58. COURAGE
There is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.
- Hugh MacLennan, The Watch that Ends the Night
When I was a kid, I was scared of the dark.
I’d lie awake at night with my eyes open, alone in the quiet, and wonder if that blackness pressing in on me was what it felt like to be dead. Or maybe being dead was somehow worse, like the complete and utter absence of me. That thought in particular scared me. I remember crying one night, inconsolable when my parents asked what was wrong and all I could get out was that I wasn’t brave, would never be brave.
I’d like to tell you our fears go away, over time. I guess that’s partially true, for what it’s worth. If nothing else, our fears at least become more bearable as we get to know them. I faced death a few times in Afghanistan, although the ones that scared me happened less than you’d think. Mostly they happened so fast there was no time to be afraid.
Ironically, I often feel more fear as a writer, about whether I’ve told the truth and that holds true for my fiction as much as my nonfiction, if that makes sense. Maybe it doesn’t. Then again, these days I’m in no danger of driving over an improvised explosive device on my way to and from an airfield, so maybe it’s all relative. I might not have adopted the dark, but it doesn’t keep me up.
Most of the time.
Still, every now and then, I wake in the middle of the night with that familiar old darkness crushing in upon me, stealing my breath. At those times, the fear is as real as when I was a kid, because it never really went away. It just bided its time. It waited in ambush for the right moment, like Hela waiting for Odin to die before attacking Asgard. All our inner obstacles or negative beliefs do this, they wait around to hit us when we’re most vulnerable.
The difference, these days, is that my fear goes after my wife. It goes after my daughters. My fear asks how I could bring kids into a world that seems bent on self-destruction, climate or otherwise, a world with so much hate, and it taunts me by saying the problem is too big for me to make a difference. I’d love to tell you all about my three-phase plan to use the tools I’ve described in this book to chase away the dark, but the truth is I don’t have one. The truth, is that the only thing to do at those times is ride out the fear until the light comes out and chases it away.
Because it will, though it may seem an eternity.
Being brave doesn’t mean the absence of fear. It means doing what you want to, or need to, in spite of that fear. It’s being scared and going about your life anyways. Franklin Roosevelt said, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear,” and what could be more important than helping our communities become more resilient so that we’re better enabled to face crises together?
Fearless people aren’t brave, they’re either too ignorant or too arrogant or too damn stupid to know what they’re getting into. So, if you’re scared about what you’re about to undertake, you’re right to be.
Just don’t let that fear stop you from leading a life of service, because you can make a difference not only for your community, but also for yourself.