Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave (The Stoic Virtues Series)

by Ryan Holiday

Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.

“touchstones of goodness,”

They’re called “cardinal,” C. S. Lewis pointed out, not because they come down from church authorities but because they originate from the Latin cardo, or hinge. It’s pivotal stuff.

Courage, bravery, fortitude, honor, sacrifice . . . Temperance, self-control, moderation, composure, balance . . . Justice, fairness, service, fellowship, goodness, kindness . . . Wisdom, knowledge, education, truth, self-reflection, peace . . . These are the key to a life of honor, of glory, of excellence

“If not me, then who?”

Courage is risk. It is sacrifice . . . . . . commitment . . . perseverance . . . truth . . . determination.

“To each,” Winston Churchill would say, “there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”

The brave are not without fear—no human is—rather, it’s their ability to rise above it and master it

in the so-called Hero’s Journey, the “call to adventure” is followed in almost all cases by what? The refusal of the call. Because it’s too hard, too scary,

Fear does this. It keeps us from our destiny. It holds us back. It freezes us. It gives us a million reasons why. Or why not.

There is no one who has achieved greatness without wrestling with their own doubts, anxieties, limitations, and demons.

persisting in the face of this relentless and intimidating opposition, to wage a patient but indefatigable battle against those who wanted to deter her, that would make her work possible. No one could intimidate her any longer. She could not be bullied.

each of us receives our own call. To service. To take a risk. To challenge the status quo. To run toward while others run away.

To rise above our station. To do what people say is impossible.

Fear will make itself felt.

Will we let it prevent us from answering the call?

Or will we inch ourselves closer and closer, as Nightingale did, steeling ourselves, preparing ourselves, until we’re ready...

The Important Thing Is to Not Be Afraid

Events can escalate at any moment. There is uncertainty.

Of course we’re going to feel something when things are shaky like this.

“Not what your enemy sees and hopes that you will,” Marcus Aurelius wrote, “but what’s really there.”

there has never, ever been a time when the average opinion of faceless, unaccountable strangers should be valued above our own considered judgment.

“There are always more of them before they are counted.” The obstacles, the enemies, the critics—they are not as numerous as you think. It’s an illusion they want you to believe.

The night is dark and full of terrors. We face many enemies in life.

We fear that something bad might happen. We fear things not working out. We fear the consequences. We fear what people might think. But what, where, when, how, who? That we cannot answer, because we haven’t actually looked into it. We haven’t actually defined what so worries us. Our fears are not concrete, they are shadows, illusions, refractions that we picked up somewhere or glanced at only briefly. Well, that has to end. Here. Now.

Tim Ferriss has spoken of the exercise of “fear setting”—of defining and articulating the nightmares, anxieties, and doubts that hold us back.

Seneca wrote about premeditatio malorum, the deliberate meditation on the evils that we might encounter. “Exile, war, torture, shipwreck,” Seneca said, “all the terms of the human condition could be on our minds.” Not in the form of fear, but in that of familiarity. How likely are they? What might cause them? How have we prepared ourselves to handle them? For Seneca, the unexpected blows land most heavily and painfully. So by expecting, by defining, by wrestling with what can happen, we are making it less scary and less dangerous at the same time.

Each of us needs to cultivate the courage to actually look at what we’re afraid of. We’re afraid to go talk to that pretty stranger across the room. But why? What are the possible outcomes? Being made a laughingstock? Getting rejected? We don’t want to speak out, but why? Because we might be criticized? Because in the absolute worst-case scenario, we might have to go look for a new job—but weren’t we already thinking about that anyway?

Foresee the worst to perform the best. When fear is defined, it can be defeated. When downside is articulated, it can be weighed against upside. When the wolves are counted, there are fewer of them. Mountains turn out to be molehills, monsters turn out just to be men. When our enemies are humanized, they can be better understood. What we thought were incredible costs turn out to be clear calculations—calculations well worth making. The risks, it is revealed, were far outpaced by the rewards. Black swans come into view and can be prepared for. Attacks that we’ve anticipated can be repulsed. The spectrum of possibilities is reduced, the scope of Murphy’s Law is diminished. Vague fear is sufficient to deter us; the more it is explored, the less power it has over us. Which is why we must attack these faulty premises and root them out like the cancers they are. We were afraid because we didn’t know. We were vulnerable because we didn’t know. But now we do. And with awareness we can proceed.

