On Courage

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Courage is not fearlessness. 

Courage is taking action despite the fear you feel. Courage is the willingness to respond fearlessly despite the anxiety and worry that might be tugging at you.

I have always been drawn to courageous lives, people who stand up to injustice, speak truth to power, take risks, and feel joy in living boldly. But, quite often, these bolder lives are not filled with flash and dazzle but are instead of a quieter nature, marked by a humble determination to make the most of the gifts life gives us. 

What is courage, then?

The Stoics believed that courage was a virtue – a marker of moral excellence. More specifically, it was the virtue that moderated our instincts toward recklessness on one hand and cowardice on the other.

They believed the courageous person feared only things that were worthy of fear. Courage means knowing what to fear and responding appropriately to that fear. For them, what matters isn’t just whether you face your fears but why you face them and what you fear.

If we look at the word’s derivation from the Latin cor (the root of coeur in French and cuore in Italian), meaning “heart.” How does one act from one’s heart? To live from one’s heart? This is not some soft, New Age metaphor for doing whatever we want, what pleases us most. On the contrary, I believe that the word’s root reveals that when we act courageously, we respond to our deepest selves, often unknown until the moment of being tested.

The defining core of courage is love. Without love, courage is not possible. Acts of bravado, yes—but true courage is the natural outgrowth of our love of all that we hold dear, the preciousness of each human life, and a deep belief that what we love matters. Without love, there is nothing at stake, nothing to fight for.

In trying to live more courageously, I practice understanding what courage is and training myself to perform small, daily acts of bravery.

#1 Courage means being afraid and acting anyway. 
If you tend to be fearful, you probably assume you’re not courageous. However, fear is a universal emotion, and we all know how terrible terror feels. Thus, we should grasp that feeling afraid and acting in any way is a form of nobility.

#2 Courage is a habit, a muscle you can exercise. 
Most of us aren’t born courageous, so we shouldn’t expect to acquire it magically without practice. Get in the habit of deciding what you think about things and speaking from that place of conviction. Practice saying what you think about small, inconsequential things: pleasantly, politely—but firmly.

#3 Notice every time you do something that you’re scared to do—something your body is telling you not to do. 
You’ll start to realize that you do these things all the time. So you’re already much braver than you think. This is particularly true of shy people for whom daily life requires them to smile in the face of fear. 

#4 Dare to let go of things.
There are some battles we wage on a more frequent base. For example, how far do you let your boss push you around before you stand up for yourself? How much do you let your money or status control your actions instead of living the life you want to live? And how much do you worry about your possessions being stolen from you or losing your loved ones? Learn to let go of the fear of losing things. Impermanence permeates life. Embrace that.

#5 Know thyself.
We must look closer and go inward to see what we need to ask ourselves. Then we will see what possible battles we can find there. How do we know our limits and when we need to act? That starts with knowing yourself. It is time to ask ourselves a lot of questions. These are not easy questions: we must go for the most challenging questions to get to the core. And believe me, this takes a lot of courage. Because most of the time, we will find things we don’t like about ourselves. Unless we find the courage to investigate ourselves, we can’t grow. 

#6 Welcome failure.
Most people fear failure, which often keeps them stagnating or stuck in the same place. The fear of failure can lead people to develop rigid standards and become perfectionistic in an effort not to experience the embarrassment or shame that comes with failure. But failure is an experience that we should embrace. After all, failure is an opportunity to grow as a person. It allows you to learn something new, change directions, and see what you're made of. And if viewed as a welcome experience instead of a worst-case scenario, it stretches you to try new things despite the risks involved.

We are all courageous in our ways—some of us have simply had it tested a bit more than others. Such trials are the stuff of life we would never wish for, but at the end of the tunnel, we find ourselves grateful for having passed through them. Like love, courage never goes away. It only changes form from time to time, builds on itself, evolves, expands, and enhances everything it touches.

Maybe the truth about courage is that it’s all about truth. It’s about looking reality in the face and having the force of will not to turn away, despite the pain, the unpleasantness, and the risk.

Maybe it’s about looking for long enough to see the joy in the pain, the beauty in the ugliness, and the comfort in the little risks we take every day.

Perhaps it’s only then we can know what’s worth dying for – and what’s worth living for. 

How about you?
How do you embrace courage in your life?

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