That is self defense when you do it for yourself. Which also takes a measure of courage, plus an ounce of self preservation.

And then there is defending the oppressed and defending what is right against bullies, even at personal cost -- sometimes to the death, sometimes to continue to live with much suffering. Some call it stupidity, others call it courage at the time it happens. History can be the better judge of that.

Without bullies, there is no real reason for martyrdom. And without martyrs, who can inspire to go against bullies? So who is the psycho, and which act is more disturbing?

It is a good post (((Lu))). quite thought-provoking.

just for fun...

Test your courage quotient

http://www.listener.co.nz/entertainment/quiz/test-your-courage-quotient/

This assessment is not the last word in courage and is not meant to brand you as either a hero or a coward. It is merely intended to get a broad measure of how prone you are to fear (Part 1) and how prone you are to bravery (Part 2).

Answer the questions below as honestly as possible. You will need a pen and paper for this quiz. Please respond to each statement by choosing the number from 1 to 7 that indicates how much you agree or disagree. Note down the number for each answer, then calculate your score by following the instructions at the end of each part. The final section suggests how to interpret the scores.

PART 1: YOUR FEAR SCORE

1. I worry about how others will view me.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

2. I frequently focus on possible failure.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

3. My fear of making mistakes sometimes holds me back from trying.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

4. I find physical adventure intimidating.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

5. My worry holds me back from doing what I'��d like to do.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

6. The world is full of people who will take advantage of you given a chance.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

7. I experience fear or worry everyday.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

8. I feel that if I let go of the control of projects bad things will happen.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

9. It is usually better to play it safe.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

10. I like to stick to the familiar.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

For Part 1 add up your total score and write it down.

Scores below 40 suggest that you experience passing fears and that you likely do not hold yourself back in life.

Scores of 40 to 50 suggest that you experience fears that you might in some cases keep you from engaging in life in the way you would otherwise hope to.

Scores above 50 suggest that you experience a fair amount of worry, anxiety and fear. It may or may not be severe, but it suggests there is room for growth in getting control of your own fear as you learn to be more courageous.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART 2: YOUR PROPENSITY TOWARD BRAVERY

1. I take risks because they usually pay off.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

2. I know I will be able to handle problems if they arise.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

3. I don't mind a little conflict if it means doing something important to me.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

4. I usually expect the best.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

5. I would be willing to go skydiving or engage in another challenging behaviour just to prove to myself that I could.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

6. I have a history of taking on challenging projects.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

7. Intense social pressure would not make me hesitant to do the right thing.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

8. I would express an opinion if I thought it were correct, even if I knew it would be unpopular.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

9. I would be likely to confront a parent who was yelling in a mean way at a children'�s sporting event.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)

10. If there were a medical emergency, I could be counted on to remain calm and do my part.
1. (Strongly Disagree) 2. ( Disagree) 3. (Slightly Disagree) 4. (Neutral) 5. (Slightly Agree) 6. (Agree) 7. (Strongly Agree)


For Part 2 add up your total score and write it down.

Scores of 40 to 50 suggest that you tend to take appropriate risks and face challenging circumstances.

Very low scores, such as 20 to 30, suggest that you have room to grow in the courage department.

Extraordinarily high scores, such as 60 to 70, should also be examined closely. Such scores might indicate that you are naturally courageous but might also indicate a tendency not to look before you leap.

The bravest individuals often have to temper their courage to make sure they are using their talents wisely and not taking risks that could bring avoidable negative consequences or failure.


COMPUTING YOUR COURAGE QUOTIENT
When you look at your fear score and at your propensity toward bravery score, bear in mind that these are not infallible measures. They may miss out on small but important aspects of your personality and behaviour. They are not meant to be read as the final authoritative word on anyone'��s level of courage. They are simply a psychological "�snapshot" of the relative amount of internal fear you contend with on a day-to-day basis, and how accomplished you currently are at dealing with fear.

hope it was fun!

Part 1: 40 - 50 mark. I am definitely held back by my fears of failure. I am comfortably miserable.

Part 2: 64. I am quite brave in this part though.

Part 1 19
Part 2 56

37 and 43

Thank you too for sharing the link, iam.

36 and 40.

Absolutely - well put.
Do nothing makes one complacent and apathetic. Admitting your shortfallsor fears starts with courage. Speak up and do something.
From one who should take her own advice!!!

