that. It has been terrifying. It has been agonizing. It has brought great benefit but also great uncertainty. To see the unknown and step toward it anyway is such a foreign concept that I often don’t feel like it is me choosing to do it.
On Vulnerability
I have written about the concept of trust more times than I can count. Everything was about trust to me for such a long time. Can I trust you to listen? Can I trust you to hear me? Can I trust you to be honest with me? Can I trust you not to hurt me?
I will never discount the value and critical nature of trust, but in my endeavor to be courageous, I have come to recognize the deeply flawed mindset I carried for so long.
It is not the ability to trust that I have been so desperately yearning for—or more accurately, it is not my desire to trust others. It is my need to trust myself to get through whatever happens.
Vulnerability is a frequent topic in my writing, and I believed it went hand in hand with needing to trust others. This might be the case in many situations, but it was a false path for me.
I don’t solely want to trust someone with my vulnerability, though that is a worthy and rewarding experience in itself. I want to have the courage to be vulnerable, even if I cannot predict how they will respond. To be vulnerable only when someone has earned my trust is to build trust on false or incomplete pretenses. It is a contradiction that says, I cannot be vulnerable with you until I trust you, but I can’t trust you until I see how you respond to my vulnerability. It is a battle I simply can never win.
I have long allowed rejection or dismissal to define my future. When my grandmother’s partner crushed a drawing I had made for him at age 11 in his fist and threw it to the floor—an action performed in response to his football team losing—I stopped drawing for anyone but myself. When I, at thirteen, told a boy for the first time ever that I liked him and was (understandably) rejected, I began building the foundation for the emotional walls that would take me years to tear down.
The rejections I experienced didn’t simply define the other person or the specific circumstances; they came to define my entire sense of self-worth. Vulnerability was slowly but inexorably pushed deeper within me until I could hardly recognize myself—in large part because I, in a frantic bid to not be myself, was everybody and nobody all at once.
So, though I chose a single word to guide me this year, one of my biggest tasks is to redefine my view of what trust and vulnerability really mean, as well as how they intertwine.
I seek the courage to be vulnerable. I seek the courage to trust that, if it goes poorly, the world will not end, and I will not spiral into meaninglessness. I seek to offer the world pieces of myself—not hurl everything I have at someone in a desperate attempt to make them stay.
Much of my vulnerability has been born of fear or, like these posts, buffered by the safety of distance. I rarely ask anyone individually to read them. They are just words, floating in an abyss of incalculable others.
Vulnerability with the Self
There’s a deeper layer to it all, though, isn’t there?
Offering vulnerability to another is daunting. It means placing my emotions in their hands and trusting that I will get through whatever follows. It is stepping off the ledge I have stood on for so long, hoping I will find my wings—or, at the very least, survive the fall.
More often than not, the outcome is somewhere in between. But to take the leap means accepting the breadth of possibility. It does not mean analyzing and preparing for every conceivable outcome.
Then there is being vulnerable with myself. This, oftentimes, feels far more complicated and difficult, but it lies at the root of everything I will carry forward.
I fill silences with noise. I sleep with audiobooks playing so that I don’t have to wake up and face my own thoughts; I can focus on something else. I shower with music so that I am not left completely alone with myself. I feel the weight of conversational silences like a band around my throat, choking me until I find a way to fill them—while also recognizing my personal need for comfortable quietude amid shared words. I convince myself that they hate silence and that it is my duty to fill it, or else I will be deemed a failed conversant.
So I fill them. I fill silences with song, with narration, with ambiance, with white or brown noise, with TV shows, with silly, everyday chatter from friends. I do all that I can to avoid myself.
To sit with my thoughts and feelings is to bring them into the light. Once there, there is no going back. They have been illuminated, and that cannot be undone.
External vulnerability is leaping from the cliff. Internal vulnerability is stepping inside a room, closing the door, and opening my eyes to all that lies within. It is seeing all my failures, successes, minimized dreams, abandoned hopes, mistakes and wrongdoings, fears and beliefs, triumphs and pride. It is seeing me. It is seeing the person I have avoided facing for more years than I know.
It hurts, and it’s frightening, and it’s overwhelming, and it is deeply, wildly uncomfortable. But there is no path forward without it.
A Challenge for You—And Also Me
I challenge myself to use vulnerability as a guide, not a playing card. I challenge myself to see what happens—to leap off that ledge, to close that door, to take that step.
I challenge you to join me.
Whatever vulnerability you have been avoiding or misusing, I challenge you to do one thing differently this week.
• Journal with honest abandon.
• Ask the question whose answer you’ve been afraid of.
• Say the words that have been lodged in your throat.
• Sit with an uncomfortable feeling instead of numbing or avoiding it.
• Apologize genuinely for something you’ve been avoiding.
• Let yourself be seen in a way you usually hide.
• Set a boundary where you’ve been too afraid to say no.
I may often fail, retreat, and seek shelter within myself, but I will continue to do my best to strive for courage.
I hope you do, too.