The Courage To Live

I used to believe that people who went through with suicide were the most courageous ones.

Because, in a way, it takes immense resolve to face that kind of finality. To look at life, at everything it holds, and decide to just step away from it. It is not an easy decision to say, “I am going to end my life,” and actually follow through.

There was a time I even quietly mocked myself for not having the courage to commit to it. I thought, I don’t have the courage to face life, nor the courage to face death either. What does that make me?

But I’m glad I stayed.

It made me realise that most of us who speak of wanting to die, are just crying out for a reason to stay. And I’m grateful we found one, even if it was just enough to make it through another day.

Because even in that unfathomable pain, exhaustion, and thick fog of despair, we are choosing courage.

The courage to live.

To live is to stand in the fire of your own thoughts and still refuse to burn. It is to wake up every day carrying the same heaviness, the same fears, the same uncertainty, and still move, even if only an inch.

To live is to face the weight of being an imperfect human: the loneliness, the disappointments, the quiet doubts that whisper nothing will ever change, or worse, you would be better off gone. And yet, somehow, we move on anyway.

We get up. We brush our teeth. We go to work. We laugh at something small. We make plans for a tomorrow we are not even sure we believe in.

That is courage.

Not the kind that is visible or celebrated, but the kind that exists quietly and stubbornly in the background of even our worst days.

The courage to live is not made of grand gestures. It is built from small acts of persistence, the strength to not give up, to try again, to keep breathing even when your chest feels tight.

It is cooking yourself a meal when you have no appetite. It is sending a message because some part of you still wants connection. It is saying yes to another sunrise, even when you do not know why.

Living takes courage because it means saying yes in the face of uncertainty. It means saying yes to pain, to grief, to loss, and trusting that somewhere in that mess, there can still be light. It is a quiet act of faith, repeated again and again, even when life feels impossible.

There is no finish line to this kind of courage.

No medal. No applause.

Just the quiet, relentless courage of choosing life, over and over, especially on the days where hope feels out of reach.

And maybe that is what makes it so extraordinary. Because sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is simply have the courage to live.