Dont sell yourself short

36 and 47, however I feel that the first score should have been higher because the 40-50 sounds more like me.

Late in the evening I was walking in the park. Suddenly I heard scream coming from behind bushes. I stopped to listen and understood that a woman was attacked. I heard sounds of fighting and muttering. For several moments I was hesitating, should I get involved?

I panicked. I was frightened for my own safety. Maybe it is better to call the police? Then I realized that a woman's voice becomes weaker, so I knew I have to act quickly. Can I run away from this? Finally I decided that I have to help this unknown woman even if I am risking my own life. I felt some strange transformation inside, the moral and physical strength, so I ran behind the bushes. I pulled the attacker off the girl. We felt to the ground and grappled for several minutes. Then the assailant jumped up and ran away.

Breathing hard I slowly came up to the girl, who was cowering behind a tree. It was dark, so I could not see her face clearly. I felt, that she is very frightened, so I talked to her from a distance: "You are safe now, it's ok, the man had run away." After a few moments I heard her words with a great amazement in her voice: "Dad, is that you?" And then I realized that the girl was my youngest daughter.

http://www.inspirationalstories.eu/stories/touching-stories/inspirational-stories-about-courage/

Posts of this 'dimension' keep reminding me to 'pray' for the courage to seek the courage I lack!


Thank you ((@Pansy)) for 'sharing' this beautiful post!

a humorous and touching story of lending courage to the people we love

youtube video -->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y2VNDetsjg

website --> http://shane-koyczan-poems.tumblr.com/post/72673502031/why-does-this-mans-grandfather-fight-monsters-i
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Why Does This Man'��s Grandfather Fight Monsters?

The Crickets Have Arthitis:
Love and hate are beasts, and the one that grows is the one you feed.


I was raised by my grandparents. Now the three things you need to know about my granddad: number one, and probably most important, he had an intense love for beef jerky. Two, he had the kind of temper that could be likened to a levee bursting apart on a hot, dry day. A cache of anger stored away for any given moment on any given day. My grandmother used to say he was one half volcano and one half hurricane, a handful of excuses and a gut full of pain. And because of this, we come to number three: my granddad had a way with monsters. As a child, I slept in a bedroom full of them - a closet stuffed with long-legged demons, who could make it from one end of the room to the other in a single step. My strep throat silence was born from night terrors, when screaming was not enough, so I instead kicked the wall. Drew my first remembered breath the moment I heard thunder, stormed down the hall then burst through my door like a war on its way to a peace protest.

My granddad would rest his hands on his hips, let his fingertips grip his boxers and lift them up past his waist. Standing like a superhero in the doorway, he would split the night with a whisper and say, "all right you motherfuckers. I swear to Christ, I will turn on a goddamn light." Never has any monster ever heard a battle cry more terrifying than I will turn on a light. Never has any monster ever heard a battle cry more terrifying than "I will turn on a light." And every night for more than four years, my granddad took boogeymen by the ears and threw them out on their *****, dragged the carcasses of dead monsters out of my room, grabbed a broom and swept what was left of my nightmares into a dustpan, emptied them into a trashcan then turned around to say "sweet dreams, my boy. I'll be down the hall if you need me." We were sidekicks. I'd sound the alert, and my granddad would put the hurt on whatever was hiding under my bed or lurking in my closet. He'd deposit his foot so deep into the ***** of gargoyles that when they finally turned back into stone, he could wear them as platform boots to a Kiss concert.

My granddad used to wear a red polo shirt to bed. He said it used to be white, but one night when I was four, he busted down my bedroom door and had to kick some *** because I was screaming. Now, he wears it as a warning, teaching nighttime there are some things far worse than morning. A night terror differs from a nightmare in that the dreamer will awake and take terror with them back into consciousness. Add to this the fact that the dreamer rarely recalls what they dreamt, and that any attempt to wake them usually ends unsuccessfully. I know this now, but think constantly how my granddad had to just stand there, wait for it to end, and believe everything was going to be OK. How the following day he’d pretend not to be tired. An alarm clock wired into fears I could not recall. He'd wake and thunder down the hall doing the very best he could. He'd be there. An anchor pulling me back from the somewhere I could not escape. As a child, I learned not every hero wears a cape. Not everyone gets a tickertape parade just for having patience.

