You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.

 

My mind seemed to resonate with that one, core question, what does it mean to be strong?  For some, it’s being able to open that 2Lt coke bottle when no one else can, it’s when our fathers carry the shopping bags after our mothers’ crazy day of shopping or it could be when our mothers throw us with their slippers when we misbehave.  Then again, we all have our own definitions of what the word ‘strong’ might be.

I then sit and wonder what about all those people that have no arms? Does that mean that they are not strong? I then realized that being strong is more than physical strength, it includes emotional and mental strength. There are people out in the world that fight every day for the things that they believe in, for the things that are right. Submissive workers standing up to their domineering masters, unbiased civilians uprooting their crooked government, loved ones being shielded from harm’s way.

 

Just because we lose a soccer match or cry after being yelled at, doesn’t mean that we aren’t strong. What truly defines us is how well we rise after falling. Everybody falls, everyone is beaten down by life and the challenges it has, everyone has those bad days but not everyone lets their bad days define who they are and what they do. A strong person moves on from the things that break them and they live their life trying to stay strong.

 

I always prided myself on being a strong person but I never imagined the extent to which my strength would be tested.  We do not know the full ability of our strength until we find ourselves in a situation where we have to be strong. Then it all comes out, most of us can look back and be like wow, I didn’t know I was capable of that. It is in that moment, when we truly start to create the person that truly defines who we are.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said,” Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end requires courage.”

Stay positive, stay focused and most importantly stay happy.