In Search of Courage

"After a brutal evening trying to network amongst a conference hall of strangers, I wrote an email to my Jennifer: "It zapped my energy just trying to maintain such a faade. I describe myself lately as puny, timid, socially regressive - basically fragile. I've never prided myself as a social butterfly. But lately I feel more like a social wallflower, unable to hold even basic conversations let alone to strike up a discussion of any depth.

Realizing the depressed tone of my letter and not wanting to scare Jennifer from halfway around the world, I tried to reassure her: "However, I must emphasize, I'm okay. I'm not going off the deep end." But in reality I felt like I was. In the pit of my stomach, I was scared. I felt like I was losing my use of basic logic and communication skills. I was overcome by fear every day: of people, of losing, of speaking, of being quiet, of not providing, of not being enough, of not being courageous."

Are you shy, reserved, introverted?  Are you frustrated by forced socializing?  Do you feel you have to pretend to be someone else?

In the Award-Winning (March 2020 NonFiction Authors Association Book Awards Program) memoir, In Search of Courage, author Steve Friedman shares his struggles both at work and at home.  His long path to overcome countless roadblocks is both "heart-wrenching and heartbreaking."