Not everyone has the strength needed to stand there, wait for it to end, and believe everything's going to be OK. Not everyone has the courage to say or do nothing when a child is screaming, dreaming of eternity in a room with no doors, no floors to keep you from falling further into panic, each once small fear suddenly titanic in its implications, situations so far beyond grotesque. I would've amputated my own imagination just to make them stop.

But at the end of each one, he'd be there and he'd say, "close your eyes. I’m going to turn on a light." He'd invite me back to consciousness with a tired smile. The next day, he would sit on the sofa before dinner and say "I just need to rest my eyes." My quest to end night terrors was born from the night he ended up falling asleep at the wheel and driving full speed into a snow bank. My one-man think tank kicked into overdrive. And for five nights in a row my granddad slept soundly, free from worry. We watched the light return to his eyes, as if it had just come back from some long vacation. But on night number six, the kicks against the bedroom wall made thunder storm down the hall once more.

He stood in the doorway ready to wage war, ready to restore light to darkness, to dismiss shadows, to land heavy-handed blows, Muhammad Ali combos that would give monsters pause to reconsider the options: get up or stay down? Stay down. That night, he was hungry for a first-round knockout. He was about to go through his usual checklist of monster hiding spots when I said, "no, it's OK. Go back to bed." With renewed enthusiasm he looked at me and said, "nonsense. These ******** have to pay."

And I remember the way he dropped to his knees, stuck his head under my bed and said, "what the **** is all of my beef jerky doing under here?" I explained to him my not-so-brilliant plan. I said, I thought if I kept them fed, they'd leave me alone and you could get a good night's sleep. Slow but deep, his lips crept across his face then cracked open into laughter. After a childhood of expecting only anger, he laid down on the ground, his lungs kicking at his chest. Every suppressed joy suddenly brought to the surface. This is the first time I can recall hearing my granddad laugh.

Some thoughts are kept in closets hanging next to skeletons and bogeymen. Sometimes when we believe in monsters, they take up residence under our beds. Our heads fill with the dread needed to keep them fed. We tread our own fear because we somehow thought it was better off being kept secret. It should come as no surprise that some hearts are like dark bedrooms - tombs that we allowed ourselves to shut because we thought that way, everything will be all right. I think about my granddad's laugh. I think often about that night, about how some people are waiting for people like us to slide our hands against their walls and say, "close your eyes. I'��m going to turn on a light."

- Shane Koyczan

The wizard of oz

Dorothy
Your Majesty, If you were King, you wouldn't be afraid of anything
Lion
Not nobody, not nohow
Tin Man
Not even a rhinocerous
Lion
Imposserous
Dorothy
How about a hippopotamus
Lion
Why, I'd trash him from top to bottomamus
Dorothy
Supposin' you met an elephant
Lion
I'd wrap him up in cellophant
Scarecrow
What if it were a brontosaurus
Lion
I'd show him who was King of the Forest
All Four
How
Lion
How
Courage, What makes a King out of a slave
Courage, What makes the flag on the mast to wave
Courage, What makes the elephant charge his tusk, in the misty mist or the dusky dusk
What makes the muskrat guard his musk
Courage, What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder
Courage, What makes the dawn come up like thunder
Courage, What makes the Hottentot so hot, What puts the ape in apricot
What have they got that I ain't got
All Four
Courage!!!
Lion
Then you can say that again

Rena's Promise
A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz



"I love because there is not enough room in my heart to hate." – Rena Kornreich Gelissen.


THE 716th JEWISH WOMAN in AUSCHWITZ
by Heather Dune Macadam
Co-author of Rena's Promise

Among the first 999 Jewish girls on the first transport brought into Auschwitz on March 26, 1942, was twenty-one year old Rena Kornreich-the seven hundred and sixteenth woman in that infamous death camp. "This is the first registered transport sent to the camp [They begin numbering them at 1,000]." (Czech, 148). On the other side of the wall, temporarily built to separate the men's and women's camps in Auschwitz I, were Polish Gentiles imprisoned for their political or religious beliefs and Russian POW's. Birkenau, later to become the women's camp, was used to house the Russian soldiers who were executed on an almost nightly basis in Block Eleven (The Block of Death). According to a note one Polish prisoner smuggled to Rena, "12,000 Russian soldiers were here when we came. 5,000 are left.... Your clothes are their uniforms."

