Courage

Today I got to thinking about how I’m going to spend this next year, not where I’m going or what I’ll be doing but how I want people to see me. How do I want to live this next year, I could say the easy stuff like I’m going to work out more and several other things that I am planning on doing. I think the biggest change is that I want to live my life with more integrity and more courage. Integrity is a soundness of moral character while courage is a quality of the spirit. I know I’m a fairly brave person but that isn’t the same as courage, I read about a German man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This man had courage, he is a 20^th century martyr who founded the Confessing Church and worked as a double agent against Hitler. He was eventually captured and executed after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler. I don’t expect to find myself in any situation where I would be martyred; I just want to find that part of me that has the strength to do the right thing even when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular. I think that’s been one of my biggest flaws my whole life. While I may be brave I have never been courageous enough to be unpopular. So this next year I want to live with courage and integrity, the integrity to always know what the right things to do are and the courage to do them. I think I’ve just been selfish, I saw kids get picked on in high school but didn’t want to risk my own popularity. I see the homeless trying to sell their newspapers and I hope I don’t get stuck at the red light next to them. I’ve heard a saying since I was little, “act as if”, it basically means always act as though you are being watched, because you are. This year I don’t want to do anything that I’m not proud to say I did, it’s a tall order and sure I’ll slip but hopefully the overall feel of the year will be good. I know that I’ll end up doing things throughout the year that I don’t want to tell my mother or my pastor but as long as I am making a constant effort to do better I’ll consider it a success. I don’t want to be popular anymore, I just want to be a better role model for my daughter before she gets too old for me to influence.