It struck me how difficult it was to think of a time when I was truly brave. According to the dictionary brave is possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance. After some thought, I wrote about a time when I was about ten or eleven and my little brother sliced his hand open on a piece of glass. We were being watched by a babysitter who freaked out when my tiny brother came in crying with blood gushing from his wounded hand. I stayed calm, grabbed a towel, and applied pressure to the cut as my brother sat in my lap. I then informed the panicked sitter that we needed to take him to the hospital.
This example of bravery pales in comparison to other known examples. However, this is all I could seem to muster! How sad that I have no examples of bravery from adolescence or adulthood. Sure, I could mask some of my more stupid adolescent experiences by calling them brave. But that would be a pathetic attempt. True bravery is something very different.
It saddens me that the average American has lost the opportunity to exercise bravery. I believe we are so out of touch with what it means to be brave, we often have difficulty valuing this characteristic. For instance, my generation gives little respect to the bravery of soldiers today. Is it because a soldier's job is easy and does not require bravery? No. It is because we do not know what it is to be brave. Thus, how would we learn to value it?
The comfortable, carefree lifestyle of America definitely has benefits, though so often we overlook the things that are lost. As I reflect on older generations, I admire the bravery it took to merely survive the disease, discrimination, war, and work of the undeveloped world. No therapists. No modern medicine. No remote controlled weapons. Just the rawest human existence, a lot of grit, and a ton of bravery.
"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."
