Title: COURAGE

courage, courageousness, bravery -- (a quality of spirit that enables you to face danger of pain without showing fear)

When things go wrong as they sometimes will;
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill;
When the funds are low, and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but have to sigh;
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but do not quit.
Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you can never tell how close you are It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit-
It's when things go wrong that you must not quit.


Courage, contrary to popular belief, is not the absence of fear. Courage is the wisdom to act in spite of fear.

Let's not be afraid. It's time to dream BIG. We never know what we can accomplish until we dare to try. To risk takes courage and determination. Knowing what we want, having goals and not being deterred by others' opinions gives a special force to our existence.

Going as far as we can provides our lives with momentum and we discover our capabilities. There are lots of exciting adventures out there waiting for us to explore. We just need to find the courage to begin. Our lives can be more exciting, more fulfilling. The barriers we have erected to insulate ourselves can sometimes get in our own way. We can break free.

A lot has to do with our attitude. Those who move through their lives as positive people are probably more comfortable with circumstances they encounter. They are more open and have more flexibility and calm. If most of our daily thoughts are negative they will reflect how we experience life. We can take our power back.
What does courage mean to you? Do you think of the firefighters who lost their lives in the World Trade Center towers? Do you think of the men and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq?

What about the courage to admit a mistake? Or the courage to stop someone from hurting you? Or the courage to stand up for what you believe? Or the courage to just be yourself?

Yes, all those things take courage, but all of those things also have something else in common. Do you think any one of those things can be accomplished without feeling some fear? No. There cannot be courage without fear.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment or decision that something else is more important than the fear. Courage is what you do IN SPITE of the fear, in spite of the resistance, in spite of what you want right now.

But you don't have to show the kind of courage that it takes to get on the 6:00 news. You can show courage every day. It takes courage to go against "that's just the way it is."; or "what can I do about it?", or "I've always been this way"; or "They won't let me...".

Courage is deciding not to put your current desires above your desires for the future. Courage is deciding there's something more important.

For me, courage brings to mind the Bible story of David fighting Goliath. In order to get into the Promise Land, David had to fight his giant. Don't you image he had something else he would have rather done that day? Fighting a giant wasn't likely at the top of his list. But he chose not to put his current desire over his true desire. In order to get into your own personal promise land, you'll have to have courage to stand up to your personal giants too.

It takes courage to end an unhealthy relationship.

It takes courage to quit an unfulfilling job.

It takes courage to say No to someone who is using you.

It takes courage to set up a new spending plan.

It takes courage to say Yes to your dreams when it means putting your self-esteem out there for the whole world to see (well, that's relative, but you know what I mean).

It takes courage to reorganize your time so that you spend it on what is most meaningful to you.

It takes courage to ask for what you need and want in your life.

It takes courage to be honest.


Courage doesn't mean that you don't recognize the difficulty of the task. Not at all. It does mean that you are willing to do it anyway, to push yourself out of the comfort zone, to give it a try. Courage is standing up to whatever mental-emotional-physical "Giant" is in your life. Resolve to live in such a way that courage, not fear, directs your life. Resolve to determine your own worth, not let someone else decide it for you. Resolve to stop working hard to build someone else's dreams. It's time to find the courage to take your future into your own hands.

Start to dream again. We did it often as children. Our imaginations ran as wild as we did. It's time to unwrap our cocoon and burst out into the sunlight. So often we are timid, afraid of what others might think about us or our choices. Let's shed the fear like an old skin embracing the new, the adventurous. Life passes at a seemingly faster pace as we get older. Let's promise ourselves not to waste another moment worrying about how others view us. It's how we view ourselves that is the most important.

What are your fears and how are they preventing you from reaching your dreams? By listing or naming your fears you can bring them into the light thereby reducing their powerful charge. Here are some tips and perspectives for looking at fear and turn it into an opportunity for growth and action:

1. Is your fear to move forward based on what has happened in the past or what could happen in the future? The worst that can happen to us (now) is a thought. Most of what we fear never actually happens. If you really think about it, It’s our thoughts about what we experience that causes us the most pain.

2. Negative events can truly become the catalyst for positive change and learning. Try reframing your negative experience into a powerful learning opportunity. See if you can find the “gift” or silver lining in a situation that has been difficult.

3. Watch your inner dialogue. What are you telling yourself? Try keeping a journal for a day on all the fearful or negative thoughts you have. At the end of the day, look at each thought and ask yourself if these thoughts are even true. Then remind yourself of what IS true.

4. Check out the book “Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers. The idea is to turn fear and indecision into confidence and action. You can’t eliminate fear but you can turn it into an ally. Learn the territory of fear. Make friends with it. Teach yourself to breathe deeply and move from victim hood to being the champion of your life.

It’s your life…imagine the possibilities!

I’ve thought a lot about courage in the last few years. And what I’ve come to realize is that behind courage is a greater emotion still, and that emotion, not surprisingly, is love.

Think about it. Think of the infantryman who throws himself onto a hand grenade. Perhaps love of country brought him to that time and place. Certainly he loved his family, his wife and children. And more than that, even, he loved his own life, his chance to watch his sons grow into honorable manhood, to give his daughter away in a small church on a Sunday morning. All of this love may have given him the courage to come to the place where he would face that grenade, but it was his love of his buddies that overcame all of that in that one instant where the heart rules the mind and courage rises unbidden from its mysterious, deep harbor.

Actions like these, time and time again, leave me speechless and dumbfounded. And yet they are commonplace in times of great peril. I have sat in silent awe of the firemen that rushed into those buildings – and of all the firemen, everywhere, that do it every day. I think of passengers on an airliner who would, in that one moment of desperate courage, decide on the spot to fight hardened murderers who had spiritually and psychologically prepared themselves for years, to advance on their slashing box cutters, to break into the cockpit and push those controls forward, to stop the men from righting the plane, kicking and biting and punching as the ground filled the windows. I think of that kind of courage and am struck mute at the love those people bore for the rest of us. I gape in awe, like I did that day when I was a little girl, at the kind of society that can generate that common courage.

And in this imperfect, flawed nation of ours, perhaps more than anywhere else on earth, I think about the courage it takes to be poor, to face that sickening knot of worry and despair that comes with not having the money to pay your bills. For there is no more steady and enduring courage than that of a poor family, especially a single parent, who fights a never-ending battle of brutal hours at miserable pay, of perennially unrealized dreams, and of the desperate, numb agony of disappointed children. For people like that, who force themselves to work two jobs while we sleep, to avoid the temptations of crime and dependency while surrounded by luxury and wealth the likes of which man has never known…well, that is dogged courage of a sublime nature that passes all understanding.

 

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