Everyone who had radio reception a couple years ago probably heard that Sara Bareilles song “Brave.” You know, that song where she’s asking everyone to “show how big their brave is.” Earlier this week, I dyed my hair a decidedly vivid shade of magenta, and since then more than one person has told me how brave I was to dye my whole head of hair. As far as I was concerned, bravery was standing up for something you believe in, protecting someone, doing something big... Not dyeing your hair. But, ‘brave’ really might be oddly appropriate considering the potential for the entire thing to go terribly wrong if the color came out badly, and that would mean walking around with some really bad hair for a few days until I could fix it (thankfully that didn’t happen). But still, some people thought it was brave to dye my whole head, so I started thinking about what that really meant.

I had a little chuckle about that because if people think it’s brave to dye my hair, what might they be assuming about the choices I must be making in my life? Perception is funny that way; we can look at someone and think we know them, but such a read can be incredibly inaccurate. Do they think that because I've dyed my hair, I’m just a badass who can handle basically anything? Am I just generally really bold? Haha, well, that would be a lie. Sure, they can tell I can commit to a bold hair color, but they can’t possibly know that certain social interactions make me feel physically ill and shaky. That doesn’t feel very brave. They don’t know that sometimes I feel so awkward walking around downtown or on campus that I think everyone must know I can’t possibly belong. The courage to dye my hair doesn’t actually change any of those things. How do you reconcile being able to make such obvious choices, like bright hair or blue eyeliner, with feeling so uncomfortable that you sometimes think through the social interaction of ordering a coffee multiple times before it happens?

As much as I might want to, I can’t change that, and sometimes it’s worse and sometimes it’s better. It’s just one quirk of the human experience—and it is both wonderful and terrible. We can be simultaneously incredibly able to commit to something like bold fashion choices and also incapable of putting ourselves in other situations. For example, as a horse person, I feel completely comfortable putting myself in situations with horses that will probably act up because I know I can boss around a 1000 pound animal, but two years ago just going to a concert would make me feel anxious. There was nothing I could point to, nothing bad had happened, I just wouldn’t feel comfortable in that kind of social situation.

This got so bad during my freshman year at Davis that I was struggling to find things I actually wanted to do. I didn’t want to socialize, I was stressed, I was too busy with school, I had no free time, the list could have gone on endlessly. I decided to start affirming the good things I saw every day, and the best thing that came from that experience was my ability to say yes to myself. It made a huge difference, from things like enjoying some food I really wanted to deciding to study abroad because that was something else I really wanted. I went to concerts and to a different country and rode a new horse. So maybe the current hair dye adventure is a piece of that experience, and maybe bravery is going sky diving, or maybe it’s deciding to slather your head in magenta hair dye, or maybe it’s talking to new people in your classes before week ten, or maybe it’s even just walking around and making eye contact with people as you pass each other. Bravery is different for everyone, and that’s okay.