A wise man once said, "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."
Courage and bravery are the qualities of mind or spirit that enable a person to face difficulty without fear. Bravery and courage takes many forms. Without courage you cannot love, believe, forgive, be charitable, or have hopes. You must be true to your vision that has been assigned by God, or whatever name you call your higher power. It has been said that the brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all. As we see in the news on a daily basis, moral bravery is much more difficult and a truer courage.
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it. -- Thucydides
Come out of your comfort zone. Take a deep breath and jump! Just do it! Don't have any regrets. It is better to have tried and failed, then to never have tried at all. The anticipation is always worse than the actual event. Read that sentence again, because it resonates with many as the reason why they decide NOT to do something. The worry gets the best of them. Everything happens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person. "If only," must be the two saddest words in the world. Keep in mind, when one door closes another door opens. For some, they can only focus on the closed door and never embrace the door that has just opened in front of them. Believe that everything contributes to your success and use everything as a learning experience. Focus on solutions, not problems. Trust your feelings and intuitions and things will fall into place as surely as a new day will dawn. Lucille Ball once said, "I'm not funny. What I am is brave!” Think about that. I think of her episodes, one in particular, where she and Ethel are working at the chocolate factory. I still laugh out loud and believe she was funny, but I do agree with her, she was extremely brave. It took a lot of bravery to accomplish what she did. She had her ups and her downs but in the end, she triumphed.
I try to live my life embodying the values of family, courage, determination and grace. Each smile, each touch, each kindness offered, always trying to mirror the grace of god. I always say looking up at the sky, "God if you want this, just tell me, and I will oblige." God has blessed me and I am thankful for this! I have learned that you can overcome all problems if you simply learn to have confidence in yourself. A hard lesson for me has been to love myself. This life lesson has ultimately led me into trusting in myself. I am not always the most popular person, but I am often forced into a position where I need to make the tough decisions. These decisions I struggle with, but know I do it to benefit the situation. Yes, it would be much easier to work for someone else, but ultimately, I don't think that I would be happy in that scenario. My advice is to risk all. If it is something that you want to do, then dare to try. Have the courage to try. I can't emphasize that enough, because It always comes back to courage. Courage is the power to let go of the familiar. To live with fear and not be afraid is the final test of maturity. This is the stage of life that I am entering. I say to myself, "If you made it through the last year and a half, you can live through anything!" In life you must take chances or you'll miss out on a lot of opportunities. In closing, this is a quote from one of my father's favorite heroes of his time - John Wayne. "Courage is being scared to death....and saddling up anyway."
Namaste
