I’ve been really thinking a lot lately about COURAGE and trying to be more courageous in my own life. This means being brave enough to make a choice to break free of living absentmindedly and just going through the motions in life. It means having the courage to say no to the things that don’t truly matter. And having the courage to pursue the things that do matter to me, even if it goes against society’s norms, social pressures, or people’s expectations. If you don’t have the courage to take control and direct your own life, other people will gladly take your time and use it for you. Courage means small, small tiny choices sometimes too. Choosing to go to that 6:45 am spin class or having the courage to smile and say hi to a stranger, or whatever small thing it may be. Basically, living TRUE to yourself takes a lot of courage sometimes and I want to remember that. What more could be more important than living true to yourself and your own values?  

“I am convinced that courage is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently. You can be kind for a while; you can be generous for a while; you can be just for a while, or merciful for a while, even loving for a while. But it is only with courage that you can be persistently and insistently kind and generous and fair.

We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily — as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. I think that the courage to confront evil and turn it by dint of will into something applicable to the development of our evolution, individually and collectively, is exciting, honorable.

One isn’t born with courage. One develops it. And you develop it by doing small, courageous things, in the same way that one wouldn’t set out to pick up 100 pound bag of rice. If that was one’s aim, the person would be advised to pick up a five pound bag, and then a ten pound, and then a 20 pound, and so forth, until one builds up enough muscle to actually pick up 100 pounds. And that’s the same way with courage. You develop courage by doing courageous things, small things, but things that cost you some exertion – mental and, I suppose, spiritual exertion.”   – Maya Angelou

“Brave doesn’t always involve grand gestures, sometimes brave looks like staying when you want to leave, telling the truth when all you want to do is change the subject… sometimes brave looks like boring, and thats totally, absolutely, okay.” – Shauna Niequist, Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living