Do You Have the Courage to Live a Life True to Yourself?

Star Date: 06.07.25

Brace yourself. This is a tough question. You can answer it today, or you can wait until you are near the end of your time here on this planet.

According to Bronnie Ware, author of The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, this is number one on the list:
“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

When I first read that, I had to sit with it. Let it sink in.

How many of us have spent our days striving to please others? To meet expectations—spoken and unspoken—that we never really chose? We trade authenticity for approval, dreams for duty, passion for predictability. And slowly, quietly, our true selves drift into the shadows.

I've been spending time working on courage. Not the flashy kind that runs into burning buildings, but the quiet courage that whispers: This is who I am. This is what I’m made for. This is the life God is calling me to live.

So I’m asking myself—and asking you:
What part of you have you hidden away to keep others comfortable?
What dream have you delayed out of fear it might make waves?
What truth are you aching to speak, but haven’t found the words—or the bravery—yet?

Ware's book reminds us that when people reach the end of their lives, what rises to the surface is often not what they did, but what they didn’t do. The songs they never sang. The stories they never told. The love they never expressed. The life they never fully lived.

But here's the good news: we’re not at the end yet. We have today.

So maybe today is the day you take one small step back toward your truest self. Maybe you pick up the brush, dust off the journal, send the message, ask the hard question, say yes to something that scares you just enough to mean you're alive.

Living true to yourself doesn’t mean walking alone—it means walking in alignment with your purpose, your Creator, and the calling that has been stitched into your soul from the beginning.

Let’s choose courage—not later, but now.

You and me, friend. We’re in this together. Let’s live with such honesty and heart that when our time comes, we won’t say, I wish I had... but rather, I’m so glad I did.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.”
—Jeremiah 29:11