WHAT IS BOLD?
I’ve spent a great deal of time really thinking about this recently, about what bold signifies. Sometimes words like this have a tendency to get overused especially in this age of doctoring up images with text and filters. See:
See what I did there? I took a fun picture and added the text BE BOLD and then filtered it. Look how bold it looks. But does jumping off of a low dock into a shallow body of water that is free of sharks make me bold? (Personally, I think wearing a bikini 7 weeks after I’d given birth is more bold.)
So what is bold?
IS BOLD AN ACTIVITY?
I had a friend in high school who trespassed into a construction site once with a few buddies and drove a tractor with nothing on but a cowboy hat. This same friend mooned several cars behind him from a school bus window.
I have another friend who decided to cliff jump into the ocean below. He broke his collar bone.
I went white water rafting a few years ago, fell out of the boat, and prematurely and dramatically accepted that my daughter would “at least still grow up with a father.”
IS BOLD IN ACTIONS WE TAKE?
I once told some girl at a bar who was trying to start a fight between two other people to mind her business. She punched me in the face. I recovered and gave her the death stare… before I jumped on top of her.
At a middle school dance I asked a boy – who I knew no one else would – to dance. My friends thought I was crazy. I was popular. He was not.
Three years ago, I imagined a different life for myself. A life across oceans with nothing but the love of my life and our future children.
THE DEFINITION
So I googled the definition of “bold” and here’s what I found:
- courageous
- daring
- not hesitating to break the rules of propriety
- forward
- challenging
- beyond the usual limits
- imaginative
- striking
HOLY BATMAN
That’s a lot of awesome for one word. Who can possibly be bold when bold is all of that???
I have a friend who climbs icy mountains, skis double black diamonds, and practices waterski jumps in the middle of a snowstorm while dressed in Batman costume . This is not a description of the world’s most interesting man – although it would fit. This is my daughter’s Godfather.
My daughter’s godfather is one of the only people I know that I can truly say is all bold all of the time and it isn’t just because he water skis in superhero costume or – as he overhead his doctor say – he heals quicker than most from a skiing accident causing him to really believe that he is a superhero. He’s bold in his convictions. He was one of the biggest meat eaters I knew, until he wasn’t. He became a vegan almost with the snap of a finger. Now everything he eats is from his own self-made garden that he built. He is bold in his words which doesn’t mean that he’s loud or snarky – he just believes everything he says or he doesn’t say it. He’s bold in his decisions. When he graduated college, he told us he was hiking the whole Appalachian Trail, one of the longest continuously marked footpaths in the world. No one doubted him because we all knew he would. And he did. All 2,180 miles of it. From Georgia to Maine. And he loves bold. You should see the way he loves my kids.
He lives bold.
YOUR CHANCE TO BE BOLD
Husband found it surprising that I had such a hard time identifying bold because to him I am a bold person. I guess the problem I am having with trying to understand this word is that it seems like an action word, something I could physically see when in fact the heart of “bold” comes from a place you can’t see. What I’ve realized is that bold isn’t just an activity or something we do or say, it’s in the way we think and in the decisions we make too. Being bold isn’t just the execution of climbing the mountain, but in the decision to climb it in the first place; knowing you could fail and still moving upward. Finishing it or even just attempting it. Bold isn’t just the cliff jump, it’s jumping even though you’re scared. It’s hitting the water and breaking your collar bone but being able to live with your decision – broken bone or not. Because bold isn’t always shiny and glittery with Instagram filters. It isn’t always the glamorous finish line. Sometimes bold and challenging the norm doesn’t look pretty at all. It’s gritty. It’s not finishing. It’s being kind to someone who needs it, voting no when everyone is voting yes, having courage. It’s wearing the bikini.
We may not all be snowstorm, water skiing Batmans. We may not live bold everyday but everyday we have the chance to BE bold. Bold is one of those words that is overused but for good reason. It is something we should attempt – once a day, every day – in our actions, our words, and our decisions because – like Batman water skiing – why the EFF not?
How else will we know we’re alive?
Photo Credits: Ice Climber – Jake Weissman Waterskiing Batman – Jake Weissman