Ordinary Brave

We tend to recognize courage when it is loud.

The firefighter running into the burning building.

The soldier walking toward danger.

The person standing on a stage telling thousands of people exactly what they believe.

The athlete attempting something that makes the rest of us whisper, “Absolutely not,” from the safety of the couch.

Those things are brave.

Of course they are.

But I think we have built such a dramatic picture of courage that sometimes we fail to recognize it when it walks quietly past us wearing sweatpants and carrying groceries.

Some of the bravest people I know would never describe themselves that way.

They are too busy doing whatever needs to be done next.

That kind of courage fascinates me.

Ordinary brave.

The courage that does not come with applause.

The courage nobody photographs.

The courage that will never become a movie because, from the outside, absolutely nothing appears to be happening.

Sometimes bravery is getting out of bed when getting out of bed feels impossible.

Sometimes it is making the phone call you have been avoiding for three weeks...or three years.

Sometimes it is walking into a doctor’s office knowing your life may look different when you walk back out.

Sometimes it is saying, “I need help.”

Sometimes it is saying, “No.”

And sometimes, strangely enough, saying no requires far more courage than saying yes ever did.

There are people who have spent their entire lives being dependable.

They are the ones everybody calls.

The ones who fix things.

The ones who know what to do.

The ones who make room.

The ones who drive across town.

The ones who answer the phone at two in the morning.

The ones who somehow become responsible for remembering everybody else’s birthdays, medications, appointments, feelings, emergencies, passwords and where the extra batteries are kept.

At some point, being “the strong one” becomes part of their identity.

And nobody thinks to ask whether the strong one is tired.

Sometimes the bravest thing that person will ever do is admit that they are.

There is courage in that.

There is courage in dropping the performance.

In saying, “I cannot carry all of this by myself anymore.”

There is courage in letting somebody see the part of you that is not handling everything beautifully.

We talk so much about strength as though it means never bending.

But anything that never bends eventually breaks.

I have learned more about courage from caregiving than I ever expected to know.

Caregiving does not usually look heroic.

There is no dramatic soundtrack playing while you refill prescriptions.

Nobody slows down the camera while you wash another load of laundry, make another meal, rearrange another appointment, solve another problem or try to figure out how the same insurance company can possibly need the same information for the fifth time.

Trust me, if there were background music for some of those phone calls, it would not be inspirational.

It would involve drums.

Possibly profanity.

But caregiving has taught me that enormous love is often expressed through very ordinary actions.

You show up.

Again.

And again.

And again.

You learn things you never wanted to know.

You adjust to realities you never asked for.

You grieve pieces of the life you thought you would have while still being grateful for the life and the person standing in front of you.

You become fluent in contradictions.

You can be exhausted and devoted.

Frustrated and grateful.

Heartbroken and laughing.

Afraid and still moving.

That last one may be the definition of courage I trust most.

Afraid and still moving.

Because bravery has never required the absence of fear.

If you are not afraid of something, doing it does not require much courage.

Fear is part of the equation.

The brave part is what you do while it is there.

I think about people beginning again after a divorce they never imagined happening.

People walking into job interviews after being laid off from careers they thought would carry them into retirement.

People sitting in parking lots before chemotherapy appointments.

Parents smiling at children while privately wondering how they are going to pay the electric bill.

People leaving relationships after years of being convinced they could not survive on their own.

People getting sober one ordinary Tuesday and then doing it again Wednesday.

People learning how to live after somebody they loved died.

None of those people may feel courageous.

They may feel terrified.

They may feel angry.

They may feel like a complete mess.

They may cry in the car before going inside.

They may sit in the driveway for ten minutes gathering themselves because everybody in the house needs something and they would very much like five minutes in which nobody on Earth knows their name.

And then they open the door.

That counts.

I wish we celebrated those moments more.

We celebrate the finish lines.

The diploma.

The promotion.

The remission announcement.

The one-year sobriety chip.

The new business opening.

The photograph from the other side of the mountain.

Those deserve celebration.

But there were hundreds of quiet decisions before any of them.

Decisions nobody saw.

There was a morning when that graduate wanted to quit.

There was an application the business owner almost did not submit.

There was a night the recovering addict had to make it through hour by hour.

There was a treatment appointment somebody dreaded and attended anyway.

There was a first step so small it would have looked meaningless to everyone except the person taking it.

I think those are some of the holiest moments in a life.

The little decisions that eventually become a completely different future.

Ordinary bravery does not always change the whole world.

Sometimes it changes one household.

One relationship.

One child’s memory.

One person’s direction.

Maybe that is enough.

We have become so accustomed to measuring importance by scale.

How many people saw it?

How many followers?

How much money?

How big was the audience?

How impressive was the accomplishment?

But a person does not have to affect millions of lives to have changed the world.

