My wife sent me this link this morning, and I took 10 minutes out of my day to watch it. I’m glad I did – yeah, it’s sort of glurge-y, but inspirational nonetheless. Anyway, when it was finished, I e-mailed back to her:
"Two thoughts:
"1. I wish I had his courage.
“2. Proof that it’s a random world and there is no real justice.”
She replied:
"You can choose to have courage
“Yes, you’re right.”
Okay, first I’m printing out the e-mail and framing it for my study so every once in awhile I can look at it and remember that, on a very special day in 2008, my wife told me I was right.
More importantly, though, can we choose to have courage? I mean, the kind of courage it takes to turn one’s own pending death into a message of inspiration and hope? Maybe I underestimate myself (alas, I think not!) but if I were in the prime of my life with three young children I knew I’d never see graduate from high school, I think I’d pretty much retreat to a dark hole somewhere and obsess about the unfairness of it all. And probably wish I had more courage so it wouldn’t hurt so bad.
Can we really choose to have courage? And if so, isn’t that really just evidence that we actually have the courage in the first place? Am I over-thinking this?
Courage is a noun, a non-concrete thing, a concept. “Doing” is a verb. The way I always understood it, a person HAS courage, not that a person DOES courage. Yes, we can choose to do the right thing – if we have the courage to do so.
In the case of the speech referenced in the link, if one lacks the courage to stand in front of an audience and be cheerful in the face of iminent death, can one simply acquire the necessary courage by making a decision?
This whole discussion is essentially over what “courage” means.
Here’s one perspective. Courage is not being without fear. Courage is the doing of the right thing even though you are facing considerable risk. To say someone “has” courage is just a way of saying their actions demonstrate that.
After Christopher Reeve was paralyzed, he was praised for his courage in facing this and raising money for a cure. I liked his reply, which was something to the effect that he wasn’t courageous. He had his family, friends, fans, and many other advantages. He thought people who had to face paralysis with far fewer blessings were the truly courageous ones.
The lecturer was definitely inspiring, accomplished, a role model. But courage in facing his death like this? What was he risking? At best, I’m undecided.
There’s this dialogue from The Lion In Winter:
This resonates a bit for me. But how much would it really matter in that situation? It wouldn’t make me any less dead. My killer could lie about my behavior without a qualm.
Granted, someone could just be so depressed about dying that their family might be a bit relieved when they finally died. But I wouldn’t presume to blame someone for retreating–a completely understandable reaction–one bit. Me, with life still ahead of me, judging a person facing death? No way.
It depends on how you look at courage. Is courage a lack of fear, or is it doing something despite the fear?
In the first definition courage isn’t a choice. How can you choose to be less afraid of something? You can overcome your fears, but there is no mental switch you can flip that will make you less scared in the same way that you can choose to eat spinach over lasagna. The fear remains whether you over come it or not.
In the second definition it is a choice. You can choose to overcome your fears. You can choose to eat the spinach despite the fear of its unappealing flavor.
I think you’re confusing courage with confidence. True enough, the two are often linked, but often they’re not.
Confidence is getting up on stage and knowing that you’re going to own the audience. Courage is wanting to be anywhere in the world but on that stage, knees shaking, sweating, heart racing, wanting more than anything to run as fast as possible from the situation – and doing it anyway.
And courage, in this sense, can ONLY be a choice. If you’re not scared, there’s nothing to choose - you’ll get up and do the speech. Courage is the act of making the choice to do something despite it being scary.
And, as **Autolycus **alludes: fake it 'till you make it. Choose to be courageous, and do whatever it is despite your fear, and in time, perhaps, that fear will fade. Then you will no longer be courageous, but confident.
I wondering how one can have courage. Maybe I’m not seeing the bigger picture, but it seems to me that courage is a one-shot deal, where one does it in a specific moment, then it’s over. I can count a great number of times when I’ve done courage in very specific situations, and a great number of times when I was a big chicken. Do I have courage or don’t I?
Here’s an interesting question: If one has no choice but to do courage, is it still courage? A few years back I was forced to greet an audience then stand in front of an orchestra. I signed up for the gig, but when it came down to opening night, I was scared shitless. I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to go home, take off my tux, and get drunk. But that would have been disappointing to a whole lot of people. I did what needed to be done. Was that courage?
The quote was from Aristotle I believe. I think if a person acts courageously, then that person will have some courage. The Wiki Article does a good job showing all the different angles. I tend more towards the Catholic/Aristotetelian definition, although I also admire Pema Chodron’s take on things.
You got an attribution for it?