Hope and Hysteria

Courage

This is the most important nitrous fuel for the soul that can send one on a good path, not a happy or sad one, but a true path that is for the individual. It is what makes the truly successful and daring so truly revered. But it is seldom recognized as an ultimate virtue. Why is this? Perhaps it is because those courageous must be greedy and have everything to themselves? But no, the level of being that requires a functional courage is predicated on selfless morals to start, which will be part of the definition of what true good courage is, which is to act against the fears of the self in order to satisfy a righteous goal. For example, the fear of death must be sacrificed for the glory of being a brave soldier in a war of attrition. The fear of embarrassment must be sacrificed for the show to go on. But what role does courage have in the everyday? Is it to commit regular acts of heroism that put one's life at risk every day? As ideal as that may be, it is not required. Rather, courage of the every day is the defiance of fear and linearity or safety of one practice or another for the sake of accomplishment or feelings of authentic worth. It is to do the right thing, even when it's difficult, unusual, or scary. No guarantees can be made that success is the only outcome, but the act is the only right thing to do. When one views a problem where they cannot see any other way about solving it, they must have the courage to celebrate radical new ways of thinking, which poses the risk of being wrong or embarrassed or feeling stupid. But sometimes it is the only true option, and one must have the courage to admit to themselves that their hard work may not have amounted to anything other than the gain in knowledge during the trial. At the end of the day, one can be more apt to be courageous once they identify their true fears and face them head-on. That doesn't mean immediately doing the thing that one is afraid to do, but to slowly practice doing that scary thing, little bit by little bit, building confidence in oneself to overcome something they fear. Courage is the willpower for one to expose themselves to the things they fear because they know it is the right thing to do. It helps to plant the idea in one's head when they think of their lives backwards, where they see themselves in a completely different life down the road because they decided to face their fears in the present. Such is the truth of the butterfly effect: any small action has an extreme reaction in the environment, as time progresses. One small action will lead to greater change five years afterwards compared to two years afterwards. The greater the fear conquered, the more drastic a change to the end of one's life. If I did not have the courage to ask out someone I admired, I wouldn't have been better off and where I am today, which is with a loving partner of three years and much more to come. Imagine if I had not had the courage to initially talk to her, thinking that I may have not gained any fruit from my efforts and be rejected? I would have been worse off than I am now. But to doing the things I am afraid of now, I cancel out that event from ever happening in my life. What if that entire thing I'm worried about wasn't even there? I would live my life like normal, none the wiser. But what if I added that thing back in? Now I'm given the option of either not taking on the fear and living the same life as if I had never been confronted with the situation (where any negative effects brought from the situation could as easily be blamed on other events unrelated to facing the fear), or confronting the fear and ending up in a more elevated place later down the road. It's technically win-win, so a greedy person like me would take the road where I win more, and actually take the risk of facing the fear.