For the past week, this word has continually rang out in my head.
Audacity - rude or disrespectful behavior
In everyday slang, audacity often comes with a negative connotation. “Having the audacity to…” is often followed by some obnoxious action, taking on this first meaning. Yet, there’s a second definition:
Audacity - a willingness to take bold risks
This podcast project pushes me to “have audacity.” Many times, I’ve found myself saying “whatever, worst they can say is no” before I send out a cold-email to a potential guest. Yet, the interesting risk I want to focus on is the mundane “audacity” this podcast forces me to have in real life.
Over the course of this past month, I’ve developed a friendship in one of my classes, yet, like any new friendship, especially developed in class, it felt very fragile. In class we read a piece which strongly pertained to my podcast, and I wanted to discuss it with someone in an episode. Last Friday, with only a few texts sent between the two of us, I typed out a message and pressed send, hoping I hadn’t made a fool out of myself in front of this girl who is two years my senior.
A year ago I would have stressed out about this message all weekend, imagining how awkward it’d be on Tuesday if she never responded, kicking myself, thinking I’d perhaps ruined a class friendship. Who was I going to talk to during turn-and-talk discussions? Who was I going to work with in group projects?
This time around, however, after almost two months of being forced out of my comfort zone, I found myself, not only talking myself down, but actually listening to myself. Pretty soon I’d forgotten about the podcast invitation all together and went about my weekend. When I would randomly think of it, the stress quickly vanished when I thought about how, even if she said ‘no’ it wouldn’t be personal. Mostly, I realized that the situation would only be awkward if I built it up as awkward in my head and then acted awkward about it afterwards. I thought about how even if she never responded or responded with a ‘no,’ I’d treat her the same come class time and, hopefully, she’d see that and react the same. Even if she didn’t, that was out of my control.
Most of all, I told myself that whatever happened, I’d deal with it later, and there was no use worrying about it now, without a definitive answer.
As the weekend came to a close, I checked my notifications to a message which read:
yes!