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20 Seconds Of Courage

Wisdom from a 2011 Matt Damon Movie

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20 Seconds Of Courage
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"Sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it." - Benjamin Mee, We Bought a Zoo.

When my best friend made me watch We Bought a Zoo - a movie that had gone under the radar for just about every person that didn't see it in the months within it had come out - I didn't expect much. With post break-through Matt Damon playing Benjamin Mee, a widowed father trying to find direction in his and his family's life after the sudden and tragic death of his beloved wife, the movie carried weight in the sentiment that it was trying to pass onto its audience.

The biggest changes in life come from the biggest risks that you're willing to take after all.

Now, this may mean nothing to all you extroverts out there, but it meant a lot to my poor little introverted heart. Twenty seconds. Twenty seconds where you just don't give a damn about the little voice in your head telling you that what you're trying to do is a horrible idea or worrying about all the ways that it could go wrong and just full on Shia LaBeouf just doing it.

It's the little things where this means just so much because those are the things we worry about the most - talking to someone new, doing something different, being uncomfortable in literally any way possible. Regardless, I think everyone has those moments of weakness where 20 seconds of blind courage wouldn't hurt - we're all a bit awkward ya know.

Being entirely honest courage doesn't really make any sense. It's the unknown. Logically speaking trying something you know nothing about is probably the worst decision you could make. It's irrational, unpredictable, and on paper sounds like the worst idea anyone could ever have come up with.

Huh, it sounds a whole lot like that "love" thing now that I think about it...

Either way, it's the thing that makes life worth living. After all, It's the moments where we're completely blindsided by an experience that usually end up being the most worth remembering and the one's we cherish the most.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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