According to The Book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave by Ryan Holiday
Being courageous means going through hardships and danger in pursuit of greatness:
Courage is divided into two types:
Moral courage: represents the ability of following one’s conscience despite the possible consequences of defying social norms and sandals or gossip. To have moral courage is to abide by your ethics and inner convictions regardless the risk.
Physical courage: is risking your actual body and life. Soldiers are the perfect example. They are willing to put their lives on the line for a cause; not their reputation.
The two might seem to be vastly different, but come to really think of it, any type of courage comes down to one thing; taking risks.
One of the most famous figures to have perfectly embodied courage is Hercules – the mythical ancient divine Greek hero we’ve all heard of.
Hercules was portrayed in Greek mythology as a strong, hard-living warrior that, what we could only imagine, was living through impulsive choices. This, however, is far from the truth.
In the legend, when Hercules was just a young man, he came across a path where he would choose one of two choices.
A gorgeous, luxuriously dressed goddess presented the first choice to him. She promised him a life full of ease, pleasure, peace if he would choose to follow her.
A goddess also represented the other path, except she was plainly dressed and offered him a completely different thing. She offered him a less tempting life of struggle, not pleasure and hard work not ease.
Hercules hesitated but then chose to overlook all the threats and terror he might face and decided to follow the path in which he would go through all kinds of hardships and struggle for the sake of glory and leading a victorious life.
Going through life with logic as your weapon will help you prevail over your fear:
Another prominent Greek figure that’s stories we can benefit from is the famous Pericles, the Greek statesman and general during the golden age of Athens.
During his long political career, Pericles was entrusted, at times, with leading the city’s troops. One of those times, he noticed that his men were suddenly trembling with fear. Why? A storm has struck, and those men took it as a bad omen because back then, they didn’t have an explanation as to how lightning and thunder are formed. However, Pericles took matters into his own hands – literally. He grabbed two rocks and started banging them against each other to mimic the sound of thunder.
He demonstrated for his men that thunder is nothing but a sound just like those that of the two rocks. As they made sense of the situation, they no longer were afraid.
The gist of the story is that fear is the enemy of courage. However, being courageous doesn’t mean overcoming all fear. Having a logical explanation in your mind towards something that scares you is the ideal way to ease your nerves and prevent fear from overshadowing your courage.
Limit your fears but don’t ignore them:
People tend to have amplified fear of what they don’t clearly comprehend. Here’s the trick: You can’t expect to disregard all that scares you! Life doesn’t work this way.
In reality, you should visualize and fully understand fears to know their limits, and discover their actual magnitude. A way to do this is to follow what the writer and entrepreneur, Tim Ferris, call fear setting.
Fear setting is a process in which you examine and articulate the fears that impede your life. This method has actually been somewhat around since the days of ancient Greek and Rome.
The stoic Roman philosopher called it premeditation Malorum, which translates into premeditation of evils.
It is very similar to fear setting and basically advises you to get to know the possible misfortunes of your life, which makes them less intimidating. This is an aspect of self-assured optimism: I am ready for whatever it is that’ll come into my way and I have the ability to fix it.
Eventually, your mind will stop magnifying fears, and ultimately your mentality will be less of a drama queen.
Courage doesn’t require your grand gestures:
Courageous acts don’t always have to look grand and glorious. Sometimes there is courage in the simple steps you take to cross the street.
Aristotle believed that virtues are things we acquire day by day. Just like a pianist learns to play for days after days to become one, bravery is acquired by being brave even in the smallest ways time after time.
One of the most admired women in British history, Florence Nightingale, embodied this merit when she first started her medical journey. At the time, being a nurse wasn’t acceptable for a woman in her status, so she decided to take small steps and work in the hospital for only the summer. She didn’t promise herself to revolutionize the field, but she eventually did.
On the other hand, figures like Thomas Eddison took a different route. He thought that life is too short and it’s not worth it not to take big leaps.
It’s important to understand that Nightingale and Eddison’s views don’t contradict each other. Always be aware of your limits but dream big. Your steps might start small like Nightingale but end up big like Eddison’s.
A life-changing act of courage can take less than you expect:
Back in the 1960s, during the intense competition in the elections between the two presidential candidates, Nixon and J.F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King was arrested for eating, a black man, in the city’s department store in Atlanta.
The southerners despised King, so they denied his bail and sentenced him to four months in the state prison on false charges.
His wife feared for his life, so she contacted the two presidential candidates and asked them for help.
Nixon was a close friend to King and could’ve bailed him in a 1 minute’s phone call but chose not to because he was afraid he would lose southern votes.
On the contrary, JFK decided to take to the risk and show his courage. He immediately contacted his network until King was finally released. Kennedy made sure to publicize what he did to King, and the following month he won the presidential elections.
The simple courageous act and risk john Kennedy won him the elections. In comparison, Nixon’s cowardness and abandonment of King in his time of need cost him the elections and gave his rival a perfect chance to show his courage.
Being a hero is showing selfless courage:
We all know Martin Luther King and his revolutionary work for civil-rights campaigns in the twentieth century, but who we don’t know is Stanley Levinson. He was behind many of King’s earthshaking speeches and fundraising campaigns.
Sadly, when JFK heard allegations that Levinson had communist ties, he pressured King to let him go.
Levison’s heroic reaction wasn’t to forcefully plead his innocence and tarnish King’s movement; he selflessly decided to keep quiet and leave the movement without causing problems.
Levison leaving a cause he devoted his life to didn’t show regular courage but heroism. A hero is someone who chooses a higher purpose over his reputation and overlooks his ego and self-worth for the greater good.
Who is Ryan Holiday?
Ryan Holiday can be considered as one of the lucky few who beat all the odds. As a teenager, he dropped out of college. The future often looks bleak in such a situation, and one can easily be termed as unfocused. However, Holiday carved his path and became a famous media strategist and a prominent author.
Thank your for your valuable information