MIND MOVES/Marie Murray: People are heroic. The human capacity to cope with calamity, to overcome adversity, adapt to hardship and surmount suffering is remarkable. And it is most remarkable when it takes the form of quiet fortitude: when it is a heroic life that is lived day by day.
For the heroic act, however extraordinary and courageous it may be, is usually a singular identifiable deed well done, whereas the laudable life is one of consecutive sacrifices that require renewed bravery each new day. This is not to denigrate the former in favour of the latter. But visible heroes are usually recognised, honoured and rewarded for their bravery, while everyday heroes rarely feature in the annals of awards.
Heroism is something that many people demonstrate every day. Often it is unobserved. Frequently it is unacknowledged. Sadly, many do not realise that their daily lives are odysseys that rival the most heroic Homeric tales, feats of the Fir Bolg and victories of the Tuatha De Dannan. For they live valiant lives that challenge our most extravagant concepts of courage.
Most people know someone in this "ordinary hero" league: people who live extraordinarily well, despite the outrageous misfortunes that have befallen them.
Who does not know at least one person who has been weighted with excess illness or loaded with bewildering bad luck, afflicted with inexplicable adversity, and allocated unfair portions of human hardship? And who could not admire the courage these ordinary people have?
Among these heroes are people who cope with chronic illness, who fight poor prognoses, who circumvent disablement, who confront addiction, who recognise their depression, who defy disfigurement and who endure what the rest of us would find unbearable.
What about carers: those people who care for family members who are unable to care for themselves? Carers, uncared for by society, by health services, Government assistance or legislative protection, they engage, not in one heroic act, but in one heroic life in the service of others.
Many courageous people never give up on life. Hopelessness is not in their vocabulary. They carry the child who might be disabled, they cherish the life that is not perfect, they love and seek help for the disturbed adolescent who endlessly, mindlessly exhausts them each day.
They protect the young adult who has a mental illness, they challenge the husband or wife who has alcoholism, they mind the parent whose mind has long since left their body until the body is ready to leave this earth.
For some heroes suffering is medical. Always it is loss. For to lose one's sight or hearing, capacity to walk, ability to talk, the loss of a skill, all of these losses reduce the armoury required to battle one's way through life. Yet they fight on when most others would have thrown down their arms or thrown up their arms in surrender.
Sometimes suffering means witnessing another person's angst. Helplessness, when faced with the suffering of someone we love, is suffering that often surpasses personal pain.
For to endure one's own pain may be difficult, but to be unable to alleviate that of one's child, or spouse, or parent, is a particular form of suffering that derives from deep empathy and profound love.
Sometimes suffering is without recognisable external cause, identifiable justification that one can articulate or that others can understand. Depression's dark night of the soul is further overshadowed by guilt and self-revulsion at feeling depleted when ostensibly gifted with plenty. The courage of people who suffer from depression is enormous, because unlike the bruised limb and bandaged head, how does a person explain the sheer physicality of what is physically invisible?
Physical ailments are not confined to the body. Disability is not specific incapacity, it changes everything. It means that each day more energy is required to do what others do automatically. It means living a different life.
Yet everyday heroes never give up. The next diagnosis is the next dispute with fate. The next disaster is the next chance to oppose oceanic troubles "and by opposing end them". For these audacious archers, "the slings and arrows" of unfair fortune are caught and slung away.
Can psychology capture the essence of the ineffable heroism of everyday heroes? Can it capture the essence of hope? An extensive literature on the psychological benefits of hope exists of which the studies on "Positive Psychology", "Learned Optimism" and "Authentic Happiness" by psychologists such as Seligman are just one example.
Hope is one of psychology's resilience tools. It emerges at the edges of despair. It is coiled, ready to "spring eternal in the human breast". Hope encourages, for "if winter comes, can spring be far behind". Hope is what keeps people alive when prognosis says they should be dead. It is what emerges when Pandora's box is shut, releasing new resolve when all else seems to fail. It is "the thing that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words". It is the belief with which ordinary heroes demonstrate not mere moments of bravery but lifetimes of magnificent courage that give the rest of us reason to hope.
Marie Murray is director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview.