How To Find Courage

If you haven’t read the first in this series on gaining confidence, find or recommend it here.

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I have a working theory about courage, and I’ll share it with you. Keep in mind that I won’t know if this works until the end of my life, when it’s finally time to look back and there is no more moving forward (until, perhaps, there is). So we’ll just have to try this out and see how it goes.

Remember, from my previous exploration of “confidence,” I assert that confidence is a result of an endeavor, and that an endeavor is a result of courage. My illustration looked like this:

Courage -----> Endeavor -----> Confidence

Once I wrote this, I realized it makes the most sense for me to explain how I view courage and how we can all get some so we can go after the dreams we need to create. So what is courage, where does it come from, and how can we use it?

To understand where it comes from, I need to explain one of the tenets that informs my perspective. It’s called the “primary mover”, or first mover. This is the basic idea that the world is a series of causes and effects, and that in order for some things to be created, there must be an initiating force that contains whatever is necessary within itself to be a cause. It is the first cause. Some would call it God. I do.

Because this first mover was/is a cause without an effect, or rather a cause and effect within itself simultaneously, it is possible for such things to exist elsewhere (like a reproduction, prototype, or monoprint). And I think courage is one of them. It exists--within is, most likely--and can create energy or movement simply by being asked to.

I suppose I could explain this like kinetic energy. In simplest terms, imagine a child is on a swing. They want the swing to move, and so they decide to kick their legs, thus creating the energy needed to move the swing backward and forward. The energy needed for the child to move their legs existed within the ATP of the child’s cells. Of course, their ATP has a source (primary mover), but in a way it exists independently of that source. It is--in essence--life. And the power of that life was activated by a desire, by a request.

So, courage, I believe, is like ATP. It lies in us until we redirect it, wake it up, make an ask, though to some extent it simmers in the background of our days, helping do simple things like cross the street or take a quiz. Think about it. If we never need to be braver, we never need to find more courage. And when we do need to be braver, the courage we need to locate is suddenly there. Because it was always there, in storage, waiting for us to want it.

When we require courage, we may have it. “Take courage,” people say, and I always wondered, “from where? From who?” The answer is from me. It lies dormant in myself. And I can choose to take it and use it. When I do, I have the cause needed to attempt my endeavor and then I have the cause needed to gain confidence. That confidence makes it easier for me to find and use my courage for the next endeavor--a larger one, a more perilous one--that will yield more confidence yet require more courage. And so we are equipped with everything we need to achieve what we must achieve again and again, until there are no more again’s (or, perhaps, there are).

So how to find courage? I won’t be so cheesy as to say “look inside yourself.” Instead, I will say this. You already have within you the courage required to bring things to life that never existed. You have the power to build a kingdom. You have the energy needed to kick your legs and swing forward high enough to scrape the clouds.

You are better than you think.

You are braver than you predicted.

You are more than you are.

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