Courage?

I was reading KPR's post on courage, and I just had to pen some thoughts down.There is an interesting way that people have...one of my professors brought it to my notice when I was doing my masters...He said, people already set a standard for you...for your self esteem and worth...if you go to someone and say, "I dont know anything, I am not good"...they will immediately say, "Come on, you aren't too bad, hang in there..!" And if you go tell them, "Hey, I am good, I am really good at this"...they will immediately retort with..."Come on down, ever heard of modesty?"

So basically people all around us have already decided, without knowing us, how confident we should or should not be...and you know what?This has nothing to do with us,it actually has everything to do with their self esteem.If they see someone happy and confident, it just shows them that they are not as confident, and as a defense, they pull the other person down. Their encouragement also has nothing to do with us, its just their way of showing how good they are, how much they care...it makes them feel better about themselves.

So now, here are a bunch of people who are actually trying to make something of themselves...and if they are really good, you would think the world would give them a break right?WRONG...the world will only give a break to people who know how to show the right amount of weakness, so that they can make others feel stronger and therefore get something for themselves.We seem to have gone terribly wrong somewhere when we need to use negative emotions and feelings to prove we are worthy.

It takes real courage to stand and say I AM good.But to get to this point also,one needs to fight all the devils inside, all the doubts and questions people have put into our minds since we were born...we end up eternally asking ourselves, am I worthy of anything?

The world has so many explanations for suffering...there are religions that have told us that its our karma...I am sure karma has a part to play in all this, but we aren't doing much to fight back also are we?We just end up accepting labels people give us and living with it...isn't it time for some serious introspection and to make up our minds that we will feel good about ourselves?

Ashwini