So far in my life I have moved eight times and been to twelve different schools. I"m not talking about just moving houses. I"m talking about eight times, packing all of my things and moving to a whole different state. In all this I have learned the most important quality that anyone needs to get through all of the hardships and changes in moving. That quality is courage. .
Courage is as stated in The New International Webster's Dictionary of the English Language to be "the capacity to meet danger or difficulty with firmness." In my mind courage has always meant doing what you had to do, and dealing with it because you had to. I never had a choice in my life whether I wanted to move to a different city or not. I just would get told one day that I had about a month before I had to pack up all of my things, say goodbye to all of my friends, say goodbye to my school, and leave everything I had know for the last year or so and move to a whole different place that I didn't know. For a young child this can be hard. I learned early on, that I was suppost to "stay strong," as my father always said. He would tell me that I had to be courageous, and a trooper through all of this and that it would be a new adventure. That's how I looked at it, as another challenge to face.
Courage has to be found deep within you. It isn't always easy to find, as I have learned from experience, and every time a hardship or a difficult situation comes up you have to dig again to find the courage to get through, but with a little searching I have found that you almost always find it, sometimes at the most unexpected times. Whenever I went into a new school, I would go in shaking, and sometimes crying, and not want to face what was in store for me. My mom would look me in the eyes, tell me everything would be ok, and to find the courage deep within me and I can achieve anything. I would take a few breaths, calm down, and then take my day a minute at a time trying to scrounge up all the courage I could get.