I’ve got this set of guidelines I keep in my journal. I wrote it nearly three years ago. Each point was the culmination of certain truths I saw as necessary for one to live their life in the most robust way possible. In their conversations. In the way they worked. In the way they explored the mysteries and routines found in the everyday of their lives. There were four points. It won’t always stay at four, but it’s not a list that is easily added to, for they represent truths about life that are universal, and truths that cannot be excused. Truths that have lines of grey and can be bent are no truths at all, and are not included.

One of these I’d like to mention here, is the very first one. A truth I found to be the most honest in enjoying a full breath, and overall breadth of life.

In all your actions, be bold.

I became interested around twelve, or the time of a pubescent teen absorbing anything different in life to stand out. The phrase: Audentes fortuna iuvat comes to mind. I repeated it before I knew what the words meant. It just sounded cool because it was Latin. Then I got to high school.

Talk about a typhoon of emotions, cliques, friendships, romance, pride, domination struggle, and socializing. I failed at most. I exceeded in pretending. I’ve always held a fake smile for the world. It was easier for me to invest little in them, but get by until I reach the shore. But I never knew what the shore was, or where it was – I just swam along with my personalities, and smiles. They were some empty years from the inside. I left high-school with few friends, and even less memories of great times and cherished events. This was my mistake. I spent so much time pretending, that I never stood steadfast behind my own personality.

You’re going to have a lot of enemies in life. Some you know about, others that operate in the shadows. Giving ‘defeat’ the advantage by making yourself the enemy from within is a surefire way to lose the war before it has been fought.

Fast forward.

Being bold isn’t a task – it’s a philosophy. To be bold, you must first define what the word means, and all it encompasses. Bold – being, showing confidence; not afraid; lack of fear.

Some confuse boldness with aggression and crass behavior. In order to be bold, from what they say and how they act, one must be relentless – a brute. These confusions are not mutations of boldness, they are their own behaviors. To be bold is to be confident in what you say because that which is behind your actions is that which reigns true in your soul. One cannot adopt boldness, you must become it, and be it – just like the skin wrapped around your flesh and bones.

Be bold in your actions, because everything in life that is worth it to you, should be given your all. There is simply no time in life for anything less than your very best. To understand this is to realize that you will die one day. Take a moment to read that sentence again slowly, and carefully. It is a bold and simple statement. Read it with difficulty, read with fear, read it with caution. But read it, and realize it.

Now ask yourself again why you are holding yourself back from certain things. Don’t ask all at once, you’ll never answer correctly or in full. But ask in each situation nonetheless.

Ask before, during and after a conversation. Before, during, and after a casual meeting, a professional meeting, a romantic meeting. Then answer.

Answer why you haven’t told them (them is different for you all) that you love having them in your life. That they make you happy. That if there was one person that understood them, that could connect with you, it was them. Tell them.

Answer why you haven’t told your boss how to do some task better, even when you have the evidence in front of you! Answer why you haven’t engaged in the growth of your own career because you’ve listened to 30 year veterans in the industry that say: “in time, just play it safe.” Or, “we’ve always done it like this.” Being bold has nothing to do with playing it safe. It has to do with giving something your everything, your all. Not when the odds are stacked up against you. In boldness, odds are for the boldless to contemplate. If it feels right to you – act boldly.

Examples abound, with an endless surplus to be provided – I must stop here. For boldness is no longer a word after one accepts it – it is a way of life. It is a way to live a life where your curiosities are explored, when your emotions are expressed and felt, and how your feeling of contemplation and anxiety are put to rest by your decision to plunge forward and break through those walls of doubt.

In your actions, be bold. Your life deserves nothing less.