Rena had seen enough of war in occupied Poland, where she was from, to know a little of what to expect from her oppressors. Yet, she was still unable to fathom their relentless cruelty.

"How are we going to find our suitcases later?" I figure I'm a human being, I have a right to ask. "Get in line and shut up!" he yells in my face, pointing his gun at me. The hair on my skin bristles. He doesn't see that I am human.

Two days after the first transport, Danka, Rena's younger sister, followed Rena to camp where, together, they spent the next three years of their young lives as slaves to the Third Reich.

The purpose of art, in my opinion, is to take us places where we have never been before. And whether it is in reality or imagination that we journey to Auschwitz the excursion is always valid. Rena's Promise is an artistic attempt to not only provide facts but to transport our readers into the immediate circumstances of survival and further than that, into Rena's mind.

Mama, I brought you the baby back. I repeat it over and over in my head. It is the refrain to the song that keeps me strong and healthy and spirited: Mama, I brought you the baby back. My one great feat in life, my fate, is to survive this thing and return triumphant with my sister to our parents' house. My dream cannot be marred by German whips or chains or rules. I will succeed because I have no other choice. Failure does not even occur to me, We may die in the interim-death cannot be avoided here-but even that will not dissuade me from my sole purpose in life. Nothing else matters but these four things: be with Danka, be invisible, be alert, be numb.

Women's accounts of the Holocaust are rare, but until Rena's Promise there has been no other book written by a survivor from the first transport of women. And for that reason alone she is historically important. There is very little information about the first transport of women and only vague footnotes mentioning it in the history books. Male survivors testimonies are far more published, than women's accounts yet the fact remains that the first transport was not men but girls on the verge of womanhood. "...Racism's 'logic' ultimately entails genocide....Any consistent Nazi plan had to target Jewish women specifically as women, for they were the only ones who would finally be able to ensure the continuity of Jewish life. Indeed, although the statistical data about the Holocaust will never be exact, there is sound evidence that the odds for surviving the Holocaust were worse for Jewish women than for Jewish men" (Rittner and Roth, 2).

This point is painfully obvious when one takes a look at even a few of the daily entries from The Auschwitz Chronicle. If anyone doubts the genocide perpetrated upon the victims of the Third Reich they need only look at the systematic coldness recorded in the Nazi's daily records. "June 8 [1943]...880 Jewish men, women and children...arrive in an RSHA transport from Greece. Admitted to the camp following the selection are 220 men, given Nos. 124325-124544, and 88 women, given Nos. 45995-46082. The other 572 deportees are killed in the gas chambers" (Czech, 415).

There is a rumor that Auschwitz is going to be used just for men again. We are going to be moved to Birkenau. There are other rumors of a gas chamber and a crematorium. "What is Birkenau?" We do not believe the other rumors, they were started by the Germans to dishearten us.

From "March to mid-August 1942...about 17,000 women prisoners, most of them Jews, arrived at Auschwitz. A large number of them (probably 5,000) perished before the transfer of women to the camp at Birkenau" (Strezelecka, 401, 394).

...The floor is dirt. There are no bunk beds here; there are shelves, wood planks, three tiers high. We are supposed to sleep here? Where are the mattresses? Our beds look like horse stalls. There is a sour smell of human odor. There are rags for blankets. We stand, squeezing our bread in our hands, unable to cope, unable to move. A girl begins to cry. Like fire in a stable her fear grabs us, and like dried straw we burn inside. Tears cannot quench these flames of disaster. We are lost. This is Birkenau.

Rena and Danka survived Birkenau for over a year when selections of 20,000 women might leave camp almost empty... only to be full again the following evening. It was Mengele himself that chose Rena and her sister for the SS laundry, which removed them from Birkenau with the advent of their second winter. In the SS laundry Rena and Danka were relatively safe from the mass selections that plagued the prisoners of Birkenau but receiving something as innocent as a note or a secret piece of sausage could still mean death. During the summer of 1944, Rena's job was to hang the laundry out to dry; it was during this time that she had several unique encounters with Irma Grese, one of the most notorious villains in the Auschwitz Complex (she was one of the only women executed for war crimes).

