Measure of Strength

Strength? What is the true measure of strength? Is it the action of opposing pain with brute force? Is it the firm standing that a person is immune to pain? Is it the moment a person is too hard to be hurt? No, that is not the true measure of strength. The true measure of strength is this: to admit one’s failures, to accept the pain that is carried along with it and to submit to its consequences, no matter how painful it is. And for a person that is left behind by somebody that he loves true strength is this: he accepts the painful way of the parting ways yet behind this unbearable moment he endures because he knows that by the end of the day even when he cries himself to sleep he is still cradled by other people.

True inner strength is to submit yet to endure because he is driven by that single force that can even shake mountain, that force is called hope. Remember we are but mortal human beings, predictable and vulnerable. Open to pain and failures but it is this vulnerability that we seek to love and to be loved in return. We are not created to hate neither we are created to be bitter, we are born to learn, we are born to move forward not to stand still and stagnate at a single moment in our life. Because if we do we shall never see what lies ahead, what is in the future waiting for us. Loving is not a goodie bag all the time, one must undergo thru a cycle of make ups and break ups, the sanity of hellos and the madness of goodbyes. One must undergo many painful tasks and sacrifices before he can truly say: "this is it, I have found what I am seeking…." Yes living is an infinite dance of laughter, anger, sadness and mercy. One is never complete with out the other. And it is the balance of these elements that we can learn true strength not by pride that feeds shame but by patience that feeds humility. And remember this that even in the darkest of days the only thing the soul can cling to is his torch called hope.


-gerard d. ompad
"Thursdays with maurons"