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

by Ryan Holiday

Defeat is a choice. The brave never choose it.

We think that courage means being unbreakable. Nah. It means getting back up when you’ve been broken.

Stoicism—deep, deep courage—is there to help you recover when the world breaks you and, in the recovering, to make you stronger at a much more profound level. The Stoic heals themselves by focusing on what they can control: Their response. The repairing. The learning of the lessons. Preparing for the future. Making a difference for others. Requesting help. Changing. Sacrificing for a greater good.

A hero gets back up. They heal. They grow. For themselves and others.

As C. S. Lewis wrote, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” Try living with moderation. Try being honest. Try pursuing knowledge. Try doing any of these things in a world that has forsaken wisdom and self-discipline and justice and you’ll see. See how far you get without courage.

It begins by choosing virtue. Not virtue signaling, but virtuous living. We can learn about virtue all we want, but when we get to the crossroads, there we will have to make a choice.

My point in those stories was to show that courage is something we all have to work toward in our own way, in our own lives—most of which are quite pedestrian.