-In some point of life, you eventually have to face what you fear the most, even if it might be the most pathetic or smallest/biggest fear ever. That is showing courage, and the way you show is different for people. It might not even be facing your fear, and it might be just accomplishing something new. I can think of some time that I tried something new although it was nothing compared to Mafatu when he killed a shark and a wild boar and etc.
The time I showed courage to myself was when I was about 9 (?) years old. This event actually has to do with swimming. I was in fourth grade in Korea, and I used to take swimming lessons. I used to go to the gym on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays every week. But I had to change my English Academy schedule so it changed to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. My new swimming teacher was way tougher than my old teacher. What added on to that was the fact that classes ended the latest on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Also you can probably guess about Saturdays. Anyways, it was (or at least I think it was) a Tuesday when my teacher told my class to do something that I thought was really impossible.
The directions were quite simple; we had to walk to the other side of the pool and then dive in. Well of course, that's the easy part. After that we had to swim across the 25m pool in freestyle with only one breathtaking. As soon as I heard that, my heart leaped. I couldn't do it. But I had to. Our class was the highest class (of that time period) because we were in lane 6. There were 6 lanes in total, and ours was at the very right. My classmates and I lined up. As I waited, I stared at the cold, blue water. Finally my turn came. I dived in, trying to go as far as possible. I also tried to float as long as possible underwater without doing any strokes. My hands touched the surface. I was at about only a quarter of the whole length, and yet it felt so long. I swam as fast as I could, and finally took my only breathe. Actually to be honest, it wasn't my only. I had sneaked in another breathe because I just couldn't bare it. I had cheated, and I prayed my teacher hadn't noticed.
When I got out of the water, my teacher patted my back. I was guessing that he hadn't noticed. After a minute, I found out that I got lucky. Some other people had decided to cheat and had gotten caught. So for the punishment, we had to do it all over again. This time I promised myself that I wouldn't breath a second breathe unless I was about to drown. It happened rapidly. I tried to do it all over again, leaping as far as possible and gliding through the water. This time believe or not I didn't even need the second breathe. I had done it. I didn't even know I was doing it while I was doing it. :D From then and on, I learned that even if I fail at first, the most important thing is to try. It takes courage to take a chance. But guess what- somebody cheated again and we had to do it several more times. :P
I'm pretty sure that this wasn't the first time I did something where I had to push myself. But it's the one that came up to me the first and it's the one that I remember most vividly. It is very hard to push yourself to take a risk, but sometimes you will bump into a situation where you have no choice. But you might notice that courage isn't something that big at times. You might even show courage and not know it. This is what I call courage- trying new things. What do you call courage?
