I don't deserve to be called brave. I squirm when someone says that to me, because I haven't really done anything to earn their new respect for me. I haven't discovered any new treatments for breast cancer, I only follow the directions of those who have devoted their lives to eradicating the disease. I haven't endured anything worse than what other people endure every day. In fact, even I have been through times that felt harder than this, but then there wasn't a shiny label to attract attention or respect. I suspect that you recognize what I mean in your own lives.
Next time you go to the supermarket, look around at all the people you pass. Every one of them has a story. We forget that because pain and hardship can be invisible. That woman over there with the cute kids: did you know that she spent the first ten years of her life in bed, having undergone numerous childhood heart surgeries? You'd never guess, because she looks so happy now. But her childhood illness must have marked her profoundly. How about that attractive man over there, who looks like he's got all the money and women he could ever want: did you know he's devoted to his alcoholic wife, that he's lovingly shopping for something to attract her appetite, to help put back the healthy weight she's lost, to bring back the delightful woman he fell in love with? He's afraid to go home tonight, not sure whether she'll even be awake.
None of us suffers alone. The rest of the world is not immune to the kinds of hardships that any one of us face. We are not singled out, although it may feel like it at the time. What we do, what we all do, is carry on. We are all brave occasionally, and then because we are living, eventually something turns our world upside-down. When that happens we just do the best we can to get through it. Some of us try to extract meaning from the experience. Some of us recognize that life is change and everything presents an opportunity to learn. Others seek spiritual connection. Others find ways to block out the pain. No response is any nobler than any other. We all muddle through the best we can.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
I Don't Deserve To Be Called Brave
5 comments:
Courage turns up in surprising places.
I did a half-ironman race a few years ago. After I finished, I found myself in line for the massage tent behind a man covered in burn scars. Later as I packed my gear in the transition area, a woman on the other side of the bike rack from me was busy sticking herself with a needle, checking her glucose levels. She told me that juvenile diabetes had destroyed her pancreas. I can't begin to imagine what it was like to manage her blood sugar levels over the course of a race that requires you to give everything you've got for 5-7 straight hours.
The race didn't humble me that day. My fellow racers did. There are some truly amazing people in the world, and we don't even know the half of it.
Reading your journal site today was so truth telling about how each of us has something we are dealing with.....bless all of us that can keep positive and strive to get through each day with a smile or laugh and compassion for each other. Bless you....Arlene (AJ)
I have to argue with your assertion that "No response is any nobler than any other." There are those who might completely abandon themselves to self-pity and fatalism, complain at the top their lungs how awful everything is over and over, complain about every little thing day after day, and drive away even those people who want to help them. People who focus solely on the negative and refuse to even acknowledge those who are helping them, nitpicking on everything instead. These people are probably very rare (although I'm thinking of one guy I know...), but their response to something like this would be far and away less noble than yours.
That's really well said, and it is really interesting to think about...
But I still think you're brave. Just because everyone has their own challenges to go through, you are one of them; us. You should be proud of how amazing you are and how well you've been "carrying on" because you're one hell of an inspiration.
I can never respond with words as beautiful as yours...but I hope you know what I mean.
Word.
You just can't judge. Nobody knows where I am coming from, and I don't know where anyone else is coming from.
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