The Caution Tape of Cowards

We rarely lie to others as convincingly as we lie to ourselves—especially when we call it risk.

“Too risky,” we say. A phrase worn thin from use, a shield held up when the truth gets too close. But risk, in its pure form, is simply uncertainty—the possibility of loss, yes, but also of revelation. It is not inherently evil. What makes it intolerable is what it threatens to expose.

We wrap truths in the language of risk when we're too afraid to face them. Not because they are dangerous, but because they are honest. A career change becomes “impractical,” not because we lack ability, but because we fear acknowledging we've wasted years chasing someone else's ambition. A relationship ends, and we don't say, “I never loved them,” we say, “It just wasn’t the right time.” Truth is stripped for parts and reassembled into a more palatable fiction.

Caution is the anesthetic. The illusion of wisdom we wear when we don’t want to confront our own cowardice. We hide behind it like children playing dead in the presence of a truth too large to bear. It feels safe, but safety is often just prolonged suffering disguised as prudence.

The real question is: What are you calling risk today that is really just a truth you're not ready to accept?

The house you won't sell. The business you won't start. The goodbye you won't say. Are they dangerous decisions, or are they merely disobedient to the life you've built on pretense?

We’ve turned fear into strategy, and hesitation into virtue. We worship the calculated, the conservative, the controlled. But control is just another mask, a comfort blanket made of spreadsheets and predictions. The kind of armor you wear not to survive, but to avoid becoming who you were meant to be.

There is no formula that absolves you from the cost of truth. Every authentic act burns the bridges that lead back to delusion. So we call them risky. And we wait. For permission. For certainty. For disappointment.

Maybe risk isn't the enemy. Maybe it's just the name we give to truths loud enough to shatter the silence we’ve grown too fond of.