“A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Friday, March 22, 2013

Finding Bravery


Finding bravery,
how to keep it as a goal
when one feels afraid?

The truth of my life,
it falls short of the ideal.
I am not that brave.

For indulging me
in my rambling self pep talks,
I thank my blog peeps.



5 comments:

Karen said...

I don't think of bravery often. And if I do, I don't believe I am very brave. People often tell me I am very brave and/or courageous. It baffles me...I am just living the best I can with what I have, or do not have. Is that brave, is that courageous? For me, it is simply keeping going, because what else can one do?

Gail said...

HI JUDY - I feel challenged all the time and when I meet the challenge I don't feel brave I feel a bit empowered. Most days I wonder how and why about life. Today we are headed to Brooklyn, and staying over night to celebrate my son's birthday. I am afraid of new terrain, etc. So I will meet the challenges- Brave? Nah, Don't really have a name for it.
Love you
Gail
peace....

Muffie said...

I suppose that bravery, just as beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I, too, know I'm not brave, but other people see me that way. We're all valiant when we stand against the MonSter, but sometimes I'm ready to wave the white flag!
Peace,
Muff

Unknown said...

To paraphrase Shakespeare, 'some people are born brave, some achieve bravery, and some simply brave thrust upon them'

Caregivingly Yours, Patrick

Judy said...

It has just occurred to me, as I was reading your comments about not feeling brave though others see us that way, that in fact they may be on to something. It may simply be that others find so unfathomable living through circumstances such as ours that the only way they can imagine living through them is by being brave. So they credit us with something which they imagine is necessary in order to live through the MS experience and not go batty. And, by golly, they are right. All of us know how difficult it is to put one foot in front of the other, both metaphorically and physically. We know the moments of panic when function freezes and one does not know whether one will emerge. None of us knows the future, but we all know what the probabilities are, and they are not good, indeed. We face daily a life so dissimilar to what any of us imagined before all this happened; lives about which, if we had been asked then, we might have been horrified. Yet, somehow, we all manage to create lives that still possess joy and meaning. And, if that is not bravery in the face of daunting challenge, I don’t know what is. So, props to us!

Karen, I don’t think of bravery much either, but may be that’s because I’m too busy getting through the day.

Gail, I don’t really have a name for what you describe either. I do like your reference to empowerment, though, and I wonder if what is happening as we meet these successive challenges is that we get used to powering through and making it to the other side.

Muff, interestingly, if I have been tempted to wave the white flag, after my small or big crying jag, in fairly short order, I’ll straighten my back and start trying to figure out what I can do to fix things. I guess I’m just a determined cuss. Or haven’t accepted reality. But, I am just not a quitter, and maybe that is perhaps yet another definition of bravery.

Patrick, so true. A great quote. I know I’m more in the last category.