Brave, Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani

Author:Reshma Saujani
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2019-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

A New View of Bravery

In 2013, I had two major life events. I lost my race for public advocate and I suffered my third miscarriage a few months later. I was a mess. All these bad things were happening to me and I didn’t feel like I could stop them.

Not long after, my husband dragged me on a trip to New Zealand for our friend Jun’s wedding. Jun is a little bit of an adventure nut, so the entire trip was centered on getting his wedding party to do semidangerous things. One of the activities on the agenda was bungee jumping. Now, I am terrified of heights. As in, I want to throw up when I am at the top of a building, so you can understand why I really didn’t want to hurl my body off a bridge suspended only by an elastic band around my ankle. At the same time, my life felt out of control, and somehow I sensed that letting go of my fear of heights and going for it would allow me to let go of the lingering frustration and sadness I’d been carrying around, too.

So I jumped. Yes, in a tandem with my husband and with my eyes squeezed shut the whole time while I prayed to every Hindu god I knew, but I jumped. It was terrifying, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that flying through the air wasn’t also thrilling and liberating. After that trip, I came back to the States, restarted my career, and tried yet again to have a baby—both of which worked out better than I ever dreamed.

Which of these acts was the bravest? If you go by the traditional (a.k.a. male) definition of brave, you’d probably say the bungee jump. But true bravery is more than being a daredevil. I consider all three of these choices—the jump, the career reboot after a humiliating loss, the pregnancy attempt after three devastating miscarriages—personal acts of bravery. Bravery takes so many different forms, and they’re all important and valuable. All bravery matters because bravery feeds on itself. We build our bravery muscles one act at a time, big or small. This is what I mean when I say it’s time for us to redefine bravery, on our terms.

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