Courage in Choice

To start with a seemingly obvious question… What is courage?

When I think about courage, I first think of ethically-responsible action as judged by our conscience in the face of felt-fear/insecurity. Courage, like bravery, is to me therefore a word largely to describe contextual action; it is not an emotion per se. Contextual, because one’s choice of pursuing ethically-responsible actions in the absence of felt-fear/insecurity is not courage.¹ Courage describes an individual’s voluntary choice (their conscious will) to do something good but difficult and risky over something bad but easy and comfortable.

Secondly, with courage I think of the notion of understanding; more specifically, understanding of the good, or in other words, one’s embodied relationship with the ideal. Note that I wrote the ideal and not your ideal, as I am here referencing the true ideal–for who among us will say that someone whose personal ideal (their ideal, rather than the ideal) consists of immature and narcissistic traits is truly good? Also, what else can it mean to “have courage” in dire and risk-filled situations where virtue may not only go unrewarded but also be punished? Is it not based on an understanding that, despite all that, the good action is somehow preferable to its alternatives? For those that sacrifice their own lives in the pursuit of the good (i.e., Socrates), what can it be but a deep understanding and commitment to a transpersonal good that is more valuable than a life where one betrays it? And do we not all intuitively agree that this is true when we look back in admiration toward the heroes of history who did precisely that? If this is true, then acts of courage require first and foremost one’s embodied relationship with the ideal. Extrapolating from this is the idea that increasing one’s understanding of the good will increase the likelihood of courageous action–a claim that if true, justifies the value of a proper philosophical education.² To consolidate the definition of courage for the purposes of this article, perhaps the following would suffice:

Courage is ethically-responsible action–informed by our embodied (some may say spiritual, or religious) relationship with the ideal–in the face of felt-fear/insecurity.³

This sentiment is very relevant to the widely-known story of “meeting the devil at the crossroads”. Why is the devil at the crossroads? There’s two parts to that answer: because 1) the crossroads is a metaphor for conscious choice; reminding us that within every choice we voluntarily make, we meet with the part of us that’s aiming down in a most attractive way that we intuitively know is bad (the “devil”), and 2) because our conscience tends to alert us more of what not to do rather than what we should do; in other words, it tells us where not to go (down the road the “devil” represents). The latter is why in the story–seen as a general sentiment–we meet only the devil at the crossroads, and not also its opposite. In resisting the “devil” at the crossroads, we forego the short-term comforts or acts of omission that we know to be bad for us and those around us. For some, the level of temptation and the struggle against it will be sufficient to describe its overcoming as courageous, while for others with greater self-discipline, a sense of risk would be required on top of the overcoming to qualify the act as one of courage. Here, context matters.

Given the above and at the risk of seeming presumptuous, I have compiled a list of helpful strategies below for anyone looking to make better choices and increase the likelihood of courageous action when the situation calls for it. When going through the strategies, besides understanding that they all work dynamically together, I ask that readers keep in mind the following quote and its message, most commonly attributed to the great philosopher Socrates:

“Hard is the good.”

5 Helpful Strategies:

Know your conscience. Get yourself into a habit of consulting your conscience when in the process of ethical decision-making and with it, practice identifying what you know you should not do. Over time, you will get better at listening to your conscience and identifying these things. Bare in mind that this will likely increase feelings of guilt and shame if you find yourself continuing to do the things you know you should not do, and that this is normal.⁴ What these negative emotions are trying to tell you is that

you have a great potential within you that you are not actualizing and may in fact be betraying.

These emotions serve motivational purposes to push you to set yourself straight in the same way that the negative feeling of hunger motivates you to find food and eat: Hunger = affective signal for lack of nutrition; seeks food to fill said lack. Guilt/Shame (in this context) = affective signals for lack of self-actualization, seeks actualization to fill said lack.

"Hunger is the best cook."

From The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Lorenzini (penname: Carlo Collodi)- Journalist and Writer.

