The sun doesn’t check the time before it rises. It doesn’t peek around to see who’s awake, who’s ready, or who’s paying attention. It shows up because that’s what it does. Every single day. No permission required.
Somewhere along the way, we start believing we should do the opposite. We wait. We lower our voice. We soften our opinions. We hold back our ideas because the room feels quiet, or cautious, or not quite ready. We tell ourselves, now isn’t the moment, they won’t get it yet, maybe later. And little by little, we dim our own light.
Most people around you aren’t asleep because they’re lazy or unaware. They’re just comfortable in the dark they know. Change takes effort. Growth asks questions. Light reveals things we might not be ready to see yet. So when you show up fully—curious, hopeful, ambitious, kind, different—it can feel unsettling to those still figuring things out.
That discomfort isn’t a signal for you to shrink. It’s often a sign that you’re early.
Being early can feel lonely. You talk about ideas others haven’t considered. You feel urgency where others feel none. You see possibility while the rest of the room is still rubbing its eyes. It’s tempting to slow down, to blend in, to wait until there’s applause or validation or at least a few nodding heads. But light isn’t meant to wait. Its job is to illuminate, not to convince.
Think about how often you’ve been inspired not by someone who waited for the perfect moment, but by someone who simply went first. They didn’t have all the answers. They weren’t universally understood. But their willingness to shine gave others permission to wake up. Your light can do the same, even if you never see it happen.
There’s also a quieter truth here: dimming yourself doesn’t actually make things easier. It just makes you smaller. And over time, that shrinking comes at a cost. You feel it in the hesitation before you speak. In the ideas you keep to yourself. In the exhaustion of pretending you’re less than you are. The world doesn’t benefit from that version of you, and neither do you.
Shining doesn’t mean being loud or flashy or constantly visible. It can be steady. Consistent. Grounded. It can look like doing good work when no one’s watching, choosing integrity when shortcuts are easier, or staying hopeful in spaces that thrive on cynicism. Light takes many forms, and all of them matter.
Some people will wake up because of you. Some won’t. That’s not your responsibility. Your responsibility is simpler and harder at the same time: don’t dim what was never meant to be hidden.
The sun rises whether the world is ready or not. And eventually, the world adjusts. Let that be your cue. Shine anyway.
Kenrick Vaz 