What True Strength Really Is

What is strength? Is it doing what’s demanded of you, even when you don’t want to? Some days, I don’t feel like waking up, going to school, work, or the gym but I do it anyway. I could quit it all and more, yet something inside me refuses.

The light is a place of relief, accessible to those deemed worthy before they've even proven it. For the rest of us, there’s the darkside. It takes a special kind of strength to be a resident there.

Most people who’ve lived in the shadows spend their lives testing their strength every single day they breathe. We carry the weight of a past we never chose, surviving and running from demons while others are free to grow under the sun.

Those who live in the light don’t have to think twice about their freedom to grow, all the while we have to focus on staying safe. It takes strength to not resent them, knowing it's not their fault their path is easier. The trauma we carry makes our journey harder, and the endurance we build through storms makes us tougher.

We break, though. We break with every storm, each one teaching us more about pain. Each one makes us more resilient. We become strong enough to carry it on our backs, and in a way, wish it wasn’t on anybody else’s shoulders. It makes us wiser, makes us love harder and think deeper.

We get so conditioned to it we make it look easy but it only makes the fight harder. The harder the fight, the more strength is required to endure. The wounded parts of ourselves that never get a chance to heal? They are the very parts that make up our strength.

It takes someone like us, someone who's fought through depression, loneliness, addiction, and more to possess this kind of strength. We fight during the day, and when others sleep, we stay awake, practicing, preparing for the next battle.

That little spark inside you that makes you keep going when everyone else told you to quit, that’s strength.