Tag Archives: inspiration

A lesson in bravery

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Lois snorkeling, Pulau Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia
Last week we went to Sulawesi in Indonesia for the week with family, and I got a lesson in bravery. Not from a grown up, but from a little girl.
 
We normally think of bravery as something macho. People who go into burning buildings. Who ignore fears, or are fearless. But I say that bravery is feeling the fear and doing it anyway, and that is what Lois did last week. 
 
Lois was horribly scared the first time we lowered her down the steps of the boat, mask on and snorkel ready. She was scared of the depth of the water. Worried about the fish and what there would be hidden in the water. Worried about the things she couldn’t see. 
 
It took some time, but we got her into the water. Hand in hand she panicked. It was too much, and she scampered back up the steps and into the safety of the boat.
 
We headed off and came back with stories of how amazing the under water life was. How beautiful the corals were. Would she like to have another go? Where we are now is not very deep, you can see the coral through the water, would you like to try?
 
She looked worried, but agreed to try again. Barry lowered her into the water, gave her some reassuring words, held her hand and pushed off from the boat over the shallow corals. Little fish swam below her, she could almost reach out and touch the coral. 
 
Slowly she increased in confidence. Slowly she dared to cross the deeper water to get to the reef. Eventually she even swam by herself without holding someone else’s hand. By the end of the week she could dive under the water in the swimming pool and blow the water out of the snorkel tube. She was comfortable in the snorkel and mask, she had felt the fear and done it anyway. 
 
And that to me is true bravery. 

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Inspiration for the day

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Flower close up, Maya Tagalle Villa, Beliatta, South Coast, Sri

Keeping a journal has become a daily practise for me, but while I follow the same template every day, it isn’t a static process. Over time I have started capturing things that strike me, inspirational quotes, passages out of books that I am reading that I would like to remember.

My journal contains quotes of Gandhi, Brene Brown, and even Dr Seuss.

I may never look back at these journals, or maybe I will in a period where I want to remember how it was in this time, but capturing these quotes makes me feel like I am reading the books more deeply. That I am thinking about things that inspire me. Sometimes I refer to these quotes in my “Thoughts for the day”, other times I just capture them, think about them, and move on.

Here are a couple of my recent favorites to get you started:

“How much better to know that we have dared to live our dreams than to live our lives in a lethargy of regret” Gilbert E Kaplan

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt