revolutionary in training

People keep telling me how courageous I am for leaving behind everything and moving to London to follow my dreams. I’m thinking perhaps everyone’s mistaken courage for headstrong foolishness (a bi-product of having red hair, I think). Here I am, 28 years old with no home, job, car, or belongings of any kind except clothes and a MacBook (the two essentials). Just a head full of dreams, a heart bursting with passion, and apparently a bunch of courage which feels suspiciously more like fear.

More Important Than Fear

I moved to London thinking I would land a job and a flat within a week or two. I figured that with a master’s degree, great work experience and of course my fabulous personality, everything would come together. What I didn’t realize is that things work very differently in England than I expected. Job applications take hours, even days to fill out. Even if you do get an interview and win the job, it can take months before you actually start work. And housing, which we all know is atrociously expensive here, is very difficult to secure when you don’t have a job or any UK credit history.

With so many setbacks it’s easy to find myself wondering if I’ve made a terrible mistake in jumping the pond in pursuit of my calling. Is this just some crazy hair-brained adventure I cooked up to avoid boredom? Or is this a genuine act of courage to live my life to its fullest capacity? It’s hard to think of it as courage when I so often find myself worrying that I won’t get a job or a home to call my own. What I’m learning in this waiting period is that just because I feel afraid sometimes, it doesn’t mean I lack courage.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. — Ambrose Redmoon

In fact, I’m beginning to see that courage and fear are intertwined. If you’re setting out to do something truly courageous, a healthy dose of fear is part of the journey because you’re exploring new horizons and testing your limits. It’s only natural to feel afraid when you set out in a new direction and it’s courage that decides the adventure is more important than the fear. The key, I think, is to embrace the good parts of fear and allow it to transform yourself into a better person as you step out in faith into the unknown.

So I guess it was courageous of me to sell everything I own, leave behind everyone I know, and attempt to start all over again in London. Because the truth is that I knew it wasn’t right for me to stay in San Francisco any longer and I knew I had to find a place where my work aligned with my calling. Sometimes the courageous thing to do is to let go of what you know is wrong and run in the opposite direction, even if you don’t know where you’re going. It’s what makes you a person of honour, just as I was reminded on Grey’s Anatomy last week.

“Women and men of honour know when not to accept less than they deserve and they know when to walk away.” Even when it’s scary.