Ordinary courage

I've always felt it a little cliche to write directly around the 9/11 anniversary (and probably why I waited three weeks), but I, like most others, have many concepts and ideas brought to mind around this time of year. An obvious example of this is the concept of courage. In 9/11 recaps and commemorations all over the world, stories of extraordinary courage are re-told with reverence. People remain awed by the stories of firefighters, police, and EMS running into instead of away from the doomed towers, building workers assisting injured or disabled colleagues both in NY and in the Pentagon, a handful of people attempting to regain control of their hijacked plane, and lastly (heartbreaking as it may be) those who leaped to their deaths to avoid an inferno. Of course these stories should be told and their protagonists honored, but the human tendency to focus on "extraordinary courage" sometimes obscures what in some ways may be an even more valuable concept, "ordinary courage"

"Ordinary courage", as I define it here refers to the courage it takes to live one's day to day life, regardless of what it looks like. This is not meant to imply that life is or should be miserable but rather, on the contrary, that it merely takes a lot of courage to see the beauty in it. Only you know what your ordinary courage is required to cope with but most of us probably have some experience with things like physical or mental illness, addiction, broken homes, and financial struggle etc. Sometimes to get out of bed in the wake of these types of issues, can seem like an epic battle, and it may very well be. My point is to say that whatever your epic battle is, the only important thing is that you keep fighting in hopes of some day winning that battle.

To some, everything I just wrote may seem like common sense, but from my observances in my two and half decades on this on earth it seems that many people do not give themselves enough credit for their ordinary courage. I believe this comes not from modesty (which is largely a good thing) but as a negative side effect of the human tendency to create what I'll call "a hierarchy of pain" This basically is the idea to attempt motivate oneself by adopting the notion that "someone out there is worse off then I" While this phrase has it's point and may work for some, too often I believe the supposed motivation from this attitude is instead a masquerade that people use to downplay their own struggles and/or make themselves believe they should/need to apologize for their own difficulties. Sure, they are people in this world "worse off than you" (what does that really even mean if you think about it) but in the end they are not you and you are not them, so the whole idea of comparison is useless and unproductive.

As usual the best way I can think of to further illustrate my ideas, is to explain how I have experienced this personally. Often when people become aware of all or part of my life story, they will attempt to compliment my achievements by saying something to the effect of "you are so much stronger than I" or "I could not have gotten through that," Of course I know the attempted meaning behind these sentiments but, on another level I see it as a means for people to downgrade themselves and their struggles yet again. My life is my life, and only I have to learn to survive that life. It's your job to survive your own life, not someone else's. To put it more crudely, just because your pile of shit looks different from mine doesn't mean it is not also a pile of shit.

While wallowing in misery is never a good suggestion, when you do feel overwhelmed by your everyday struggles, make sure to acknowledge as them legitimate and difficult problems rather than dismiss them as "not good enough" or "something that isn't so bad". This will allow you to feel a sense of a greater accomplishment when you do get out of bed, or whatever form your achievement through ordinary courage takes. I truly believe that therein lies the ability to give your life and your inner self value on a daily basis. If I may border on cliche once again, you can have no real value to anyone else if you don't first value yourself.

I started this post by calling to mind the "extraordinary courage" exhibited by countless people on 9/11 and I bring it up again as I close to make one final point. Instances of "extraordinary courage" are those that with them bring the strongest urge to unleash phrases like "I could never be that brave," The truth is..... you don't know that. The potential for these "extraordinary courage's" probably lies within all of us. Most importantly, we must remember that, in all likelihood, those who exhibit extraordinary courage in extraordinary circumstances could only do so because they embraced the ordinary courage it took to live every previous day of their lives.

God Bless