Courage

I have a friend who, like many people today, is going through a rough patch. He shares something in common with the masses who have ever undergone a life change. It may be the death of a spouse, friend, or parent, the loss of a marriage, or perhaps the loss of a career or business. You get the idea – some event that truly changes everything about your day.

These events are uncommon, of course, but as they happen to us as individuals, it certainly feels that no one else could understand or experience the same level of pain. We know this isn’t true – but it feels like that, emotionally. So what’s to be done?

You have likely met many people who have the attitude of “Well, just buck up,” or “everybody is going through something,” or my absolute favorite – “It could always be worse”. They present this perspective toward you as though it were some sage advice – it’s the one-liner said with such confidence on their part that it feels like we’ve just been given the secret to life… only it's written in a language we don’t understand.
So we leave that encounter feeling just as bad, or feeling foolish because apparently our problem isn’t significant enough to warrant better advice, or we are just pissed off because this person seemingly doesn’t care. You know what I mean?

Well, these three one-liners (and others similar) really fall into 3 categories: Courage, perspective or acceptance. This is really what’s being told to us, right? Someone is telling us we either lack courage, acceptance, or perspective. All three are great things and are needed to have a fulfilling life, love, or career.
But they aren’t exactly the advice someone struggling needs. In fact, it often makes the person struggling feel even worse since they’ve basically been told that their problems really don’t matter; at least that’s how it’s usually emotionally interpreted. Especially when we don’t know how to find the courage, strength, or perspective, and they didn’t tell us.

Someone sent me a blog link the other day, it was about courage – effectively, it spoke of how to have it by practicing how to act courageous; it spoke of fear encountering people, situations, etc. I read it – I read it again. And I thought, how many thousands of readers does this guy have? And how do I reach them to let them know that you cannot practice getting courage!

My friend sent this because of his struggles in his life; his 15-year marriage has ended. And like many, he is lost. He doesn’t know where he wants to go, what he wants to do, sometimes he doesn’t know what he wants to even eat. The last thing he needs is to practice having courage; nor does the widow or the businessman who lost his business.

The world is full of people pretending to be something they are not. The divorce rates show it, the levels of prescribed medications for anxiety show it, and the world of politics has been showing it for years.
Why don’t we need to practice getting courage? Because we already have it, we were born with it. It’s gone nowhere. Courage is not something we can develop, nor is it something we can lose. It is merely a trait that is automatically released when we cease letting fear rule our lives.

My friend got aggravated with me when I told him this because most people want to convince themselves that they have it all figured out; that they are strong enough to “barrel through” or “grin and bear it”. But most people aren’t telling the truth to themselves or to others by pretending to have courage.

Fear masks courage – simple as that. It masks it and can even make us believe we are strong when we are weak. Fear is extremely powerful when it’s not confronted, but it loses all of its power over us when we understand its origin and what it is attempting to mask. My friend feels weak and without confidence, yet it took a tremendous amount of strength and courage to end his 15-year marriage; good or bad, it took strength. It takes a lot of strength to start over.

- Dave Jones