Inspiring Change Every Day with Grace
I Have Something to Say
You explain yourself all the time, even to people who don’t deserve to know why. You explain the decisions you make, the dreams you chase, and even the pauses you take to rest.
There’s this lingering feeling that if you don’t clarify, justify, or prove something, someone out there will get the wrong idea or worse, assume the worst.
You’re not being dramatic. It’s a pressure a lot of us have grown into without knowing it had a name. It’s the temptation to constantly explain or prove yourself to the world, and it can be exhausting.
Many of us learned this early. Maybe you had to defend your choices at the dinner table growing up or explain your silence in a classroom. You were either too quiet or too loud.
You didn’t just fail a test, you had to explain why. You didn’t just decline a hangout, you had to justify it so you wouldn’t seem rude.
Over time, this habit creeps in and settles like a reflex: Explain first, exist later. Even when no one asks, we volunteer answers just in case. It’s a form of self-protection that begins to feel like self-erasure.
What’s tricky is that the urge often disguises itself as humility or politeness. But look closer and you’ll find fear dressed in manners. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of not being enough. Fear of being labeled cold, distant, ungrateful, arrogant, or worse. And in the attempt to control those narratives, we overexplain, overshare, over-defend.
We water ourselves down to be digestible, palatable and in the process, we sometimes forget the richness of who we really are when no one’s watching.
And let’s be honest, some people genuinely won’t get you. Not because you’re too complicated, but because they’re committed to misunderstanding you.
Their curiosity isn’t genuine; it’s performance. Their questions are hooks for judgment. Trying to satisfy those minds is like trying to quench thirst with dust. You’ll talk and twist and explain until you’re worn out, and still, they’ll walk away with their own version of you.
But here’s the truth: you don’t owe everyone an explanation. Boundaries aren’t walls, they’re wisdom. Knowing when to speak and when to stay silent is strength.
Choosing peace over approval doesn’t make you cold, it makes you free, and freedom is quiet. It walks into the room and doesn’t need to prove that it belongs there. It just is.
People who know you, really know you, won’t need a play-by-play of your every move. They trust your heart. They honour your rhythm, and when you find those people or become one of them yourself, suddenly, the urge to explain starts to fade.
It doesn’t mean you’ll never feel the temptation again. But it means when it shows up, you’ll know better than to chase it.
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