Ain’t That A VHIT
By Von C. Howard
I had to come to an uncomfortable realization: some of the obstacles in my life weren’t placed there by systems, circumstances, or other people. I was building them myself.
Not intentionally. Not out of fear I could easily name. Brick by brick, thought by thought, decision by decision, I was quietly becoming a master contractor, constructing walls that started as protection and slowly turned into barriers. What once felt like wisdom eventually became something that kept me standing still.
At first, I told myself I was being careful. I called it preparation. I said I was waiting on the right time. In reality, I was often waiting because moving forward meant risking disappointment again. Somewhere along the way, patience became procrastination, and preparation became an excuse to stay put.
This mindset showed up at home. I avoided difficult conversations because I didn’t want tension. I chose peacekeeping over truth-telling. I told myself silence was maturity, when sometimes it was simply avoidance. What I thought was protecting relationships may have been preventing deeper connection.
It showed up at work, too. I second-guessed ideas that came naturally to me. I waited for everything to be perfect before speaking up. I passed on opportunities because I wasn’t sure I was fully ready, even when others clearly believed I was. While I was busy overthinking, I didn’t realize I was also undercutting my own growth.
In church, I hid behind spiritual language. I told myself I was waiting on God, when God may have already been waiting on me. I hesitated to step into spaces I once prayed to enter, largely because past hurt made caution feel safer than trust.
In my community, the wall looked like hesitation. I cared deeply, but I didn’t always step forward. I held back from collaboration because I had been burned before. Being tired quietly turned into being stuck.
Then there were the people who saw something in me that I didn’t fully see in myself, mentors, elders, colleagues, loved ones. They encouraged me and spoke life over me. Instead of receiving it, I deflected it. I didn’t realize that rejecting their belief was also rejecting the possibility that they might be right.
I’m still learning. And one of the biggest lessons has been realizing that the walls I built slowly won’t come down overnight. They have to be deconstructed the same way they were constructed: intentionally, patiently, and honestly. Brick by brick.
Not every wall needs to be torn down, but every wall deserves to be examined. Some were built for seasons that have already passed. Others were created out of survival, not purpose.
I share this not because I have it all figured out, but in the hope that someone else pauses before becoming a master builder of a wall that may be hard to climb over later. Life doesn’t always require us to be fearless, but it does require us to be honest about when we are protecting ourselves and when we are preventing ourselves.
And sometimes, that honesty is the first brick we remove.