They’ll try to punish you. Which is why, day in, day out, you have to defy them. You have to be combative. You have to be determined. You have to be confident. No, that’s not how this is going to go. No, what you’re proposing is not “best for everybody.” No, I am not going to keep my mouth shut. No, this isn’t over. No, I’m not going to “tone myself down.” They’re going to call you crazy—because courage is crazy. We have to be willing to look that way, to be true to who we are anyway. We can’t just not be afraid to be ourselves. We have to insist on it.
