More Thoughts on Courage
I’ve been doing a great deal of inner searching these last few weeks. I’ve come to know several things - some of which I’ll share here. (Here’s your editorial warning - some of this gets pretty spiritual, so if that’s not your cup of tea, that’s ok, but you probably won’t enjoy this posting.)
One of the things that I have a new knowing about is courage. Courage has always been a topic I have loved. In the past, my understanding of courage was only from a more warrior standpoint - the William Wallace-type of character - someone who stands up to great odds and moves forward anyway looking fear in the eye and facing it - that is courage.
What I’ve also come to know about courage is this - It takes great courage to allow yourself to be. Most of the time we want to fight and resist our nature.
There is a formula for success that I’ve heard many times, but I feel that I now have an new understanding of it - Be. Do. Have. So many times in our society we turn that formula around - Have. Do. Be. If only we have this or that, then we can start to do this or that, and finally we will be successful, or happy, or whatever. When we start to search, we recognize how foolish it is to switch the formula, but we only move to Do. We start believing that we have to do all sorts of things - that there are certain things that we have to do in order to change who we are - our being.
At some point some people experience a change in how they know who they are - their being. They understand the real formula - Be first, then do, then have. All of this requires courage though - the courage to not do, the courage to be, the courage to allow, the courage to face the fear of life, the courage to embrace, the courage to let go of control - of who’s in charge.
Courage in this sense becomes a means to an end. It’s not meant as something that we need to get an understanding of, just something that happens. But it only happens after we recognize who we are - our being.