At any rate, after selecting her pumpkins, my kiddo decided that she wanted tickets for a huge inflatable slide. You know the ones: gently undulating behemoths of patched up, primary colored rubber, kept alive by enormous compressors kept just out of sight. She just barely made the height requirement, and parents were not permitted to go up, but she was incredibly determined. So I bought her a ticket that was good for two trips down the slide and watched as she climbed and climbed and climbed up the massive inflatable slide. My daughter was the only kid on this attraction, and she looked tiny against its towering mass. After climbing up, a solid two or three stories above the surrounding flat farmland, she slid down pretty quickly, appearing exhilarated as she flew down with wind in her hair. I locked eyes with her as she came back to earth and asked if she wanted to go up again. “Yes!” she nodded enthusiastically, and after a quick hug, she started the climb again.
Except this time, as she disappeared into the top of the thing, she didn’t slide straight back down. A few seconds went by. Then the better part of a minute. She wasn’t visible from the ground, so I called up to her. Nothing. Then I heard it ringing out over the flat, dusty landscape. My little girl’s voice, intoning a mantra of motivation and courage: “Be brave. Be brave. Be Brave… Be BRAVE!… BE BRAVE…!” Her chant was loud and clear and continuous. When I called up to her and asked if she was ok, there was only, “BE BRAVE! BE BRAVE! BE BRAVE!”. I asked the guy tending the slide if I could go up, and he shrugged as if to say, “sure”. His shrug came at the exact moment that she thrust herself from the top, flying down once again. A little bullet of a girl, sliding down the epic slide to the safety of the ground. She came in for a big hug, eyes filled with wonder and surprise and exhilaration.
I love this story for a lot of reasons. I love that she knew, even then, that she was feeling fear and she needed to figure out a way to overcome it. I love that she associated that need to overcome with this thing called “bravery”, and she believed she could summon it in herself. I love that though I was willing and able to go up and get her, that she experienced first-hand that her fear was surmountable. And if you’re lucky, there’s someone to hold your hand, but if there’s not, you can trust yourself to push through and get to where you need to be.
When you look in a dictionary, it tells you that bravery means this:
“The quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty : the quality or state of being brave.”
The funny thing about bravery is that quite often, when an action is perceived as being brave, it does not feel particularly brave to the person living it. When I sit with patients who have gone through so much – surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, weight loss, pain, and fatigue (to only nick the tip of the iceberg) – they will tell me that they have been told they were brave. More often than not, as they say this, their faces bear a look of confusion complete with furrowed brow and shrugging shoulders. “There is nothing brave about this,” they will say.
We’ve been told that bravery looks like one thing—all intention and muscle and bravado. That to be brave is to be fearless, singular in intention, and lacking in self-doubt or apprehension. But I simply do not think that is true. If we hold such a limited, cyborg-like view of bravery, we will never be able to claim that part of ourselves, and I just can’t abide by that one bit.
The thing is that after a lifetime of Hollywood movies and literal war stories, we all hold this idea of what it is to be brave – running into a burning building to rescue kittens, or jumping into the line of fire to protect the rest of your squadron. But in real life? There is no bravado in bravery. When you talk to people who were in the World Trade Towers, the ones who went back to help a colleague or who sheltered people from debris on the ground–they were terrified. And brave. And deeply, deeply human.
Standing right next to bravery and holding hands with it are fear and uncertainty and humility. It is the exact reason why we don’t feel brave even when we are perceived to be. It’s because only we know how much discomfort there was in that very same moment. How much fear and uncertainty and pain. But what makes us brave is not living in the uncertainty. It is pushing through it. Not getting stuck in it. Acknowledging that we are afraid and moving forward anyway. THAT is bravery. That isn’t in the dictionary, but it should be. The definition of bravery should read:
“The quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty while often being simultaneously terrified, but moving forward anyway. Because the alternative option of freezing in place is scarier than the myriad potentially disastrous outcomes of moving forward: the quality or state of being human.”
You’re welcome, Merriam-Webster.
Bravery doesn’t necessarily feel brave. It feels vulnerable. It is brave to show up. To bring your whole heart to anything or anyone that you love and value. It is brave to want more out of your life,
it is brave to get up each day, it is brave to express our feelings, it is brave to speak out, to share our fear and our love and our apprehension with those around us. It is brave to be you. Fully you. With your flaws and fears and vulnerabilities. It is the bravest thing any of us can or will ever do.
Every day that we open our eyes and welcome a new day, we are just a kid at the top of a most epic inflatable slide. Multiple ways to get down, with one recurring mantra: Be BRAVE.
And you will be, of course. Because you already are.