The Cost of Not Being Brave

A dear friend asked me recently..

“So…..you want people to be brave…..but what is the cost of NOT being brave?”

So let’s back up a step.

Because being brave is not necessarily about BIG-ness…

It’s not always about starting a business or skydiving or walking the Pacific Crest Trail or dying your hair dark green or singing on stage.

And Not Being Brave follows suit.

The cost of not being brave can be incredibly SUBTLE.

Your life will NOT be a disaster.

In fact, it may look very similar.

The cost of not being brave COULD be the LACK of money, opportunities, kindness, evolution.

But….

The cost of not being brave could ALSO be the LACK of money-loss, disaster, drama, change and other stuff that makes you breathe faster.

But all that aside…..

The TRUE cost of NOT being BRAVE, for me, is the deep down oh-oh feeling…….that something is missing.

I quietly mourn what could have been.

And guess what? That may be the right path for you.

A less brave path is DEFINITELY an easier and safer path.

There is no shame in that.

You may have had ENOUGH risk and uncertainty for one life already.

I HONOR that.

But if you’re not brave……you DO have to be willing to watch your spark, like the soft glow at the top of a sparkler, eventually fade away.

AND NOTE…

You don’t OWE anything to anyone else.

You owe nothing to yourself.

This is not about OWING, despite what Ben Affleck says in Good Will Hunting.

It’s about the whispers on the backstairs of your heart.

You can choose to listen or put them away for another life.

But at least now you have a SENSE of what it will cost you.

And if you want to heed the whispers, come sit next to me.

I’m in the business of transformation. https://tidycal.com/andreaenright/

Last BRAVE thing I did: Use ChatGBT. More on that in the next post.

What’s the last brave thing YOU did?