KUUUUUU---RAUGE

COURAGE, also known as bravery, fortitude, will, and intrepidity, is the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty or intimidation. 

Sometimes life requires big things of us. I am amazed at how much courage life can demand at times. Some days you think you are being as courageous as is humanly possible and then life asks you to go way beyond that. Apparently, since this happens frequently, it must be possible to miraculously and very quickly gain exponential amounts of courage. I have no way to explain this but I've seen it time and time again in people's lives.

There are times in life when standing up for the right, taking giant and necessary risks and putting it all on the line is necessary. And it seems like it's usually when one is tired, in transition, or sometimes just settled into a totally new situation with no expectation of change. These are the moments when something totally out of left field, something you've been hoping for for years or something you've been avoiding for years will bounce right onto the middle of your life's tidy little table and scatter dishes in every direction possible.


Sometimes one is required to put oneself on the stage in a way that is terrifying -- those moments when one has to just go for it because it's the right thing to do, because it means standing up for people who can't stand up for themselves, when you must boldly own what one believes in even if it means that you will be rejected by people who matter to you or will lose precious opportunities.


Here are some beautiful thoughts on courage:

Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.  ~Samuel Johnson (Thanks, Frank Lynch)

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.  ~Ambrose Redmoon

Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.  ~Dan Rather

When we are afraid we ought not to occupy ourselves with endeavoring to prove that there is no danger, but in strengthening ourselves to go on in spite of the danger.  ~Mark Rutherford

Courage, in the final analysis, is nothing but an affirmative answer to the shocks of existence.  ~Kurt Goldstein

To live with fear and not be afraid is the final test of maturity.  ~Edward Weeks

Courage is fear that has said its prayers.  ~Dorothy Bernard

Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.  ~John Wayne

I salute courage today and salute every one of you who wakes each morning and exhibits courage to love, courage to dare, courage to risk, courage to keep going, courage to believe things will get better, courage to appreciate and enjoy all that you have, courage to be an angel to other people, courage to see something hard to it's end, courage to live life! 

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