The Brave Spirit
Learning to accept fear and build courage
Mind Candy is a newsletter on practical philosophy and human flourishment—aka how to live the “the good life.” Each month we tackle a new theme. This month we’re exploring virtue.
This Week at a Glance:
Next up in our exploration of the cardinal virtues is the exploration of courage. Courage is often thought of as being fearless but in fact courage is built because of fear.
By the time you finish this meditation, you’ll learn:
🍭 How to build courage even when one is fearful;
🍬 How you can take immediate action to implement courage and diminish fear;
🍫 What bold actions provide us in the long run.
Many interpret courage as being this god-like ability to live life without fear. That those who take bold action are somehow immune from fear and instead are made of steel.
But the fact is, fear is naturally wired into each of us as a survival mechanism. We all face it and it is a part of daily living.
The difference between those who appear fearless and the rest of us is that people who appear fearless have made the bold choice to face their fear head on.
The Stoics, for example, were not some unfeeling individuals who just had unshakeable courage. On the contrary, Cato was a soldier who participated in countless battle and was nearly killed himself.
Marcus Aurelius was the Roman Emperor and had to constantly worry about individuals backstabbing him or attempting to even kill him.
Cleanthes, the second head of the Stoic school, was a boxer and likely faced fear every time he came up against an opponent.
Seneca lived under the rule of Nero and therefore never knew what could come his way, eventually paying with his life.
The point is it is that each of these individual faces fear in their lives and still proceeded in their duties. Everyone has to face fear at one point or another. Fear is often looked at as a thing to avoid, but it is actually fear that drives courage. When we see fear, when we’re afraid to do something, but regardless go through with it, that’s courage, that’s stepping into the arena of life.
But to know no fear, or to avoid it at all costs, that is not a path that will guide one to the good life.
In order to live a life worth living, we need to step into our fears and find our courage.
You Have to Make it Manageable
Like any daunting task in life, fear needs to be broken down into manageable chunks. In order to find courage, you first need to learn to breakdown the thing you fear. You have to plan ahead for how you will tackle fear and find simpler ways to digest it.
Public speaking for example is known as one of the biggest fears for people. One doesn’t just go from a fear of public speaking to fearlessly speaking in front of thousands. You can find courage in working your way up to it. If you start by talking to a small group, and then work your way up to a larger one, you are providing yourself building blocks of courage and experience.
With each new thing tackled, confidence builds, fear dissipates, and courage grows to take on the next task.
This is the flywheel for building courage. It is not pretending fear doesn’t exist, it is about logically proving to yourself through your daily resume, your daily accomplishments and routine, what you can, and do, achieve and overcome.
It is about doing the work, daily, so that when one needs to be courageous, it is not a foreign concept, the moment had been planned for, practiced for, anticipated. As Aristotle said, “we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.”
Find something you’re scared of and start chipping away at it.
There’s No One to Save You
Attempting to prolong facing our fears is a recipe for anxiety. Instead of conquering our fear head on, we wait, we tell ourselves we need more time, we need to see others try before we’re ready, we want to be polite and let others go first.
But the truth is, the more we delay, the further we get from courage and the more time we waste circling the drain of dread and anxiety.
If you’re a student in class, and you are letting others go before you for speeches, the extra time does not magically build confidence, you do not suddenly memorize your speech or become fearless. What happens is you watch others before you, you see their nerves, you pick out the things they stumble on, and you delay your moment to face your fear.
Moments like this do not build courage but in fact feed fear. The longer the delay, the more fear eats away at courage simply because of a lack of action.
Michel de Montaigne described this perfectly when he wrote, “Fear reveals her greatest power when she drives us to perform in her own service those very deeds of valour of which she robbed our duty and our honour.”
Being courageous is understanding that certain things have to be done in life, and they will not always be fear-free. Being courageous is understanding what has to get done, understanding that you may have fear around it, but regardless, still approach the undertaking.
A lot of the time we rely upon the notion that someone else will do the hard stuff for us, that we don’t need to be the first because we’ll embarrass ourselves or will fail.
This is faulty logic.
Instead, be the first to tackle the obstacle. We are rational creatures, but we’re also incredibly irrational at times, especially when under duress or stress. We defeat this through action.
Fate Favors Those Who Are Courageous
Fate favors the bold as the saying goes. When one faces their fears, when they turn into the challenge rather than away, they learn fundamental truths about themselves. Not only does a person who is courageous in the face of fear build confidence, they also build future opportunities.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Always do what you are afraid to do.”
The more courageous one is, the more opportunities will come their way. This doesn’t mean everything will lead to success, rather, if one is courageous enough to do their best in the moment, the moment will open up future opportunities and things for which one would never have even imagine.
We need to take risks in life in order to find opportunities for growth and advancement. If we want something in life, we cannot sit back and wait for it to come to us—it won’t. We need to go after it, and often times, that means doing things we’re fearful of, that we’re not used to, that we’re not comfortable with.
But it also means we’re placed in more situations and experiences than we would have been had we not gone and been bold. It is, Albert Camus wrote, this fear that helps make us exceptional. “Danger leads to becoming exemplary, and every type of greatness, in the end, has its roots in taking risks.”
We are and will be called to our fears. It is about whether or not we choose to take up the call. If we don’t, we never provide ourselves a chance to conquer the fear and be courageous. Instead, you end up awake at night knowing you chose to not even attempt to overcome it. Courage is built through action, when one stands tall and faces the fear.
3-Bullet Summary:
Fear can be incredibly overwhelming but if we can find ways to break fear down into manageable chunks, we provide ourselves a blueprint for building confidence and courage to tackle harder things.
When we’re fearful, we like to delay action before we are ready to try and be brave—this only builds dread and anxiety. Instead, beat this by taking action as quickly as possible and prove to yourself you can do it.
Courage requires bold action, and bold action provides opportunities for growth in life. Instead of being fearful, try and see how many doors will open when you take bold action and attack your fear head on.
Until next time,
D.A. DiGerolamo
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