Know that we will not always have the luxury of having an abundance of positive emotion to motivate us toward ethically-responsible and courageous action (hence the overall failure of motivational posts to develop habits). Instead, we will sometimes find ourselves stuck between a rock and a hard place, where learning to heed the message of these near-inevitable negative emotions (in said context) is crucial to our development and maintenance of congruence. It’s about developing and maintaining a healthier relationship with your negative emotions; one nested not on cowardly avoidance and suppression, but true understanding and proper action-in-the-world. Therefore, it is important to learn to develop your ability to consult your conscience despite potential discomfort, and to inspect in detail the bad choices and their consequences to increase your own understanding of what not to do. A side consequence of this will be an increased self-awareness, which increases the likelihood of you becoming aware of previously unconscious patterns of maladaptive behaviour.

"Obeying the flame is both the easiest and the hardest thing to do. However, it is good for man to judge himself occasionally. He is alone in being able to do so."

From The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus - Nobel Laureate of Literature (1957).

Develop a vision of your future. By your own standards, what is the adventure you would like your life to be that it isn’t currently? What are the necessary skills and competencies you need to develop in order to embark on said adventure of your life? If you don’t know, develop a vision nonetheless. Try to keep a check on any arising sense of perfectionism or vanity, because doing it poorly is a lot better than not doing it.⁵ What matters is the act of engaging in visionary thinking; you can always course-adjust afterwards. Doing this and adjusting as you go will work to clarify and differentiate a destination over time; an ideal to strive toward. Knowing where you want to go (even if only roughly) will do two important things, 1) to serve a crucial orienting function in your ability to determine what to do rather than only what not to do, and 2) it will also make clear for you the conditions for failure. The latter of these two outcomes is a doubled-edged sword in the sense that it functions as a judge, which generates both positive and negative emotions depending on how on-track you are in the choices you make; on-track = positive emotions, off-track = negative emotions. However, it is important to understand that this is a necessary condition for self-development and positive forward motion in life, and its alternatives (i.e., having no ideal or killing your ideal) are much much worse.⁶

"If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."

From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (pen-name: Lewis Carroll) - Author, Poet, and Mathematician.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been making a case here for the adaptive role of negative emotions; which, obviously, have not evolved just to make our lives miserable. They are instead in-built evolutionary strategies that serves survival and reproductive functions; in that among our ancestors, those who had them survived and reproduced better than those who didn’t. For more information on the role of affect (sensory, homeostatic, and emotional), check out the highly accessible book The Hidden Spring: The Journey to the Source of Consciousness by Dr. Mark Solms (2021) or The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions by the late pre-eminent affective neuroscientist Dr. Jaak Panksepp.

Stop doing the things you know you should not do. Think of this as part 2 of knowing your conscience; the “what-do-I-do-with-the-knowledge” part. For most people, this task is easier said than done, which is why a step-by-step approach (a.k.a., graded approach) is recommended. Maybe start by just doing less of the things you know you should not do. How much less? That will depend entirely on your current ability, which you can only discover through honesty combined with a good dose of humility. Again, keep a check on your perfectionism, impatience, and vanity, and create a realistic bar to reach for in your first steps in the change process. Have the courage to bend low enough to start setting yourself straight, and for that, you may need to go and learn more about the good; but don’t dwell there, for it is action we are seeking, not mere intellectual propositions. Practice will make better⁷, and the improvement will happen at your own individual pace. To assess your progress, make a habit to once in a while compare yourself to who you were and then continue to adjust the bar accordingly. Stick with the process, manage your impatience, and you will see gradual improvements.

"Romam uno die non fuisse conditam." (English Translation: Rome wasn’t built in a day.)

