The Courage to Live in the Present
It is always too soon to quit.
Every day I see people who are going through it — each in his or her own way. They are facing their giants and plodding through the bog between battles, concentrating on maintaining their own morale. It isn’t easy and I don’t think it gets particularly easier as we move through life’s stages. Finding a rhythm and sense of humor certainly help.
What doesn’t help is getting stuck in movies-as-metaphors. You can watch movie clips forever on YouTube where they are served up to meet all appetites. The ones that fascinate me most are the implausible plots where, no matter what, the situation for the hero gets worse and worse and yet he or she takes each one on without any real sweat. I look from the comfort of my soft chair and understand that this isn’t real. In life there’s more pain and recovery time necessary. One hit to the face in one of the big fight scenes and someone can be in rehab for months (not uncommon to have injuries like this occur with stunt doubles while filming). What we see in the final cut is that our hero can take all the usually life-ending blows and keep on going. He wipes the fake blood off his lip and pushes forward.
What the false metaphor movies attempt to sell is that I and the actor on the screen have a lot in common. This then unintentionally implies that everything I do all day long should be as full of action, drama, and consequences as are seen in the average two-hour movie. Never time for a moment spent in the bathroom doing bathroom things, for example, unless it is part of a well-constructed plot for the entertainment of others. The problem is that real life is a lot messier and with a lot of, let’s face it, boring parts. Movies must never be boring.
In real life, courage looks different than on the Big Screen. Both, no doubt, have the major plotline of saving lives, but in real life, every trip to the grocery store is lifesaving to the hungry family. And over time, lives are slowly saved by the persistent actions of dedicated parents who just get up every day and do the boring necessary things that will move their families forward. Not a lot of medals for this form of heroism, but the rewards are actually better and more enduring. It is the love and appreciation of those who live around us, who themselves sacrifice to love others, including us that is the deepest most lasting reward.
True heroes are born and raised, not according to a movie script, but with the simple baked in determination to not give up — to never give up — to put in one more day — and then another if necessary, knowing undoubtedly, it will most likely be necessary — especially if it involves the courage to do all the mundane and boring tasks real life requires.
