I was recently listening to this interview of Erika Cheung by Maya Shankar on her podcast A Slight Change of Plans. When asked how she was able to take the step to call in Theranos on their unethical practices despite the legal ramifications, the global Theranos bandwagon and her own doubts, she said this.

(paraphrased)

The idea of knowing what I knew and having not done anything… , and I didn’t do anything, like, that’s the real prison, right?… . Like, that’s the real purgatory, right.? To sit with yourself and to realize that you didn’t push it forward. So it just… for me, that that was a much worse reality.

Opportunities for courage don’t come in black-and-white moments with crystal clarity of right vs wrong. Neither do they come in the backdrop of majority support. Rather they live in those fuzzy every day phases of life when we have a vague inkling of something violating our principles. If we don’t speak up, it is just another day / month / year that the wrong lives on. It’s how slavery and sexual harassment survived for so long.

What differentiates those who speak out from the rest is that they question – the facts, assumptions, ethics – and they don’t fear the answers.