Courage – The test of courage comes when we are in the minority: the test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority – Theologian Ralph W. Sockman.
We all need to be courageous every now and again. To be fearless and daring and face what we are afraid of. More often than not we find that what we feared doing initially is not as big a deal as we imagined. Courage gives us strength to face our fears and deal with many situations that life presents us with.
Once we face a situation which we may have feared and delayed dealing with, courage gives us strength for we then know that we can achieve or deal with maybe more than we had believed ourselves capable of. Sometimes this strength can help us in the future, as we now know what we can achieve.
Dutch Courage – is sometimes referred to when someone believes they need a drink before they can face a certain situation.
What is Courage?
Courage is to be brave, to face unpleasantness or difficulties with confidence. Courage is when we stand up for what is right or that which we believe in, even if we stand alone. This can be very difficult as we generally don’t like to be the odd one out or to have a different opinion to the majority. Courage means we are not afraid to express ourselves despite others disapproving.
When we have the courage to speak our mind freely we don’t cave in to negative peer pressure.
Courage means we wont avoid something for fear of making a mistake or failing. Our mistakes are learning experiences, not necessarily a mistake but an opportunity to learn. Using our courage we can gain confidence in ourselves. Prove ourselves right and we automatically feel good.
Some define courage as lacking fear in a situation that would normally generate it. Others, in contrast, hold that courage requires one to have fear and then overcome it.
Either way we all need courage in certain circumstances and we use it throughout our life to overcome difficulties.
Situations
Some common situations where we might need courage are
- Bullying – to stand up to someone and have the courage to sort the problem out.
- Parents and adults – to have courage to talk to your peers and not be afraid of doing so.
- Peer pressure – not giving in and conforming to other peoples views, but to have our own views.
- Riding a rollercoaster – or any physical activity that you might be afraid of.
There are situations every day where we use courage and it would be impossible to name them all – but we all know when we need to use it.
Even though courage is something you can’t touch or see there are physical signs in your body that you will come to associate with fear – butterflies in the stomach, nausea, sweating. It’s your mind telling your body that you’re in a situation you don’t want to be in. But using courage can make those symptoms disappear. Easier said that done? Sure. But how good do we feel when we’ve done it?
Courage in The Tribe
Having lost all the adults in the world, there was a huge amount of fear amongst the surviving children. It took courage for them to put the past behind them and move forward. They were all scared but by having a little faith in themselves and looking at their situation practically and summoning their courage they took small steps to build a new life for themselves.
Ryan and Jack were often bullied by Lex and there were certain instances where although they might have been afraid of him they took a stand and stood up to him – sometimes bringing him down to size.
Sammy had courage when he took the video camera and snuck into the experimental lab that Ram and the The Techno’s had set up. He put himself in dxanger to do it but he overcame his fear to get the information that the Mallrats needed.
Trudy had courage when Amber had just given birth to Baby Bray and was desperately sick – they needed to find the Eco’s. Trudy used her courage to get them both to safety. So sometimes your courage can help others too.
Lex and Jack were running from The Techno’s with a stolen disk. They hit a dead end and ended up having to jump to the next building! That took courage!
What about courage to admit you were wrong? No one likes to be wrong but we’re all wrong sometimes. It takes guts to admit you were wrong – but maybe next time you’ll be right.
We’ll leave you with a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt…
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I’ve lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”