Embracing Courage in A Very Frightening World

For me, one of the most rewarding — and most frightening — parts of being alive is sharing myself with others – all of myself – my hopes, fears, dreams, jokes, stories, feelings, opinions, thoughts, suggestions…on and on and on.

Some of us are an open book. (I am not… at least not in my daily interactions with others.) Some of us share a lot. Others of us share less. (Some share too much.) Those who share less sometimes choose this option because of a deep sense of privacy or a fear of being hurt or simple shyness.

Sharing all the different and authentic parts of ourselves takes courage. (It does for me anyhow.) Whenever I open up and tell the truth about how I’m feeling or a mistake I have made or a controversial opinion that I hold, I always feel the danger of the backlash…criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, dismissal, being ignored. I feel apprehension even as I write these words. Opening up to others means making oneself consciously vulnerable. Nothing can be more terrifying in this life than feeling vulnerable, feeling exposed.

Over the years, I’ve become a little more courageous about speaking up and sharing myself, but I still get scared sometimes and I still have work to do.

Whenever I communicate my true self out to the world, I know that I am taking on the monster under the bed: vulnerability. I know that making myself vulnerable always contains within it the inherent possibility that I may not get the response I am looking for, that I may get hurt, perhaps badly….and I won’t lie – this scares me. This makes me feel weak.

It is a shame that vulnerability can feel like weakness because I do believe that the uniqueness of each person is one’s beauty and one’s gift to the world. I feel sadness at times that exposing our vulnerability to others can cause such pain.

I get it. It’s a very tough world and not a kind one. A lot of people are ridiculed in their life for their uniqueness. When we expose our vulnerability, when we tell the truth about ourselves, we may be called “weird” or “strange”….or worse. This is an all too common experience because for whatever reason, we are uncomfortable with those who are different from ourselves.

Today, in middle-age, I embrace the weird in myself more than I did when I was younger. Weird, strange, freaky… these are subjective words. They are also gifts from the universe. One person’s weird is another’s beautiful or truthful. As a teenager I remember wondering if other kids pondered the big questions of the universe each day as I did. The superficiality of everyday conversation made me suspect that perhaps I was weird in thinking so much about our purpose upon this earth.

Over the years, the question of my own weirdness came to matter less. (I owe this fact to an extended family of very loving and tolerant friends.) My life has become richer and happier and more rewarding since I (slowly) began to embrace my uniqueness, even more since I began embracing the uniqueness of others.

I am more content these days when I express my authentic self — and sometimes I am also quite scared. I still occasionally feel terrified inside when I express what is in my heart because I am aware that the response may not be kind or tolerant. Instead, it may be mean or unfair and that is painful. When I find the guts to express my opinions, my values, my heart, however, I also feel liberated. It feels scary, but it also feels “right”.

Eternal optimist that I am, in spite of the darkness out there, in spite of the fear, I still believe that the calm, creative, courageous and compassionate expression of a person’s authentic self is a priceless gift to be honored – and I do. I especially honor courage because I know what it takes to embrace the journey of trying to live a truly authentic life. Just getting out of bed in the morning takes courage because, if we are truly honest with ourselves, I think that most of us would admit that a good part of the time we have no idea what we are doing. This is certainly true for me.

My voice is a tiny one on a tiny planet in a vast universe billions of years old. When I consider the massive expanse and nature of time and space and existence itself, I am profoundly aware that I am alive on this earth for less than a millisecond in the face of all that has ever been and all that will ever be. My voice is one of 8 billion others voices that will be gone in less than a century. Time itself is a miracle and a conundrum beyond any human understanding. A second is a century. A century is a millisecond. A millennium is barely a second. 10,000 millennia are but a raindrop among a trillion trillion raindrops. What is my purpose under such circumstances? Do I have a purpose at all?

Yet, even knowing the insignificance and brevity of our lives and our existence upon this tiny planet – even knowing how badly we treat each other much of the time – our egos still dominate our world. This fact astounds me. The size of the human ego itself astounds me, including my own. It is absurd and nonsensical and yet it is the engine that drives the movement of all humankind. The human ego may be our saving grace or our downfall. The jury will remain out on that one for a very long time…I only hope it is not before it is too late to reverse course.

In the meantime, it takes undeniable courage to live each day acknowledging the silliness of the human ego in this inexplicable universe, while at the same time finding a way to find meaning in each day, each choice, each interaction, each relationship. We know not which day will be our last or what comes next, so we must simply have faith that there is meaning in our being here at all and courage that, whatever comes next (or doesn’t), we have the strength to face it.

We know not where we came from, why we are here, or where we are going… yet, we must live our very brief lives with purpose and integrity and bravery, in the face of endless dark and confusing temptations. Many try to do the right thing in a world where the temptations to do wrong are powerful and many. Personal survival vs the survival of our species… what personal choice could possibly be more important or require more courage than this?

To live in such a world, faced with such a question, we must be tremendously brave. We must be brave enough to fail again and again and again and still get up the next day and try again, never knowing if any of our choices make any difference at all in this scary, wondrous, chaotic life.

It takes courage to have faith in such a world; faith that it all means something….and faith to keep going even if it all turns out to mean nothing. It takes courage to be optimistic in a world of so much fear, anger and hatred. It takes courage to admit when one is without courage. It takes courage to forgive others when they fail and courage to forgive ourselves when it is our turn.

In 2016 we live in the age of Donald Trump. We live in the age of Bashar al-Assad, Kim Jung Un, Vladimir Putin, Pope Francis, Marta Vieira da Silva, Edward Snowden, Kim Kardashian, Barack Obama, Hanya Yanagihara, Bernie Sanders, Serena Williams, Caitlyn Jenner, Chris Rock, Bill Maher, Malala Yousufzai, Ashen Wirathu, Mark Zuckerberg, Annie Lennox, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Stevie Wonder, Winona LaDuke, Dr. Fleming Kim and countless others who may impact this world for the better or for the worse. Even in this, not one of us will be the final judge.

The famous among us are few, but the world moves forward and backward every day with the physical, mental and emotional energy of the billions whose names will never be known to most.

I sit in a diner in New York City and watch through the window in a single moment in time as the vast multitude of people pass by on the streets and sidewalks, living their lives, voicing their opinions, paying their bills, worrying about their troubles, trying to stay alive (and sane), trying to stay brave. I see them pass, knowing I will likely never know them, nor will they know me. It strikes me at these times that my life matters to those who love me, but matters not at all to the billions who do not know that I exist.

We live in a world of mutual strangers where each individual choice affects our collective fate; yet we will never know how or why and we will likely never meet those who may have the biggest impact on the future of our lives. The world is powered by each of us, yet most of us will never even know the names of all the billions we live amongst or whose choices determine our future.

To say this is an incredible phenomenon is to understate the miracle and magnitude of it all… and yet the individual human ego seems limitless in its size and scope.

It is incomprehensible and ironic. It fills me with wonder, faith and fear.

To experience this world in our minds and hearts with a kind of grace… to love it in all its absurdity and turmoil and arrogance and still believe that there is meaning and purpose in our short, anonymous lives — this, I believe, is the core of what we call “courage”. It is all so much bigger than you or me – or anyone – and yet something tells me there is only one response: to try our very best to stay brave.

Of all the many blessings I would wish for our species and for each individual soul upon this earth, for as long as we exist, I pray that our courage will be the most enduring.

My heart tells me that one day, many billions of moments from this moment, long after all who read these words have passed on to something else, this may be the sustaining key that unlocks the mystery itself.