Ancient Adage

Start doing the things you think you should do. Think of this as part 2 of having developed a vision for your future. Using your working vision of your future and its accompanying orienting function, practice doing things that are in service of bringing you closer to said vision. Use the same graded approach as discussed above to find a bar that works for you at your current ability level, and steadily increase that bar as you gain in ability. Gradually work toward actualising your potential, and thereby eliminating the need for negative emotions like shame and guilt to arise. If you find that you’re not doing the things you think you should do, this is a clear sign that either 1) you need to adjust your vision or some details of it (e.g., maybe as it currently is, it is simply not that meaningful to you), 2) that your bar is too high or too low, or 3) both your vision and bar needs adjusting. There is certainly a large trial-and-error element to this process, but I’m afraid that comes with the territory. Ask yourself, is seeming or being more important?⁸ After all, the ancient phrase esse quam videri (to be, rather than seem) points precisely to the superiority of being over seeming; being makes you real, whereas seeming only reinforces your persona (your public mask).

Seek competence, not the mask of competence.⁹

Enlist available support or figure out how to acquire them. “Support” here is being used as an umbrella term for any external resource that is helpful to you at any point in this process. This can include people (kin or otherwise; individuals or groups; maybe even life coaches), technologies (books, apps, platforms, devices, etc.), programs (online, community, private, religious/spiritual, or government), or any combination of them. Find out what’s available for you and how to enlist their aid. Take initiative and do some research. With the internationalization of knowledge thanks to the internet, so much is only a few clicks away. Try different combinations to figure out what works best for you. Again, use the graded approach if you think it might help. If you’re unskilled in enlisting the help of others but their help is what you need, then practice asking others for help. If you need to, maybe start by asking of a close friend something totally trivial, get their feedback, and work your way up as your ability improves. If having someone around who is onboard with your goals helps, then do that. Be flexible and adapt your strategy as you learn from the trial-and-error process, and understand that it is your engagement in this change process that matters. Again, have some way of documenting your changes so you can accurately compare yourself to who you were and course-adjust accordingly.

"You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."

From Winnie-the-Pooh, by Alan Alexander Milne - Novelist, Playwright, and Poet.

In summa, learn of the good and the “better way” it points toward, embody that knowledge (close the knowing-doing gap), and let it be the plentiful fuel for your courageous actions in the world when they are most required. So you may consistently and voluntarily choose to speak truth into being and act ethically and responsibly regardless of fear and adversity, to reconcile past and present, and return harmony and cooperation to not only your own soul, but also your family, your community, and the world at large.

Know that you have a duty in this life that only you can fulfil.

None of this is easy, but that’s how adventures are made.

Be the hero of your own story.

1. For example, Superman isn't courageous for walking towards machinegun fire because he's not fearful of it (it can't hurt him). He is courageous when he's fighting someone in kryptonite armour.

2. This is sorely lacking right now, but the demand is there. I think people are finally waking up to the potential of this market.

3. I include the ethical element in my definition to differentiate what I see as "good" courage from blind courage. I mean by blind courage the doing of something stupidly dangerous simply because of the fact that you're fearful of it. While you can say there's an element of self-overcoming in that, it's not exactly ethical or desired. Usually, people obsessed with blind courage has something real to prove to themselves but have become fixated on something unproductive and self-destructive.

4. I swear, the amount of CBT therapists I've met that not only think guilt and shame are inherently evil, but also tell that to their patients who are experiencing them, is seriously shocking. Negative emotions are nothing more than messengers passing you a non-verbal message. Whether the message is BS or not depends entirely on who sent it.

5. In chess circles, there's a brilliant advice for beginners to try their best to lose their first 100 games as fast as possible. This is great because it tunes people's typical associations with failure away from that of catastrophe towards one of growth.

6. There are many myths and religious stories detailing the consequences of killing your ideal. The most obvious story being that of Cain and Abel from the Bible.

7. Practice makes better, not perfect. In my experience, vanity is the no. 1 obstacle most people face when attempting to turn their lives around. They feel like small goals are beneath them, when in fact that's all they can currently competently manage.

8. To seem or to be? That is the real question.

9. All you have at the final analysis is your own competence. Prioritizing the mask of competence, or more commonly put, "fake it 'til you make it" is to make your own wellbeing dependent upon the worst in others; their gullibility. Ask yourself if you'd rather depend on the best or worst in men. The answer will tell you something deep about your worldview.

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