What defines courage? What makes me more courageous than
the person sitting next to me on a bus or in the classroom? How do I know that I
acquire all of the attributes to call myself a courageous person? Is it
something that I am born with or something that I get from my surroundings and experience?
Is fear necessary in order to have courage?
According to Dictionary.com, courage is defined as the
quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, or
pain without fear or bravery. But what defines something as being difficult,
dangerous, or painful? According to Psychology Today, courage is something that
everyone wants so they can feel respected and show that they have an attribute
of good character. But is courage something that is only physical or is it also
something that has to do with the mental state of mind? My answer is no. Being courageous
is not only being physically strong, but also about being mentally capable of
preparing yourself for an action or event. According to Authentic Happiness, “If
a person is fearless, the behavioral component of fear is not at issue, for
there is no reason to avoid or escape something that elicits no subjective or
physical sensation of fear.” This means that no courage can come without fear,
and that there are different kinds of fear which equals out to different kinds
of courage.
In this Psychology Today article, historical figures
like Martin Luther King Junior and Nelson Mandela are mentioned as people who weren’t
known as much for their physical courage as much as for their bravery in the
way they spoke out about wrong doings and injustice. So what attributes do
define a courageous person?
Well for starters, the first attribute to define a courageous
person is feeling fear, but choosing to act anyways. This is probably the
hardest thing anyone can do. To feel afraid, and then to make yourself do something,
is hard for most of us. To make that decision, one would have to be mentally strong
enough to make a pros and cons list and to really determine what is at risk.
Nelson Mandela once said, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but
he who conquers that fear.” This quote is the definition of this first attribute
mentioned.
The second attribute is following your heart. If you
do not truly look deep down inside of you and determine why you are doing
something, then you may just be doing something for the sake of doing it and you
may not necessarily acquire that attribute and have courage. According to Steve
Jobs, “And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is
secondary.” To me, this means that following your heart is the foundation to having
courage.
The third attribute is expanding your horizons and
letting go of the familiar. This mostly means that you need to be willing to
read about viewpoints that are not your own and to listen to people who argue
against you on certain viewpoints. Lord Chesterfield once said, “Man cannot discover
new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” That means if
you do not let go of what you already know, you will never be able to fully
experience what is to come. Learning about new things and experiencing new
things not only helps build up your courage, but also your personality and your
character. There is nothing better than a person who is all around well educated
in all aspects of life, not only in school, but also with people. According to “The
Science of Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone (and Why You Should),” it is an
important thing to push the boundaries of your comfort zone and that it is
actually a big deal when this happens because you are growing as a person and building
up your character.
The fourth and final attribute I will be discussing is
facing suffering with dignity or faith. Aristotle once said, “The ideal man
bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of
circumstances.” I actually agree with Aristotle on this one because accidents
in our lives cannot be avoided, but it is how you deal with them that really says
something about you as a person. This is all about your spiritual courage. It
is the voice on the inside talking to you about what your next move should be
to deal with a specific thing.
In conclusion, courage is not something that can be
measured by strength alone, but mentality and spirituality also play a role. To
be courageous, you must be ready to fall off and get right back on, and it
might not be easy. But you would be courageous for trying so hard to get back up,
no matter how easy it would be to just stay down.
In my next installment, I will be talking about how the
philosophers we have mentioned this semester view courage and what their definitions of courage would be.
Resources:
"following your heart is the foundation to having courage" - but don't people sometimes follow their hearts and do bad things, in the name (for example) of a political or religious cause? Don't heart and head both have to be involved in the definition of courage? Or is that what "losing sight of shore" means, allowing yourself to learn something new that might overturn your hearts' desire?
ReplyDelete"bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace" - yes, Aristotle's right: the quiet courage of those who take on all challenges and persevere, the courage of the stoic perhaps, is less heralded but in some ways more admirable, for its very persistence.