"You know what's going to happen when the war is over and we've conquered the world?" [Wardress Grese asks.] "No, I don't." My skin grows cold despite the blazing sun. "All of you Jews will be sent to Madagascar." She doesn't use a mean tone of voice, she just says it matter-of-factly, as if she knows that without a doubt this is the way it will be. "You'll be slaves for the rest of your life. You will work in factories all day long and be sterilized so you can never have children." ...There is a roaring in my ears, a train rushing through my head. Why don't I just die right now if I'm going to be a slave for the rest of my life? I stumble blindly from her voice, fighting the dryness stinging my eyes. What's the point of going on if this is all there is? I hide my face between clean white undershirts and shorts. I want to tear them off their lines and scream at the encroaching clouds darkening the sky above us. I want to end it all, make the endless monotony cease... make everything stop. I want to sleep forever and never wake up. Then I hear myself saying, Come on Rena, you don't even know if you're going to survive tomorrow-why worry beyond that?

There was a blizzard on the night of January 18, 1945, when Rena and her sister left Auschwitz for the first and last time, but it was not to mean freedom. For six days and 60 kilometers they were forced on the death march to Wodzislaw Slaski where they were then loaded into coal cars and taken into the interior of Germany. The rest of the war was spent digging ditches against the allies and burying their own comrades who had starved or been beaten to death. Then, on May 2, 1945, the Russian and American troops met in the middle of Germany and Rena and her sister were finally liberated.

"We're free!" We hug each other, crying. "We are free!" My heart is a stone in a river of tears.

I am always amazed by Rena. Her ability to laugh and tell jokes. She is a gift of life and memory, and what a memory. And despite all of the tragedy she has witnessed she maintains her spirit and good humor. That is often the thing that amazes me most. She does not get caught in the unanswerable question-the why's and how's-of Auschwitz; that would be suicide or worse insanity. And perhaps that is why she can remember with such brutal clarity. A student from Brown University asked her how she dealt with the trauma of Auschwitz psychologically and her answer was, "I started having babies." What better way to cope with death than to make new life?

A Buddhist Monk and dear friend went to Auschwitz in 1996 on a pilgrimage in honor of Rena Gelissen. There he lit candles to her parents and delivered a message to them from their daughter, "Dear Mama and Papa, I love you. I'm so sorry we were parted too soon." His journey to the camps affected him deeply and upon his return he shared this sentiment, "The ghosts of Auschwitz demand that we live our lives to their fullest potentials. Take every moment and squeeze the juices out of it. That is what they want, not revenge. They want us to light candles and pray but also to dance and celebrate life." Is that the real challenge of Auschwitz? To have not only the courage to remember but to embrace life rather than death?

It is hard for every survivor to cope with their memories and despite her fortitude, a year after her story was published she called, crying. "I thought it would go away." She wept. "I thought the memories would go away." No one can take that past away from Rena or any Holocaust survivor, as much as they wish we could make their nightmares fade. We can listen to them though, and share their pain. Perhaps that is the way to lessen the burdens of the past, and in that way we let these remarkable survivors know that they are not alone. By listening we give them hope that their stories will continue through the generations and never die.

Rena's story of survival reveals the power of relationships between sisters, men and women, Gentiles and Jews. It is love which gives them the will to endure unimaginable circumstances-it is that same love and courage that allows Rena to share her story with others. Her mission is to share her experience along with her message-Shalom to all people.


historyplace.com~

WOW Sweet Lady ^^^^^ Incredible

Some people say courage as if it is just a word...
Courage is way more than a word...
It's a gift.
Gift are not sometimes deserved but are given anyway...
Courage is the distinction between mediocracy and bravery. I believe many people are mediocre...very few are actually brave.

After one year of recovering from a fear of going outside, I was faced with having to defend myself, while in a flat with a complete stranger, who had drank too much. It was daylight, and he was wanting to borrow some money to get a bus home. I didn't know he'd follow me into my flat. I thought he'd wait outside for me, but anyway, what's done is done. I told the police. And when you're handling a drunk person by yourself, it's difficult to get them off your back. I was vulnerable.

Seeking Courage NOT to judge people...

(((Joe))) ive never read the wizard of oz, and have only watched the judy garland version partially....i must say, that post is too cute.

(((Lu))) beautiful post, as always

(((Kaust))) IMHO, it doesnt take too much courage to not judge people, but it does take a lot of understanding...