Courage Is Mostly Showing Up Scared: A Letter to Younger Me

Dear younger me

Hey. It is me. Well, you, a lot later. I am fifty now. I have some gray in the beard and some miles on the knees. I wanted to write you a letter because there is one thing I wish someone had told you plainly, a long time ago.

You think brave people are not scared. You think they wake up confident and walk into hard rooms without a second thought. You look at them and think, I am not like that. I get nervous. My stomach turns. My hands sweat. So I must not be brave.

I need you to hear this. You have it backwards.

What courage really looks like

Courage is mostly showing up scared. That is it. That is most of the secret. The people you admire were scared too. A lot of them were terrified. They just walked in anyway.

I know, because later on you will be one of those people some days. Not every day. But some. You will make calls you do not want to make. You will walk into meetings where you are the new guy and everyone else seems to know more. You will say sorry first when your pride wants to wait. You will stand in a hospital hallway and be the calm one for your family while your insides are shaking.

None of those moments will feel brave while you are in them. They will feel scary and awkward. You will think about turning around. Then you will not turn around. That is what courage feels like from the inside. It does not feel like a superhero. It feels like a regular guy taking one more step with his knees knocking.

The fear is not the enemy

Here is something else. Stop treating fear like a sign that you are doing something wrong. Most of the time, fear just means you care. You are scared before the tryout because you want to make the team. You are nervous before asking her out because she matters to you. You are anxious before the new job because you want to do well.

Fear is not a stop sign. Most of the time it is just a speed bump. Slow down, take a breath, and keep rolling.

There will be times when fear is telling you something true, like this is not safe, or this person is not good for you. Listen to that kind. But the everyday fear, the fear of looking silly, of failing, of being told no, that kind is usually lying to you. It is making the hill look steeper than it is.

What I want you to do

So here is what I want you to do, younger me. When you feel that nervous flutter, do not wait for it to go away before you act. It might not go away. Act anyway. Say the thing. Make the call. Raise your hand. Walk into the room.

And when you mess up, which you will, do not decide that means you are not brave. Brave people fall down all the time. The courage is in getting back up and showing up scared again tomorrow.

One more thing. Be gentle with other scared people. When you see someone nervous, someone new, someone trying, give them a kind word. You will know exactly how they feel. A little encouragement from you might be the push that gets them through the door.

I am not writing to tell you that everything turns out perfect. It does not. I am still building. Still climbing. Still showing up scared to new things at fifty. But I have a good life. I have a son I love more than I can say. I have people around me who care. And almost every good thing in it came from a moment when I was scared and went anyway.

So go anyway. I am proud of you already.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is showing up with your knees shaking.