Howdy,
I think when most of us think of courage we think of something courageous (duh) and daring and heroic in the adventurous or overtly threatening sense of the word.
I think.
Therefore I am … not necessarily correct.
I don’t truly know how you think of courage.
I’m also not sure that I totally had it before (or likely even now), but I ran into a definition and application of courage that caught my attention and made me want to share it.
It came from what may be a somewhat surprising source: The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy, by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko.
Speaking of the founder of Kinko’s, Paul Orfalea, the authors write:
“Mr. Orfalea has what all successful business owners possess: considerable courage. Taking financial risk is evidence of courage. But what risk has Ms. BPF ever taken?
Very little. Webster’s defines courage as ‘mental or moral strength to resist opposition, danger, or hardship.’ It implies firmness of mind and will in the face of danger or extreme difficulty. Courage can be developed. But it cannot be nurtured in an environment that eliminates all risks, all difficulty, all dangers. That is precisely why Ms. BPF lacks the courage to leave home, expand her business, and wean herself from heavy doses of economic inpatient care.
It takes considerable courage to work in an environment in which one is compensated according to one’s performance. Most affluent people have courage. What evidence supports this statement? Most affluent people in America are either business owners or employees who are paid on an incentive basis. Remember, whether their parents were wealthy or not, most of the affluent in America acquired their wealth on their own. They had the courage to undertake entrepreneurial and other business opportunities that were associated with considerable risk.”
I’d like to sale books, but I am not a businessman. (We’ve already established that I’m just Steve.) But I like to think that I have courage, and the entrepreneurial statements connected to courage in the quotation above interested me so I left them in—a couple of different places I could have easily cut, but I figured you might find them interesting too: certainly don’t hurt the point. Money is kind of where the mouth his the road.
But this isn’t about money or profit—or being a millionaire—it’s about courage.
When I talk about surprise, the moral part is what caught me. We think of temptation and resisting or falling, being successful or not, opposing those challenges of self and struggle. I think of having sinned in what I know is wrong or having obeyed what I know is right. But I don’t know that I have thought of overcoming in such ways as courage.
Whatever else we think it is (and maybe you, O Brilliant Reader, already thought and knew this), courage is moral strength as well.
Courage is moral strength.
Yes, whatever else we think, courage is also moral strength—strength and resolve to resist opposition, danger, and hardship (I write and instead of or, because if we fall to opposition and danger [temptation or other earthly challenges] we will have hardship. It’s and hardship. So we get to fight hardship with mental and moral courage, and we get hardship if we don’t.
Sometimes it’s just tough. Always it’s just tough. It’s just where do you want your fight to be.
The more I contemplate my assumption of how and what we conclude when considering the idea of courage, the grander the application of courage seems to be.
Even courage is courage. Or maybe it makes more sense to say courage is courageous. Or maybe it’s both.
I don’t know that you can have too much courage.
Courage courage.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
P.S. In addition, millionaire wouldn’t be bad either. But I’d still wear jeans (if shorts weren’t a better option—which usually they are). Especially, I’d wear jeans. So, practically I’m a millionaire—this stay-at-home-dad-thing isn’t bad. Not just shorts, mesh shorts—like I’m still a college basketball player. (Though I don’t dare take the court and risk being back in rehab.)
Millionaire Steve, yes! That’d be fantastic! Courage is the harder thing.
And I’m not saying millionaire is easy. I wouldn’t know, but I imagine that’s quite difficult too. That’s why you get the reward of relaxed-fit when you earn it.
Courage? It means you get to keep fighting on the right side, an adventure daring and heroic.
Word Count: 169,439 / On Pace: 166,100 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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