Show Them Your Light

Why the most important part of any journey is the impression we leave behind.

I was out walking Chase a few days before I left for Australia, juggling his leash, a cup of coffee, and a poop bag, when I remembered a text that came in from my sister-in-law the previous day. It was about my niece. She’d just started college in Canada and was struggling. Not with her classes, but with making friends, feeling a palpable chill the moment people realized she was American. She was being judged not for who she was, but for a loud, angry caricature of our country she didn’t represent.

This is the moment this story began—a simple video recorded on my phone, which would follow me all the way to Australia.

My hands were full, so I recorded a video response. I thought about the advice I could give her, and my mind went back to my own past. I told them about coming out as a gay man in Minneapolis in the late 90s, a time when the media’s portrayal of our community was often a hurtful stereotype. We learned then that we couldn’t hide or get angry. Our only path forward was to put our best, most authentic selves out there, unapologetically. To show people, one person at a time, that we were just good people wanting to lead the best lives we could.

The labels change. A gay man in the 90s, an American student today. The challenge is the same. It’s the weight of a reputation you didn’t earn. My advice was built on that simple, hard-won idea. I ended the video with the most important part, speaking to her mother. “Maybe she just needs to show them her light,” I said.

It was the only advice I had, because it was the only thing I knew to be true. It was the hard-won lesson from my own past. You can’t fight a caricature with anger; anger just reinforces their assumptions. You can’t reason with a reputation; it isn’t rational. All you can do is stand in your own truth. You let your actions, your kindness, your simple, decent humanity, be the first thing people see. You just... show them your light, and trust that it’s bright enough to burn through the shadows of what they think they see.

A few days later, I was standing under the harsh fluorescent lights of the Brisbane airport. The exhaustion of a fifteen-hour flight had settled deep in my bones. The familiar sound of Aussie accents hummed all around me, but for the first time in a long time, I was the one with the foreign accent. I walked up to the shuttle counter and slid my passport onto the cool laminate. When the woman behind the desk looked up, her expression was instantly familiar. It was a look of weary, practiced dismissal.

Arriving in Brisbane, exhausted from the flight and about to have my own advice tested.

Or did she? In that split second, a wave of defensiveness washed over me, followed by a rush of doubt. Was that look really for me, the American tourist she’d sized up in an instant? Or was I just projecting my own anxieties about traveling in a world so saturated with our political turmoil? My mind raced. For a brief, stinging moment, I wanted to meet her perceived frustration with my own.

But the words I had spoken about my niece were still fresh. Maybe she just needs to show them her light. I had a choice.

I took a quiet breath, consciously relaxed my posture, and let the sting of my own uncertainty go. I looked at her, offered a genuine smile, and made sure my tone was warm when I spoke. It wasn’t about the words I used, but about the energy I chose to bring to that counter. The shift was subtle, but immediate. The tension in her shoulders eased, a flicker of warmth replaced the weariness in her eyes, and her own voice, when she replied, was kind.

The face of a traveler on the long flight home. Reflecting on the small, hard-won moments that end up defining the entire trip.

As I walked away from the counter, a single word popped into my head: ambassador. I realized then what the real work of an adventurer felt like. It wasn’t about the miles I’d traveled, but how I chose to navigate the small space between two people. In a moment like that, I could be my own quiet ambassador. My only job was to show them my light, to let it be the first thing they saw, hoping it was bright enough to reveal the person behind the images they see on the news. And I walked away thinking that perhaps that was the only real way I could represent where I’m from.

-R. Michael

These are the small, quiet moments on the road that end up defining the journey for me. I’d love to hear any thoughts that came up for you while reading.