Daily writing prompt

What’s something you used to believe as a kid that seems ridiculous now?

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One of the biggest lies I carried from childhood into adulthood was the idea that “pain is weakness leaving the body.” It sounded noble. Tough. Almost heroic. So whenever I got hurt, the response was automatic: “I’m good.” “I’m alright.” Even when I clearly wasn’t.

For a lot of us, especially boys, toughness wasn’t just encouraged—it was expected. You learned quickly that admitting pain invited commentary you didn’t want. Soft. Wimp. Pansy. Those words had a way of policing masculinity long before most of us understood what masculinity even was.

That mindset followed me long after childhood. It’s funny how beliefs like that become part of your internal code. Once they’re written in, they’re hard to erase. I rarely asked for help because somewhere in the back of my mind, needing it meant I was somehow less than. It pushes you to be tough all the time, to be the strongest, the fastest, the one who never complains. The problem is you’re competing against a version of yourself that doesn’t exist, chasing rules nobody ever bothered to explain. You spend years trying to win a game without realizing it was rigged from the start.

The funny part is that some of those insults never made much sense to me. “Stop acting like a girl” was supposed to be the ultimate put-down, yet I grew up knowing plenty of girls and women who could outrun, outwork, and outfight half the guys making that joke. The insult always seemed built on an assumption that reality kept disproving.

And then there’s my all-time favorite: “namby-pamby.”

Seriously… what the hell is a namby-pamby?

I lose it every time I hear it. It’s impossible to say with a straight face. It sounds less like an insult and more like the name of a children’s breakfast cereal or a forgotten cartoon character.

Looking back, the ridiculous part wasn’t the saying itself. It was believing that strength meant pretending pain didn’t exist. Real strength isn’t refusing to acknowledge you’re hurt. It’s knowing when to endure, when to ask for help, and when to say, “Yeah… that actually hurts.”

Turns out pain isn’t weakness leaving the body.

Sometimes it’s your body trying its hardest to keep you from breaking.

Or, in language that leaves absolutely no room for interpretation, the wisest advice my body has ever given me.

“Sit your ass down.”