The Audacity of Movement

There’s a quote often attributed to Woody Allen: “Showing up is half the battle.”

As someone who has been trying and testing things my entire life, I can pinpoint the first time I intentionally experimented with that idea. It was in high school, the place I hated most. And I mean hated. To this day, if I wake up from a nightmare, I’m usually trapped in a classroom, surrounded by students, listening to a lecture, wondering how I fucked up badly enough that I ended up back in school chasing a degree.

School and education are adjacent terms, not synonyms.

I dropped out of CSU, UNC, and AIMS. I hate school. That’s important context, because it also means I rarely did homework. If I’m generous, I probably did homework a dozen times total.

But not doing the work came with a price. Anxiety. Shame. That dread that builds in your stomach the night before something is due. The dread that makes you “sick” so you can avoid the whole thing. I used to play ill constantly. Anything to sidestep that moment where the teacher asks for homework and you have nothing.

During that time, I was devouring self-help books. I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere, even though I got along with everyone. Somewhere in those books was an idea that stuck with me: own whatever moment you’re in. The reality of the outcome is almost always less terrifying than the version your mind invents.

So I made a decision:
If I was going to fail, I was at least going to show up honestly.

I’d walk into class with little to no work done.

“Pablo, where’s your homework?”

“I worked last night and didn’t get to finish it.”

And the catastrophe I expected, the ridicule, the disappointment, the shame... never came. Instead, it was usually, “Alright, do what you can and get it to me by the end of class.”

The traumatic moment I had built up in my head simply didn’t exist. A solution appeared because I showed up. The fear only lived in the avoidance.

This wasn’t an overnight transformation. I still skipped school. When I turned 18, I started signing myself out anytime I didn’t want to face a class. But slowly, showing up became the easier option. And every time I walked in unprepared but honest, there was some kind of path forward, sometimes a small alternative, sometimes a collaborative fix.

The days I avoided things were always worse. Calling in sick didn’t create solutions; showing up did.

At some point, this grew into something larger. I became fascinated with how much negativity I could neutralize just by stepping into the moment and not only for myself, but for others.

A student would drop a beaker in chemistry. The teacher would turn, furious, demanding to know who did it. Silence. Nobody wanted to claim it.

So I would.

From across the room, I’d raise my hand:
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention and must’ve knocked it over.”

The teacher knew it wasn’t me. But it broke the tension. It interrupted the spiral.

“Pablo, you’re not even near it. You didn’t do it. Now whoever did, be more careful and someone grab a broom.”

It’s a small example, but I’ve found it works throughout life for two reasons:

1. It prevents rage or fear from building into something heavier.
2. It gives assertive people what they need: a starting point. A direction. A decision.

The real danger in school, in work, in relationships, in life, isn’t being wrong. It’s the stagnation that grows in the absence of movement. Avoidance breeds deterioration. It feeds on silence, indecision, and imagined catastrophes.

Movement can be forward or backward, loud or quiet. Sometimes movement is simply deciding not to move. But it has to be a decision, an ownership of the moment, not an escape from it.

It is the audacity to show up, to take responsibility, to decide, that creates change.

And somehow, that has always been enough to get me to the next step.