As I sit here and think of two people who have had a presence in my life and their current battles for survival and wellness, I cry tears of sadness for the struggles I know nothing about, but can only imagine. My tears are for their weight in the battle and for their family’s and closest friend’s weight as well. One word comes to my mind during this process; and that is courage. What it must take in strength and all else to stand up to a formidable foe. Thank God they are not alone in their battles. Of course, if we all learn to share, no matter what, then none of us are really alone in our battles. But I digress.
As Merriam-Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary puts it, courage is the “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty”. Sometimes when we know others are fighting battles like these, we can think ourselves not to be courageous at all. Matter of fact, I wrote something a long time ago about how weak I felt I was. It sometimes is a daily struggle to not feel this way. I would suppose this to be true for all of us. The joy of life, when we share it, is there is always someone, even when we think there is not, to share our burdens with, to help us carry our load, or to lift us up and show us how courageous we really are.
We often equate courage to heroic events or types of people. For example, the people who give their lives, in events such as mass shootings or terrorist attacks, to protect someone they love or complete strangers. Or firefighters doing their jobs running into the blaze to try to control it, when everyone else is running out. Our military, who most say are courageous just simply for volunteering to protect and defend our Constitution and way of life. These are all great examples of courage. They are all very easy to see and define. I want to talk, however, about the word on a broader scale; on a day-to-day – you and me scale.
I have friends that live in places where crimes happen nearly every minute. To me they are courageous for simply living in that situation. They also are courageous in their battle to try to better themselves so as to not stay there. The people who willingly live there and stay there in their attempts to bring change to these places for sure are courageous. A marathon runner who feels like dropping to the ground at mile 20, but continues on to finish the race; you guessed it courageous. I could go on indefinitely in my examples of what courage looks like. And I know you could add many more as well.
Courage, however, is not who we are, but rather what we become in those moments when we make the choice to stand up to an adversary. For each one of us that adversary could have a very different meaning. I become courageous when I put myself out here as I struggle to find confidence. Those who are tongue-tied become courageous when they stand in front of us to let their voice be heard. The boy in grade school who finally stands up to the bully; courage. We may even be shocked that the bully became that way because he was trying to stand up or survive a bigger bully. And as unpopular as this is going to be for me to say, when the world is standing and you kneel to be heard, there is courage in that as well.
So today before we let our strong opinions get in our way, and by the way there is definitely courage in letting some of those go, maybe we can take a moment to think about what thing we did today that required us to have our own courage. After that, maybe whether we like the way it was used or not, we can recognize the use of it in others. If nothing else, we should be able to find some common ground in that we all have it and we all use it.
I always ask you to participate in this journey so that we can get to know each other. I know you participate by reading, and hope one day your participation will add commenting. I will truly love when that day comes. So if it be today that you found your voice, let us know, what required you to have courage today? or how did you apply it in your daily life? Inquiring minds really do want to know.
I find it takes a bit of courage and helps other people greatly to talk about the proverbial elephant in the room. To approach an uncomfortable subject and let the other person in the room know it’s o.k. to talk about “it”, whatever it may be. Last month I had a client in the office who was working desperately to fix her credit so she could buy a new home. I approached the subject without judgement, without assumptions. Most people assume bad credit is due to financial irresponsibility. In this particular case, the client fought through cancer and had to file bankruptcy as a result of massive medical bills. I let her know I didn’t care the reason for or her financial situation, but rather was there to help fix things so she could move forward in her life. She was thankful I opened up the conversation and it helped ease her stress so that we could work toward a mutual goal with a positive end result. I do think it takes a bit of courage to open the dialogue despite the awkwardness in doing so. We closed last week on her new home. Following the closing she gave me a big hug and thanked me for not judging her and for helping her to meet her goals.