A Moment When I Had to Be Brave Personal
Narrative
The fluorescent lights of the corporate bathroom hummed with a sickly, yellow intensity. I
was gripping the edges of the porcelain sink so hard my knuckles were entirely white. It
was 3:00 PM on a Thursday, and I had just realized that a single, transposed decimal point
in the financial projections I submitted for a multi-million dollar merger was going to cost
my firm roughly three hundred thousand dollars. The contract was currently sitting on the
managing partner's desk, waiting for a final signature at 4:00 PM.
I had two choices. I could say nothing. The error was buried deep in appendix C. It was
highly likely that nobody would notice until the quarterly reconciliation months from now,
at which point the blame could easily be diffused among a dozen different analysts and
automated software glitches. It was the safe, cowardly, and incredibly tempting route.
The second choice was to walk the fifty yards down the hallway, knock on the heavy
glass door of a man who was notorious for his ruthless, volcanic temper, and admit that I
was entirely incompetent. I felt physically ill. My heart was a frantic drum in my ears, and
my mouth tasted like copper. We are often taught that bravery is a cinematic, instinctual
leap into danger to save someone else. Nobody warns you that the most common form of
bravery is simply the agonizing decision to willingly detonate your own life to preserve
your integrity.
I splashed cold water on my face, dried my hands on a scratchy paper towel, and
walked out into the hallway. Every step felt like wading through wet cement. The fifty yards
to the corner office felt like a miles-long march to the gallows. When I reached his door, my
hand hovered over the glass handle for a long, pathetic moment. I wanted to turn around. I
desperately wanted to go back to my cubicle and hide.
I pushed the door open.
He didn't look up from his monitor when I walked in. "This better be quick," he
snapped. I stood perfectly still, my voice shaking so badly I barely recognized it, and I told
