This piece is inspired by flustered moments sometimes experienced by actors who may feel overwhelmed by having to insist on facts, rather than speculation, half or non-truths, and so on.

Facts by definition refers to truth around evidence of something. Facts are sometimes referred to as “hard” to emphasize their unshakable nature. While expressing my frustration and exhaustion at the prospect of painfully expending precious energy defending things that are clearly undeniable, a colleague once quietly said to me,

“the facts are clear, people have just chosen to deny them”.

That was my turning point. The choice that we make as individuals to deny facts for one reason or the other should have nothing to do with the person that has delivered them.

As very aptly expounded in Mel Robbins’ “Let them” theory, it is important to realise that at some point, we may have to let people make choices and also that changing their choice is again, largely up to them, especially when the facts are before them.

My exhaustion turned into good energy and I broke into a quiet, slow smile in my alone time, celebrating what I had just cracked!

Next time we are faced with what may seem like a brick wall, let it be stationed where it is and use progressive ways of getting over or around it, having established that it’s not going anywhere. Let it be a brick wall.

Let’s make the world better and define healthy boundaries between what we can and cannot control.