Courage Is Calling: Timeless Stoic values from the multimillion-selling author of THE DAILY STOIC

by Ryan Holiday

Let us not wait for other people to come to us and call upon us to do great deeds. Let us instead be the first to summon the rest to the path of honor. Show yourself to be the bravest of all the captains, with more of a right to leadership than those who are our leaders at present. XENOPHON

Courage. Temperance. Justice.

Wisdom.

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 in every sense. Character traits that John Steinbeck perfectly described as “pleasant and desirable to [their] owner and makes him perform acts of which he can be proud and with which he can be pleased.”

Virtue is something we do. It’s something we choose.

COURAGE IS COURAGE IS COURAGE

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

Were there failures of courage along the way too? Mistakes made? Opportunities not taken? Undoubtedly. But let us look to the courageous moments and learn from them rather than focus on another’s flaws as a way of excusing our own. In the lives of all the

at least a few hard seconds of bravery. So if we wish to be great, we must first learn how to conquer fear,

What we are to do in this life comes from somewhere beyond us; it’s bigger than us. We are each called to be something. We are selected. We are chosen … but will we choose to accept this? Or will we run away? That is our call.

There is nothing worth doing that is not scary. There is no one who has achieved greatness without wrestling with their own doubts, anxieties, limitations, and demons.

“The world is a narrow bridge, and the important thing is not to be afraid.”

There is no room for fear. Not with what we want to do, anyway.

We care so much about what other people think, we’re afraid of them even when we wouldn’t be around to hear it.

People would rather be complicit in a crime than speak up. People would rather die in a pandemic than be the only one in a mask. People would rather stay in a job they hate than explain why they quit to do something less certain. They’d rather follow a silly trend than dare question it; losing their life savings to a burst bubble is somehow less painful than seeming stupid for sitting on the sidelines while the bubble grew. They’d rather go along with something that will tarnish their legacy than raise their voice ever so slightly and risk standing alone or apart for even ten minutes.

“Let other people worry over what they will say about you,” he said. “They will say it in any case.”*

You can’t let fear rule.

“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.

A little awareness, a little empathy, it doesn’t make us soft. It gives us confidence.

And it is in fact the leader’s job to think about the unthinkable. For more than two thousand years, military leaders have had some version of the same maxim: The only inexcusable offense for an officer is to be surprised. To say, I didn’t think that would happen.

We need also to cultivate the courage to think about all the things that could happen, the things that are unpleasant to think about, the unusual, the unexpected, the unlikely. It’s not just a matter of reducing our anxiety about exaggerated uncertainties, it’s also about finding certainty in the unknowns—the risk factors, what goes bump in the night, the plans of the enemy, the things that can and will go wrong.

Nothing human should be foreign to us. Nothing possible should be alien.

But better to be pessimistic and prepared than the alternative. It was Aristotle who said that the optimistic are the most vulnerable, because “when the result does not turn out as expected, they run away.”

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.

How could you possibly trust yourself if you had not been through harder things than this? How could you possibly believe that you might be able to survive this if you had not survived other things before?

It’s not bad that this is happening to you. It’s good training. Besides, not everyone would even have the strength to see it that way.

“Life itself is far too risky a business as a whole to make each additional particular of danger worth regard,” Robert Louis Stevenson wrote. It’s better to just get to work. To face what you’ve got to face sooner rather than later.

what’s in front of you is what matters.

We are not privy to the full extent of the struggle and the burden under which others have broken. We should try not to fault them, for we can never truly appreciate their experience.

Don’t bother with “What would I do in their shoes?” Ask: “What am I doing now?” In your own life. With your own fears.

This is how it goes, whether you’re a billionaire or an ordinary person, no matter how physically tough or brilliant you are. Fear determines what is or isn’t possible. If you think something is too scary, it’s too scary for you. If you don’t think you have any power … you don’t. If you aren’t the captain of your fate … then fate is the captain of you.

Courage is honest commitment to noble ideals. The opposite of courage is not, as some argue, being afraid. It’s apathy. It’s disenchantment. It’s despair.

All growth is a leap in the dark. If you’re afraid of that, you’ll never do anything worthwhile. If you take counsel of your fears, you’ll never take that step, make that leap.

If fear is to be a driving force in your life, fear what you’ll miss. Fear what happens if you don’t act. Fear what they’ll think of you down the road, for having dared so little. Think of what you’re leaving on the table. Think of the terrifying costs of playing small.

There are things worse than dying. Living with what we had to do to keep living, for one. Regretting that lost opportunity to have been a hero. The hellish existence of a world run by cowards.

Who might we be if we didn’t care about blushing? What could we accomplish if we didn’t mind the spotlight? If we were tough enough to put on the tights? If we were willing not only to fail but to do so in front of others?

It’s okay to need a minute. It’s okay to need a helping hand. To need reassurance, a favor, forgiveness, whatever. Need therapy? Go! Need to start over? Okay! Need to steady yourself on someone’s shoulder? Of course!

We can curse the darkness, or we can light a candle.

“I think that, as life is action and passion,” Holmes would write, “it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at

The belief that an individual can make a difference is the first step. The next is understanding that you can be that person.

We get started. We do what we can, where we are, with what we have.