Truth does not wait until we are ready

Accountability is uncomfortable in a way that almost nothing else is.

It asks you to stay in the room with truths you would rather not know.

It asks you to let go of the story you’ve been holding — the one where the adults were in control, the systems were sound, the guardrails were real.

It asks you to see what you didn’t want to see.

And the body reacts first.

Not the mind.

A quiet instinct to look away, scroll, distract, explain, soften.

Because accountability means:

If this really happened,

if the leak was approved,

if the oversight failed,

Then something in us must change.

Not them.

Us.

Accountability is uncomfortable because it threatens identity.

It forces the question:

Who are we, if the story we told ourselves about our own competence, purpose, and leadership is no longer true?

Accountability isn’t anger.

Anger is easy.

Accountability is the nausea of realization.

Accountability is the moment when you know you can’t go back to not knowing.

And it is tempting to avoid it.

To say: “Later. After the war. When things settle.”

But systems do not fix themselves.

Truth does not wait until we are ready.

We do not have to have answers yet.

We do not have to have solutions.

We do not have to know what happens next.

We just have to stay here — in the discomfort — long enough to not lie to ourselves again.

That is the beginning.

Not the end.

We have a lot of questions about that time. We deserve answers even if they are hard to get and hard to swallow.