Courage is a Quality...

Following the last mail, and the responses it provoked, I’m prompted to write the following.

It seems that many of us throughout our lives have never been advised, reminded, or taught to look within ourselves for the priceless quality of the courage that I believe we all possess.

It is as if courage was some mystical quality belonging only to fictional heroes or accomplished individuals whose exploits and achievements were by divine approval and therefore beyond the reach of mere mortals.

Consequently, when these ‘mere mortals’ persisted, withstood, or endured circumstances against all odds, they were told how lucky they were, that fortune favoured them, or that anyone could’ve done it if the same advantages had been available to them.

The qualities of courage, drive, will, determination, persistence, imagination, fidelity, integrity, were conveniently dismissed or overlooked.

When their world seemed to be falling down around them, who in the face of blinding criticism, under black clouds of uncertainty, held fast, and like Longfellow’s simple poet;

“Who through long days of labour,
 And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his heart the sound
Of wonderful melodies”, 

and they too, emerged into the dawn of their aims, to a new world that they found only by their will to believe that it existed, and had the courage of their convictions to discover it.

Keep breathing.

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