Go Anyway

..fear is real, the life you want is too

Somewhere between the late-night true crime podcasts, the endless carousel of cautionary TikToks, and the rising cost of basic human optimism, a quiet fear has taken root in our lives, subtle, almost polite in how it frames itself. It doesn't scream or wave its arms. It rationalises. It strategies. It calls itself “realistic.” It whispers things like You should wait until someone can go with you. It’s not safe. It’s not smart. It’s not the right time. And somewhere along the way, that fear calcifies into a kind of doctrine: a worldview in which being alone is synonymous with being in danger. A worldview where autonomy is aspirational only in the abstract.

I have lived inside that doctrine. I’ve swallowed its logic and let it make my choices. I’ve planned trips I didn’t take, mapped routes I never walked, saved restaurants I never sat in. Not because I didn’t want to go, but because I had been conditioned, quietly, thoroughly, and with startling efficiency, to believe that choosing solitude was choosing vulnerability. That independence was reckless. That loneliness was inevitable. That if I did things alone, I would either get hurt or look pathetic, and possibly both.

It’s a strange and specifically modern paradox: in a culture that glamourises hyper-individualism, we’ve never been more terrified of being seen alone. The commodification of solo experience, solo travel, solo dates, solo living, is less about freedom and more about curation. It's about crafting a life that looks independent, while remaining safely within the bounds of social acceptability. You can go to Paris by yourself, but only if you make a photo dump about it. You can go to dinner alone, but only if you order something photogenic and bring a book with a pretentious cover. Solitude, in this context, is fine, desirable even, as long as it performs well. As long as it reads as empowered and not pathetic.

But the reality of being alone, the real, quiet, aching, beautiful, boring, sometimes humiliating reality, rarely gets aestheticised. No one posts about sitting alone at a bar and wondering if everyone is judging you. No one posts the hours spent pacing through foreign streets, unsure if the thrill in your chest is wonder or panic. No one posts the moment you reach for your phone just to look busy, to avoid making eye contact with your own vulnerability.

And yet, that’s the version of solitude I’m interested in. Not the branded one. Not the kind wrapped in productivity and personal growth narratives. I’m talking about the version that feels like nothing is protecting you from the full weight of your own aliveness. The version that strips away the social scripts and forces you to ask: who am I, when no one’s watching? What do I want, when no one else gets a vote?

For a long time, I didn’t know how to answer those questions. So I filled the silence with fear. I told myself I was being smart, being cautious, being “realistic.” I delayed the things I wanted most under the guise of logistics, safety, timing. I postponed my own agency in a way that felt like maturity, but was actually just avoidance dressed up in adult clothes.

Eventually, something shifted, but not in the way Instagram captions like to pretend. I didn’t wake up one day radiant and self-actualised with a carry-on bag and a leather journal. The change was quiet. Slow. Boring, even. I started meditating, not to chase productivity or optimise my mornings, but because I needed a place to meet myself. I started talking to God, not because I was looking for answers, but because I was tired of feeling like I was doing this whole thing alone. I started trusting my intuition, not because I suddenly felt brave, but because it was the only voice I had that wasn’t motivated by fear or optics.

There’s a lot of talk about solo travel, solo living, solo everything as this milestone of modern empowerment, particularly for women. But what no one tells you is that a lot of it doesn’t feel empowering at all. It feels awkward. It feels scary. It feels like sitting alone at a restaurant and having to resist the urge to text someone just to prove you exist. It feels like standing in a museum and wishing you had someone to whisper your thoughts to. It feels like daring to believe that your experience matters even when it’s not shared, not validated, not witnessed.

And the radical part, the truly countercultural part, is choosing to go anyway. Not because you’ve banished the fear. Not because you’re confident or ready or glowing with main character energy. But because you’ve decided that waiting for someone else to co-sign your life is no longer an option.

The cultural myth is that we’ll feel ready before we begin. That empowerment will strike like lightning, that healing will arrive like a gift, that one day we’ll wake up deserving of the life we want. But the truth is: you don’t wait to feel brave. You feel scared, and you move anyway. You pack your self-doubt and your longing and your deep, desperate hunger for meaning, and you go, not because it’s easy, but because the alternative is stasis. Self-abandonment. Shrinking your life to fit someone else’s schedule.

So no, this isn’t a story about triumph. It’s not a girlboss rebrand. It’s not a Pinterest quote in essay form. It’s a reminder. That even now, even especially now, when everything feels uncertain and expensive and dangerous and lonely, you are still allowed to want things. To go places. To take up space. Alone, if you must.

Not because it’s easy. But because it’s yours.

- B