Tim O’Brien writes eloquently about courage, though I think he’s gotten it wrong in an essential aspect. He raises troubling questions, however, that shouldn’t be easily dismissed about the virtue of Courage and what it really is. O’Brien was drafted to serve in Vietnam and writes about running off to the Minnesota-Canada border during the summer of ’68, but not crossing. He was against the war, but came back and went. He states that this was not a matter of courage, but of cowardice. That, in fact, he went to War because he was too ashamed to be viewed as a coward in his hometown and stand up for what he believed in.
“And what was so sad, I realized, was that Canada had become a pitiful fantasy. Silly and hopeless. It was no longer a possibility. Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave…. All those eyes on me – the town, the whole universe – and I couldn’t risk the embarrassment… I would go to the war – I would kill and maybe die – because I was embarrassed not to.”
It’s a poignantly written chapter and while I can disagree with O’Brien’s views on the war, I’m moved more by his description of courage – or at least the outward appearance of courage, which is how some might see the decision to go to war – as instead being motivated by a greater fear: of being perceived by others as a coward. This is much more of a motivator than people give it credit for. I’ve talked to, watched interviews with, and read volumes on soldiers who have done incredibly brave acts and a huge majority of men talk about “not wanting to let my buddies down.” There is a very, very fine line between acting out of love for your fellow man and acting out of fear of how your fellow man will perceive you if you don’t act that way.
Which returns us back to my thesis about the importance of measuring courage by the quantum of fear overcome. Let’s go back to my daughter, the one who originally couldn’t make it up the telephone pole and onto the platform on the high obstacle course. If she conquered that fear only because of a greater fear of what I would think, or her sisters would think, or the group of people who were already up there would think, it doesn’t seem like a very noble or courageous thing, does it? The reality is that we’ll never know. But I contend that fear overcome, no matter the underlying motive force (or maybe more accurately, emotive force), when we consistently practice courage – overcoming fear – even in small quantities in our daily lives, we breed the virtue itself. We become comfortable with our fear and we know that we’re capable of acting in the face of fear and overcoming it.
Fear no longer has the same power it once possessed once you’ve overcome it, even once. If you’re terrified of heights (as many of us are) and you force yourself up the ladder, even if it’s because of a bigger fear of failure, or embarrassment, or whatever, when you’re done, it’s an extraordinary feeling to have conquered a fear. And the next time, when you face even a completely different fear, you do so armed now with the knowledge that you have courage – you know what it feels like to do something courageous and act despite being afraid.
Aristotle said that “Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” And so I suppose the challenge I find in daily life is always monitoring myself for fear – and then seeking out that which I fear and trying to apply Aristotle’s credo. The hardest part is really knowing yourself and understanding when you’re engaging in avoidant behaviors – mild forms of cowardice, really – and then understanding what fear is causing you to do that. I don’t always see it in the hustle and bustle of daily life. But the opportunities are there, whether it’s the unopened bill on the table as the days drag on or bill collector’s call you avoid and won’t return, or the “friend” who keeps asking you out and who you always make an excuse not to go (rather than just being straight), or the lie to avoid teling why you were late, or who ate the last cookie. Every day we have opportunities to face fears, small and large, and we pass on them, foregoing an opportunity to be courageous.
Which reminds me of an absolutely brilliant scene in the movie “Evan Almighty.” The estimable Morgan Freeman is God, and at one point he “appears” to Lauren Graham as a waiter in a restaurant as she is fleeing her husband’s whacky behavior. She points out the television, which is featuring her husband (the Senator – played brilliantly by Steve Carrell) building an ark. She questions how the Almighty could have a hand in any of this. God says:
Let me ask you something. If one prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If they pray for courage, does God give them courage, or does he give them opportunities to be courageous? If one prayed for their family to be closer, you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings? Or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
There’s a wonderful, and almost incomprehensible, wisdom in there, I think. Worth considering when we’re down on Fate, kismet, or the Almighty for where we are in life. On a more practical level, I like to think that every day we have opportunities to be courageous and in the long run improve our virtue.