It is not often that a reality TV show actually inspires me! This week it happened on MasterChef when the contestants spoke of the stories of their migrant past and each story spoke of immeasurable courage. Not just from their parents who came to a sometimes hostile Australia but from them as migrant children who needed the courage to embrace their “differentness” to carve a place in their parent’s new country.
My parents were definitely not perfect and at times so far from perfect as you can get, but I am in awe of their courage. Like many migrant parents, they came to Australia to make a better life for their children. Their stories are filled with set-backs and loss but also of the courage to try again or try something new and to just keep on going.
"Courage does not always roar, sometimes it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying: I will try again tomorrow." Mary Ann Radmacher
My mother’s mantra was always about courage and when things got tough you would hear her say it over and over until she got to the other side. Her greatest fear was to having to go to a nursing home and she resisted and resisted at times very loudly until she was 85 when her health made living at home no longer possible. When she got to the nursing home, as she had done all her life, she courageously accepted it and then proceeded to make friends with everyone including the nurses who all grew to love her. Even at 85, she had the courage to embrace a new life when the old one could no longer be lived and had been taken away from her.
"Courage is contagious. Every time we chose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver." Brene Brown
As I get older, I am trying more and more to live a courageous life. For me, courage is like going to beautiful beach where the water glistens and sparkles. I know the water is freezing cold (and I really hate the cold!) but if I can be brave and just jump in knowing that I will feel the discomfort of the freezing cold water for a minute or two, I can then enjoy something that is just wonderful. Courage for me is knowing that I could find something so much better than if I had just stayed on the sand.
(This analogy changes if there are sharks in the water so, just saying, that courage and just jumping in also does not mean letting go of common sense!)
In the times when I have chosen to do something that takes me out of my comfort zone (like writing this blog!) there is inevitably my “Oh my God, what I have done!” moment where I am completely overtaken by fear and panic. I take a deep breath or a number of deep breaths and remember that “Yes, this could really fail but there is also I chance that I can achieve something that I never thought I could ever do or that maybe this could be an experience that I will savour forever”. Instead I try to channel all that fear into a determination to do all I possibly can to prepare and to make it succeed.
The courageous life is not always about jumping in. It can be about letting go and walking away, it can be about having the courage to forgive or the courage to just speak up or the courage to just be quiet and trust. There are not enough words to describe the length and breadth of the courageous life or to pay tribute to all the very ordinary people like my mother who lived extraordinary courageous lives.
But it is always about embracing and accepting that we will be afraid and that in spite of our fear, we believe that there is something more to discover in our lives and in ourselves even though we cannot yet see or feel it.
A bit like discovering rooms in your house that you never knew existed and then finding that the rooms are full of treasure!
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