Caitlyn Jenner and Defining Courage by @PandaPSU

(Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair - Photo courtesy of usmagazine.com)

It's not often I find the need or even have the urge to right a serious column. I spend most of time online talking about sports. First, because it is a passion of mine. Second, because it is a fairly light topic. For the most part, we, as fans, get worked up about our favorite athletes losing a game or about management's constant mistakes handling a roster or staying within a salary cap. In terms of life, the topic of sports is a fairly meaningless one. Sometimes, however, sports crossover into some very important societal issues. Such was the case last night with Caitlyn Jenner at the ESPYs.

Watching the Jenner background story and the follow-up acceptance speech of the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage was very touching. It provided a small glimpse into what she went through her whole life and how hard this is/was for her. In the speech she talked about situations where transgender people were bullied, and even spoke about how she knew negativity would be coming her way. That is the part I would like to focus on. Twitter, and the internet as a whole, can be a cruel place. In fact, it is very true to life in that respect. I am not going to screencap numerous tweets, but the overwhelming hot topic last night was whether Caitlyn Jenner deserved an award based on courage?

For many folks, courage is an easy thing to spot:

• Danielle Green, an Iraqi war veteran who lost part of her left arm from a rocket-propelled grenade attack, provided an inspirational speech and story accepting the Pat Tillman Award for service. Was this courageous? Of course it was, it's obvious.
• Lauren Hill, an 18-year-old who was diagnosed with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Giloma (a rare, deadly brain cancer), was an inspiration to the entire nation as she stood up to her illness and realized her dream of playing in a collegiate women's basketball game for Mount St. Joseph's. As she scored the first and last basketball in her team's win, she went on later to say that, "I want everybody to know that I never gave up." Courageous? Almost unimaginably so...it's crystal clear.

Which brings us back to Caitlyn Jenner, does a person explaining their lifelong struggles about how they never felt comfortable in their own skin until now, when she is in her 60s, really stack up to stories like Danielle Green and Lauren Hill? That is not for me to say, but I can tell you that it is just as courageous... and I know that will be an unpopular opinion. When folks are not comfortable with something, they tend to deal with it in one of two ways -- or quite possibly both. They will make jokes about the situation, and/or they will attack it in multiple ways. It is easy to do this in the case of Caitlyn Jenner because it is a topic not a whole lot of people are comfortable with or know that much about -- myself included. It is also easy to say her story is not courageous because it is not as obvious as the two mentioned above.

What I will say is that courage takes on multiple faces. If a person is battling depression, getting out of bed each morning, finding ways to be happy, and finding ways to be productive, are all courageous acts. Would people view this as courage? No, because it is not something tangible, and because it comes easy to many people. If a person is battling anxiety, any situation they decide to still go through with -- no matter how hard it is or how much they would rather not -- is courageous. Is this easy to identify as courage? Absolutely not.

My point is that what Caitlyn Jenner did last night was absolutely courageous. It was just a form and face of courage that not many people are comfortable with seeing. They don't recognize it so it is easy to say "that is not courageous". Friends, it is 2015, all I am asking is that you try to grow as a person and think outside of each of your tiny bubbles, especially when it comes to something like courage. Because the truth is that courage can take on many shapes and forms, and you never truly know when courage is staring you right in the face.