Courage, Dear Heart

"Courage, dear heart"

This may be one of my favourite quotes of all time, even though it is short and simple, it really speaks to me unlike anything else.

For me, I believe that courage is an attribute that is seriously underrated. Mostly, people see others acting in a courageous way, but don't necessarily identify that behaviour with it actually being an act of courage. For other people however, courage is not how we act, but it is how we are.

The reason why I believe that courage is so underrated, is because no one ever knows what challenges you are fighting. This therefore means that whilst for you, going into a shop and asking an assistant for help, may be the most courageous thing you have done in a long time, for others, opening up about a problem that have, will be the most courageous thing they will ever do.

This is not because some people have less challenges than others, it is because the way we perceive challenges are based on our own experiences. So, in my rational mind, I know that someone coming out as gay, takes so much more courage than I can ever imagine. Just as, for me, opening up about certain events in my life, took all the courage I have.

Whilst one person exerting courage is no different to another, regardless of what scale we may understand it to be on, it is easy to only identify certain things as an act as courage, when really, who are we to judge whether or not something is courageous, coming from that person.

We often neglect to realise that something that is completely normal to us, such as wearing shorts, or going out the house with no make up, or getting out of bed in the morning, is actually one of the most courageous acts for someone that we just don't know about.

This is why, I am therefore proposing that this post celebrates every single one of you out there, who is courageous on a regular basis even without anyone noticing.

To anyone who knows that their greatest struggle at the moment is getting out of bed, but every morning, they summon their courage and they rise to the challenge.

Here's to anyone who suffers with a mental or physical illness which means they are faced with challenges that can mentally and physically cripple them, but they bravely battle them anyway.

And here's to anyone who is just having a bad day or a hard time. To anyone who just needs to know, that even if no one around you is going to tell you this, then we are. We are going to tell all of you that you are brave and strong and you have courage that I could only dream of having.

Courage is hard, and sometimes we don't manage to do what we think we want or need to do, and that's okay too. As long as we remember to celebrate people for what they are able to do, and what they still struggle to do, then thats okay.

It is important to not only celebrate all the times that we have fought to find our courage and won, but also all the times that it just wasn't a fight we could beat.

So here I am now, giving you the tools to empower yourself, and in this way, I hope that everyone comes to recognise the importance of courage and how much it impacts our lives.

-LF, LR, MG