Don’t Be Deterred by Difficulties

“He has won without glory who has won without peril,”

Don’t worry about whether things will be hard. Because they will be. Instead, focus on the fact that these things will help you. This is why you needn’t fear them. Our bruises and scars become armor. Our struggles become experience. They make us better. They prepared us for this moment, just as this moment will prepare us for one that lies ahead. They are the flavoring that makes victory taste so sweet. If it were easy, everyone would do it. If everyone did it, how valuable would it be? The whole point is that it’s hard. The risk is a feature, not a bug. Nec aspera terrent. Don’t be frightened by difficulties.

We all need adversaries and adversity to exist. “Plenty and peace breed cowards,” Shakespeare said. “Hardness ever of hardiness is mother.”

Focus on What’s in Front of You

It’s when we imagine everything, when we catastrophize endlessly, that we are miserable and most afraid. When we focus on what we have to carry and do? We are too busy to worry, too busy working.

Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties—hard times can be softened, tight squeezes widened, and heavy loads made lighter for those who can apply the right pressure.

We go through life in two ways. We choose between effective truths: that we have the ability to change our situation, or that we are at the mercy of the situations in which we find ourselves. We can rely on luck . . . or cause and effect.

Just look at what we tell ourselves about history. Do we choose to see ourselves as the latest descendants in a long line of ancestors who have been struggling valiantly and against the odds, toward a better world? Or are we the bastard children of irredeemable racists, pillagers, and monsters? Are we the future of humanity—progress—or are we a plague upon the earth? Slowly but surely, we stripped ourselves of the things that used to keep us going—that used to call us to something higher. There is no heaven. The state is evil. People are awful. History is nothing but a chronicle of great crimes. Then you add onto this the effective belief that the individual can have no impact? That they are at the mercy of forces larger than themselves, that they cannot possibly hope to direct or resist? The word for this is nihilism. Then we wonder why nobody has any courage. What would be the point? While sad, this attitude is safe because it’s based on “facts.” It lowers the stakes. It eliminates judgment, pressure, the idea that we can let ourselves or anyone else down. It gives us the excuse to continue as is, never risking, never trying, never needing to put ourselves in danger.

Courage is honest commitment to noble ideals.

If we don’t believe in anything, it becomes very hard to find anything worth believing in. We make our nihilism true, just as we do when we buy the lie that we have no agency; or alternatively, that while we don’t control what has happened, we do control how we happen to respond. If you fear that there isn’t anything you can do, chances are you will do nothing. You will also be nothing. A protected, self-justifying nothing.

The brave don’t despair. They believe.

They know that life has problems but would rather be part of the solution than a bystander.

Never Let Them Intimidate You

Fear speaks the powerful logic of self-interest. It is also an inveterate liar.

Life is risky.

No amount of corporate ass-covering will ever change that. No amount of hiding will actually protect you from scary things. We are already fugitives from the law of averages, we are already marked for death from birth. When you realize this, you can stop being so precious, so concerned about every danger and every possible thing that can go wrong.

All certainty is uncertain. You’re not safe. You never will be. No one is.

How will you handle the danger? “What will happen to me?” No one can tell you that. But with courage, you can say yourself, “I’m not sure, but I will get through it with my soul intact. I will make the best of it. I will not be afraid.”

Our fears point us, like a self-indicting arrow, in the direction of the right thing to do. One part of us knows what we ought to do, but the other part reminds us of the inevitable consequences. Fear alerts us to danger, but also to opportunity. If it wasn’t scary, everyone would do it. If it was easy, there wouldn’t be any growth in it.

Will we ignore it? Or will we dig? Fear votes for hesitation, it always has a reason for not doing and so it rarely does anything. If we don’t find ourselves experiencing this hesitation every so often, we should know that we are not pushing ourselves enough.