Inspiration – If You Look, You’ll Find It.
In The Face Of Fear
For most people, the words “bravery” and “courage” are synonymous. You can find these words paired together in any English thesaurus. Most would say they both mean “bold,” “daring,” “grit” and “moxie” (just to share a few synonyms). However, I have discovered bravery and courage are two words with one noteworthy difference. Bravery is the ability to confront danger, even pain, in the face of pressure without the feeling of fear. Being brave is an absolute strength of character that allows people to be fearless in the face of danger. It doesn’t matter if they are bigger than the crisis, or the crisis is bigger than them. Brave people move forward because it’s in their genes, DNA, and blood.
Courage is the ability to take on difficulties and pain, despite the fear. All of which are necessary for this state and unavoidable. Courage is more than a character trait; it’s a state of mind. When the struggle within is greater than the external fight, the stage is set for the courageous or the coward. Courageous people choose to move forward. The essence of courage is not the absence of fear. It is the presence of fear, the understanding of the consequence and the deliberate choice to fight. To move forward in spite of danger and pain is courageous.
Two different stories pop into my mind. The story of David and Goliath, where the smaller David manages to defeat the larger Goliath. Even though Goliath had the upper hand in size and strength, David was not afraid, he was brave. The second story probably won’t be known by many of you, but it is a cartoon that I used to watch called Courage the Cowardly Dog. Courage was the main protagonist, a puppy rescued by his now owner named Muriel. In every episode some type of alien or monster was showing up and Courage was always scared and shivering at the very site of them. Muriel, almost always oblivious, was in constant danger but even though Courage was cowardly, he was always there to fight to save Muriel.
A lot of us are now going through another phase in our growth, where what we have to go through is a little spooky, ok maybe a lot of spooky, terrifying even. I am taking my first steps forward into this next phase and it is definitely not brave of me because I am in fact, super scared. I take solace in the fact that I am working on creating courage for my journey in the future. The more I work on being courageous, the easier it’ll be in the future. As I said to a dear friend of mine, I can’t give you the weight of my fears and expect myself to get stronger. So, let’s all take this moment to warm up and get ready to get stronger and more courageous together! Be sure to tell someone you love them! I love you all!
-Rimi Inti