Sometimes they only have to change one.

A teacher notices the kid everyone else dismissed.

A nurse stays five extra minutes because somebody is scared.

A stranger says something kind - - on exactly the wrong day to underestimate the power of kindness.

A father decides his children will not grow up the way he did.

A mother goes back to school.

A friend refuses to let another friend disappear into grief alone.

A person finally apologizes.

Really apologizes.

No excuses.

No explanation disguised as an apology.

Just, “I was wrong. I hurt you. I’m sorry.”

That takes courage too.

Maybe more than people admit.

It is much easier to protect our pride than repair what pride damaged.

Ordinary bravery also looks like telling the truth when a lie would make life easier.

It looks like changing your mind when new information proves you wrong.

It looks like admitting you do not know.

I have enormous respect for people who can say those three words.

“I don’t know.”

We should probably hand out medals.

There are entire industries being run by people who would rather fake their own death than say them.

There is courage in being teachable.

Courage in allowing yourself to become a beginner.

Courage in walking into a room where everybody else seems to know what they are doing and deciding you belong there long enough to learn.

That matters to me more and more as I get older.

Because adulthood can make people strangely afraid of looking inexperienced.

Children will try something and be terrible at it with astonishing confidence.

They will play three piano notes and announce a concert.

They will draw something that appears to be either a horse or a municipal building and proudly ask you to hang it on the refrigerator.

Adults want proficiency before participation.

We forget that being bad at something is often simply the admission price for eventually becoming good.

There is bravery in tolerating that stage.

In surviving your own awkward beginning.

In letting yourself be seen learning.

I think creativity requires that kind of courage constantly.

Every time you make something, there is a moment when it exists only because you decided it should.

No applause yet.

No approval.

No proof.

Just an idea and your willingness to give it form.

Then you release it.

And now other people get opinions.

That is brave.

We make fun of vulnerability because the word has been polished into corporate language so thoroughly that somebody could probably sell you a three-day seminar about it for $4,999.

But real vulnerability is not a workshop.

It is exposure.

It is letting something matter.

It is loving somebody, knowing you could lose them.

Creating something, knowing people could reject it.

Trying, knowing you could fail.

Speaking, knowing you could be misunderstood.

Caring, knowing there is no guarantee caring will be rewarded.

There is no courage without some possibility of pain.

That is why protecting yourself from every possible hurt will eventually protect you from a great deal of joy too.

You cannot build a life entirely behind glass.

Eventually you have to touch something.

Risk something.

Care about something.

People sometimes tell me they wish they were stronger.

I wonder if they understand how often they already are.

Strength rarely feels like strength while you are using it.

It usually feels like necessity.

You do what has to be done because what other choice is there?

Years later, somebody looks at what you survived and says, “I don’t know how you did that.”

Neither do you.

You were there.

You remember the ugly parts.

You remember how scared you were.

How tired.

How uncertain.

You know how many times you nearly came apart.

From the inside, courage rarely feels cinematic.

It feels like getting through Thursday.

That may be why we miss it.

We expect brave people to feel powerful.

Sometimes brave people feel absolutely powerless.

They simply refuse to stop participating in their own lives.

That is enough.

There is someone somewhere tonight doing something extraordinarily ordinary.

Sitting beside a hospital bed.

Studying after the children are asleep.

Starting over in an apartment that still has boxes everywhere.

Deleting a phone number they know they should have deleted six months ago.

Showing up for therapy.

Applying for the job.

Walking into the gym.

Taking the medication.

Making the budget.

Writing the first page.

Going to the funeral.

Leaving the funeral.

Going home afterward to a house that will never sound quite the same again.

Nobody may notice.

Nobody may ever know what that moment cost them.

But courage does not become courage because somebody witnessed it.

It was already there.

That is what I love about ordinary brave.

It belongs to everybody.

You do not have to be fearless.

You do not have to be extraordinary.

You do not have to climb a mountain, jump from an airplane or save a village.

Sometimes the bravest thing you will do in your entire life will look completely unimpressive to everyone else.

Do it anyway.

Make the call.

Tell the truth.

Ask for help.

Begin again.

Stay.

Leave.

Try.

Rest.

Say no.

Say yes.

Show up.

There will probably be no audience.

No medal.

No dramatic music swelling at exactly the right moment.

You may not even realize until years later that what you did required courage.

But perhaps somebody else will.

Maybe a child watching you will learn what perseverance looks like.

Maybe a friend will find courage because you showed yours first.

Maybe the person whose hand you held will remember that they were not alone.

Maybe the life you quietly save will simply be your own.

That is not small.

That is ordinary brave.

And there is nothing ordinary about it.

~ Michelle Mullins ~
Founder & Creative Director
Amplified Imagination Studios

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