We keep quiet. In meetings. Around the dinner table.  At the bar. We keep quiet. We talk, of course we talk, but we hold back. We don’t venture to offer those visceral responses or truest of true feelings we hold dear. Instead we filter them out and suppress them down in hopes to remain in the majority, in the woodwork. Because it’s intimidating to create the opportunity for someone to call you out, to tell you you’re wrong.

Sometimes the world seems like it’s just waiting to reject you. Waiting for you to say the wrong thing and then pouncing on you, calling you out in front of everyone. Better not publish that blog post or post that Tweet where you take a controversial stance, who knows what will happen, probably the worst.

In her brilliant blog post “When I Was 25…” writer Meaghan O’Connell puts it best:

When I was 25 I felt what it was like to read the things you might always worry someone could say about you but then grow up and realize no one thinks that, that no one thinks of you that much. but then it happened and nothing changed except part of you, a little part, is gone. maybe it is the fear of being found out. it feels okay without that.

What are you holding back?