I have begun to notice something uncomfortable about myself.
I lie to myself almost every day.
Not the large lies that deceive the world. Mine are quieter.
I tell myself I am too busy when something frightens me.
I call it patience when I am afraid to decide.
I call it acceptance when I have simply given up.
I say something does not matter when, somewhere inside, it hurts deeply.
And perhaps the cleverest lie of all is that I know myself.
For the longest time, I believed that courage was the absence of doubt.
Age has a way of correcting such misunderstandings.
Looking back, I cannot remember a single meaningful journey that began without doubt sitting quietly beside me. It was there when I started my first venture with more enthusiasm than resources. It was there when I walked away from familiar paths into unfamiliar opportunities. It was there when I stood before rooms full of people, expected to have answers while secretly wondering whether I was asking the right questions myself.
Doubt, I discovered, is not an intruder.
It is a permanent resident of the human condition.
There are some phone calls that do not begin with a ringtone.
They begin with a feeling.
A sudden tightening in the chest. A strange alertness before the mind has processed anything. A silence in the room that changes shape.
It was sometime past midnight when the phone lit up beside the bed. Her name appeared on the screen – my former colleague’s daughter. For a brief second I simply stared at it, disoriented by the hour more than the name itself.