Bravissimo

Bravo. A word with Italian origins from the word brave. Brave, a word that means possessing courage or courageous endurance; making a fine appearance.

Who am I to talk about being brave? I’ve felt like a fearful wimp all my life. Afraid to go out of my comfort zone. Afraid of the unknown. Afraid of people, strangers. Afraid of suffering. Afraid of ridicule. This fear is probably why I prefer to have every detail of every little thing planned to the last detail so I know what to expect. So I can plan a method of coping or navigating said thing. In fact that’s what I think control is all about. I try to control situations so I can cope with them. Something I can control doesn’t seem so scary. I’ve spent countless hours of emotional energy making my world safe, which is a false pretense at best. I can’t make my world safe.

We live in a scary world full of unknowns but also full of scary knowns. We know there is evil out there. We know there is disease out there. We know there are humans without much humanity. We know there are natural disasters. We know there are liars and thieves and murderers. We are extremely vulnerable.

I remember watching old western movies and thinking about how scary it would be to live in an era or culture where everyone carried guns and could shootup a whole town on a whim. Or hang people or decapitate them or scalp them…. hello? Sound familiar?

We’ve often heard the axiom that a person is afraid of their own shadow. You cannot get away from your own shadow. It follows you everywhere. I am even afraid of certain circumstances that I set in motion. Often, I’m afraid of expectations that I invented and now can’t live up to.

I was brave once. I was brave because I was afraid. Afraid of the consequences of not being brave… if that makes any sense. So I mustered up every ounce of courage I could manufacture and fought to the death for something I truly believed in. It felt good to be brave, as difficult as it was. It was empowering. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done but on the other side of true bravery is self esteem. On the other side of bravery is confidence. On the other side of bravery is wisdom. On the other side of bravery is more bravery. But we have to keep being brave or we slip back into fear and uncomfortable comfort. As I have.

I want to do something brave again. Recently I read an article in a magazine about a female rower that’s going to row across the Pacific Ocean in 2019. All alone. She explained her sleeping accommodations (on board) and her food provisions and said she was collecting 150 audio books to keep her company as this would take a few months. I thought to myself… wait? What? She explained how friends and family were fearful she was planning for her watery grave. But she’s still going. I was inspired. It reminded me of Esther from the bible. When she realized she had to be brave to save her people. Her response? “If I die, I die”. She knew she was put in her exact circumstances ‘for such a time as this’.

Another story, turned movie that stayed with me was the story of the woman who went on a hike from Mexico to Seattle or the other way around. She went all alone, although there were other groups doing this hike. She was not a hiker previously. This was all foreign to her. I believe it took her 3 months. All alone in the wilderness. It changed her life. What possesses people to embark on these journeys? To those of us comfortable in our self-made, falsely safe comfort zones, our first reaction is insanity. But possibly there is something in all of us or out of us that wants to do something brave or just be brave. To believe for something different. Something better.

I think I’m ready to do something brave again. Im not thinking of crossing the Pacific in a rowboat or wandering in the wilderness for 3 months. But even to just believe I could be different than I am. Brave enough to change. Brave enough to sacrifice creature comforts for a greater good. Brave enough to venture into something unknown to me. Expand my comfort zone. Brave enough to not be afraid of the future even if it looks very different from my past. Any uncharted territory is scary the first time. Brave enough to shake the shackles from my past away. Brave enough to forge a new reality and a new comfort zone. And yes, it’s scary and uncomfortable… thus the bravery. For such a time as this.