Real courage does it right - even if it feels scary

By Lionel Wijesiri

On December 25, 2000 a strong tropical cyclone struck Eastern Sri Lanka at peak strength. The small town in which one of my friend’s daughter with her husband and six-year-old son were living, lay in its path. Her husband was out of town and was expected late evening. As the sky darkened by mid-afternoon and the wind rose, her young son, Kushan, grew more and more restless. Suddenly, with a loud crash, the power failed. In the darkness she heard Kushan’s muffled sobs.

“You might just as well calm down, son,” his mother said to him, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “After all, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Amma,” he answered, ‘I know there’s nothing we can do about it.” But isn’t there something we can do about us?”

Physical bravery

What can we do about us? Where can we find those qualities that will lead us away from panic and fear, so that we may stand tall and unafraid? What, in other words, makes us courageous?

“Courage,” Plato said, “is wisdom concerning danger.” Is this correct?

Courage is something that everybody wants - an attribute of good character that makes us worthy of respect. From the Ramayana to fairy tales; ancient myths to spy movies, the history is rich with exemplary tales of bravery and self-sacrifice for the greater good.

Yet courage is not just physical bravery. History books tell colourful tales of social activists, such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, who chose to speak out against injustice at great personal risk. Entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Walt Disney, who took financial risks to follow their dreams and innovate are like modern-day knights, exemplifying the rewards and public accolades that courage can bring.

Responsibility

After all, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”

That means courage - sometimes remarkable courage - is needed in business and life.

Taking a chance when others will not; following your vision, no matter where it takes you; standing up for what you believe in, especially when your beliefs are unpopular; or simply doing the right thing even though easier options exist.

Research has proven that courage is the positive response to a particular situation rather than some indelible personality trait. We would not be able to measure anything in an individual’s personality that would predict whether he or she would be courageous in a given situation. Especially since the situations calling for courage are so few and far between for most of us.

Instead, the most significant factor is a personal sense of responsibility for an individual affected by the decision to act or not to act. And if felt responsibility is the motivation to act courageously, the act itself is triggered by the requirements of one’s role, one’s experience and one’s confidence. I’m the one who can fix this; I have to fix this. When these mechanisms are in place, the fear of repercussions hardly factors into the decision.

A lot of people are anxious about the risk, but that’s defused by their training, their experience, and their overwhelming sense of responsibility.

Ignoring the fear

Most of the courageous acts clearly involve a self-reinforcing process. They were proud of it, but they didn’t advertise it. That’s an interesting thing about courage: it’s a label that other people put on you, not one you put on yourself.

So, instead of repressing or ignoring our healthy fear, we should work through it to courage. For this, we need a few ingredients.

The first ingredient is perspective. It reminds me of a story I heard from Menaka, one of my former office colleagues. When she was a child she used to delight in Sunday afternoon walks with her father. They always included a stretch of low stone wall along which her father guided her by the hand. At the end, father held out his arms and Menaka jumped into them.

Then one day at the end of the wall, her father folded his arms and said, “You are getting to be a big girl now, Menaka. Jump to the ground yourself.” Menaka cried, “It’s too far.”

“Menaka,” her father said, “lie flat on the wall. Now look at the ground. See it’s only 24 inches from where your feet are. Stand up and jump, Remember, child, you jump with your feet and not with your eyes.”

How many of us when we are fearful, are jumping with our eyes instead of our feet? Our emotions instead of our minds? Our created anxieties rather than our true fears? It is this anxiety, the spirit of fear that drives us to panic, hysteria or despair. It makes a young lady who has once been in an accident never drive a car again. It makes the young man who has failed in Mathematics wants to leave school. The devil of fear destroys, cripples and distorts.

The second ingredient of courage is perseverance. Carrie Sydenstricker was crushed by misfortune. Having gone to China with her husband, she experienced the heartbreak of burying her three children beneath foreign soil. But she persevered. She bore another child, a child who lived. She gave the girl names as Pearl and Buck. We know her as Pearl Buck, whose books have built a bridge of understanding between East and West.

Looking back

How many of us look back at instances in our lives and, with the wisdom of hindsight, wish we told ourselves to take that leap? How many times do we say, “I’ve lived all these years, but do I really have anything great to show for it besides my family and my job?” In our quiet moments how many times do we ask ourselves, “If only I’d had the courage to make that split-second decision, my life might be radically different: better and more meaningful.”

Most of us can accomplish many times more than we ever do, but we’re limited by what we’re willing to try. Whether it’s due to a fear of rejection, our upbringing, embarrassment, losing control, or the loss of income, we make unconscious split-second limiting decisions and miss out on opportunities to grow stronger. Those who see risk as something to be controlled or eliminated are not only saying goodbye to innovation and growth, but are also passing opportunities to find their true place in this world.

Each one of us is born with the power to find our place in the world and to make great things happen in our lives. And most of the time, it all comes down to how we look at challenges, what we think of ourselves, and how we talk to ourselves.

Fear, anxiety, even danger - these are our common lot. We cannot avoid them. But we can make the courage with which to face them, and to live triumphantly.