When were you last bold?
I grew up in an environment where honesty was more important than anything else, so I’ve always been comfortable speaking my thoughts or calling someone out even if it ruins the mood.
A time where I was particularly bold: my good friend and I were sitting in her driveway together, so I decided to bring up an issue that I had never said aloud to her.
I asked her what happened to her friendship with her best friend of seven years; I had noticed the two of them had grown distant. Eventually she told me that she came to me for secrets and that she hadn’t hung out with her best friend all summer, which shocked me.
She got embarrassed and we sat in silence until she spoke again, and then came a flood of emotions I think she was keeping in. I don’t think either of us realized she felt so strongly about it until I gave her space to tell me. I never feel guilty about being bold but I definitely didn’t in that moment.
Stephanie, 18, Retail Worker
When I walked up to a large group of girls who looked like me during a college orientation event. I had to push myself to say hi and introduce myself. I ended up getting a couple of Instagrams and new faces to say hi to, which was nice. The mountain that social situations can be is so much scarier before you climb it, and even though I knew this when I was feeling overwhelmed, it was lovely to get a good result.
DJ, 30/15, blogger
Take Lainey. She’s 20, now living with old classmates in NYC. Her goal in university is to become the ‘it’ girl in studio art.
Her cousin, Mark, has been helping her. Considering their relationship began at 11 and 8, when he scowled and told her she was ‘an expert in annoyance’, they’ve made plenty of progress.
It was her dream to attend NYU, but she didn’t because she wasn’t bold enough to ask for a nomination for valedictorian in her backwards high school.
(How do we know this?
If we decide you’ll need to know, you’ll find out.)
Today she’s decided to be bold for the first time and ask for a scholarship nomination.
Mark calls this a baby step.
Lainey’s friends call it a big girl step.
Lainey calls it the end of her academic life as she knows it.
How will this go?
No one (including us, excluding God) knows.
Is Being Bold Worth It?
Being bold (the wise way) is a tad underrated. It’s important to be sure you’re doing something not only correctly/objectively labeled as bold; but smart and timely. i.e. The Wise Way.
Being properly bold looks different for different people, but the truth is always the same.
How to know? Calculate the risk. What could you gain if you did it? What could you lose if not? And vice versa.
Do the same for the losses. Are they truly losses? Will not doing this feat of bravery move you backwards or leave you where you are now?
Consult God’s Word as the ultimate source of wisdom!
There is a right time and a right way to do everything, but we know so little!
Ecclesiastes 8:6, Good News Translation
What do you want to be brave about?
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