I’ve never really followed the royals, beyond the awareness that my day job requires, but I haven’t been able to get Meghan Markle’s speech to the graduating class at Immaculate Heart High School out of my head. This year has been challenging on all fronts, and I’ve been trying to take more time to listen, process, sink into uncomfortable conversations and act mindfully.

I’m not great at that—I tend to clam up during conflict and try to do whatever I can to smooth things over, fast. And that’s what got me about Markle’s speech.

“I wasn’t sure what I could say to you. I wanted to say the right thing and I was really nervous that I wouldn’t or that it would get picked apart,” she begins. “I realized the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing because George Floyd’s life mattered, and Breonna Taylor’s life mattered, and Philando Castile’s life mattered, and Tamir Rice’s life mattered. And so did so many other people whose names we know and whose names we do not know. Stefan Clark, his life mattered.”

It’s so easy to want to project yourself as knowing and doing the right things at all times that you stay silent. I know in the past, that’s been true for me. But the line that really resonated with me was the advice one of her teachers gave her in high school: “Always remember to put others’ needs above your own fears.” Oof. Yes. It was the medicine I didn’t know I needed to take.

All too often, I’ve let my fear—of failing, of what other people might think, of criticism, you name it—keep me from taking a stand. I get so focused on being completely informed before speaking up that I avoid speaking altogether. Which is strange, because my approach to the rest of my life has been “progress over perfection,” where I take a leap without knowing how I’ll get to the over side. I figure it out as I go along, using my mistakes as chances to learn. But when it comes to my reputation (or the perception of it), it seems that was too precious to risk. Well, no more. I’m going to say or do the wrong things sometimes, but I will learn from it. To be better as a society, we need to put ourselves out there. Try. Do. Fail. Grow. Pivot. Try again.

I don’t have the answers, but I’m reading, listening, learning, and I do know this: Black lives matter.