To Live By the Sword

The Keenest Blade is Forged in the Hottest Fire.

Courage is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, injury or intimidation. There are different kinds of courage. There is physical courage, the ability to persevere in the face of physical pain, effort, hardship, injury or death, or threat of death.  And there is moral courage,  the ability to act rightly in the face of social pain, hardship, injury or death -- popular opposition, embarrassment, shame, scandal, discouragement, ridicule, or retaliation.  Moral courage is perhaps the rarest and most challenging kind of courage there is.

Just as you can get stronger by progressively lifting heavier and heavier weights, you can cultivate courage by progressively facing greater and greater fear, pain, or intimidation.

You cannot become stronger by lifting weights that are easily within your current capacity, nor can you become more courageous by remaining in your current “comfort zone.”

You must continually challenge your body in order to grow stronger. And you must continually defy fear and pain and ridicule in order to become more courageous.

Courage is not the absence of fear.

It is the conquest of it.

aac