“Success is not final, and failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill.

Strength. It’s a powerful word, is it not? And yet, what is it? How do you define something that is “strong”? Do you define it as Merriam-Webster does, as “the capacity for exertion or endurance”, or “the power to resist force”, or maybe even just “the quality or state of being powerful”? Do you define strength as something that can be found in numbers? Or as something that comes from within, from the intense drive of a single individual? I don’t mean to piss in your cheerios, but it doesn’t really matter how you define this word, because strength can be found everywhere, in a million different forms, sprouting from a million different sources. Everyone’s got their own baggage and we’re all carrying around our own personal suitcase full of feelings. The weights of everyone’s suitcases are distributed differently. The way we carry them is different, unique to us and our particular baggage. But that doesn’t make any one of us less strong than the other.

Strength is a funny thing. It seems that often times, when we wish for it or we want it, our capacity to be strong is on an all-inclusive stay-cation in Cancun. However, it also seems that as humans we can often find inhuman strength deep within us when we most need to. Marianne Williamson once said “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” This is a scary thought, that we are more intimidated by the fact of our true strength than our weakness. However, it makes sense if you put a little thought into it. When you’re playing soccer or basketball, and you have an open shot but instead of shooting, you pass it, people will always question you, wondering why you didn’t just look to score. Usually, your answer is simple: “What if I would have missed?” But think about it, what are you ACTUALLY afraid of? Are you afraid of missing one shot in one game that everyone will eventually forget, or are you afraid to make the shot and take on the expectation that you will continue to make the shot? We’re afraid of the pressures that come with strength, and this is what holds many of us back from conquering our baggage and setting down the suitcase for good.

However, with that being said, I still witness insurmountable amounts of strength every day. I play soccer at Truman State University. I have 31 teammates who show up to practice day in and day out, going through the workouts like the dawgs they are. But I don’t just witness strength in the weight room and on the field. Every girl on the team has a suitcase. Sometimes the suitcases come undone and everything falls out. Sometimes things get emotional. (I mean, we’re girls, amirite, lol.) But more times than I can count, I have witnessed my teammates gather their things back into the suitcase and press on. No matter the kind of day, or week or life it’s been lately, my team shows up to practice and they know that they will find strength there. Strength in the team, strength in the game, and strength in themselves. We’re all different; we come from all walks of life, from different towns, different states, and different backgrounds. But if someone is having trouble carrying their suitcase we don’t let them struggle alone, because strength has many different definitions, and sometimes it takes many different people being strong for each other make carrying the baggage seem possible.

Strength. It’s a powerful word. It can mean many different things and can be found in many different places. But we’ve all got it somewhere. Sometimes we don’t need to be strong, and it takes the help of others to carry our baggage. But sometimes, the strength we needed was inside of us all along, and we were just too scared to recognize it.