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I’m currently reading Ryan Holiday’s Courage is Calling, and he talked about a writer, Varlam Shalamov, who, in the 1930s, was sentenced to hard labor in a Soviet gulag. This passage stood out at me:

“There he was in one of the darkest places a human could be, and what did he find? He found deep insight into the human condition. “I discovered that the world should be divided not into good and bad people but into cowards and non-cowards,” he wrote. “Ninety-five percent of cowards are capable of the vilest things, lethal things, at the mildest threat.”

When we ask about courage, we are thinking about it precisely wrong.

It’s not our question to ask.

For it is we who are being asked the question.”

We live in an age of cowards. Of people going along with the crowd because it’s the easy thing to do. It feels safer to throw stones at the other side than it does to stand for something positive and hopeful. There’s risk in questioning things and seeking other perspectives, whereas joining in the mob costs us nothing (except perhaps our character).

But maybe things have always been this way.

It’s still difficult for most people to wrap their minds around the Holocaust, how so many people just went along with it. The more I learn about psychology, the more I understand how it happened, but it doesn’t make the lack of courage any more appalling.

As a kid learning about WWII, I had no doubt in my mind that I would have done the right thing had I been in Germany at that time. I’m less sure now that I’m older but I hope I would have acted like a man I learned about when visiting Berlin’s Topography of Terror.

In a black and white photo at this museum, I saw a crowd of mostly men raising their arms in the nazi salute but one man did not join them.

Caption to this photo: “Conformity and refusal: Spectators and workers of the Blohm & Voss shipyards during the singing of the national anthem and the Horst Wessel Song following the ‘Fuhrer’s address’ given by Adolf Hitler on the occasion of the launch of the German Navy training ship ‘Horst Wessel’ Hamburg, June 13, 1936. While all those present raise their right arms in the obligatory ‘German salute’ one man refuses and crosses his arms. We have varying, sometimes conflicting, information on the identity of this brave non-conformist. His name was probably August Landmesser.”

Wow. Can you imagine yourself doing the same?

Really think about that now and how courage plays out in your own life. How often do you stay silent or go along with the crowd because it feels better than standing apart?

Courage doesn’t have to be as grand as being part of the nazi resistance.

It can be as small as offering to help a stranger on the sidewalk. In your mind, you might debate, “Well, do they really need my help? Would I offend them if I offered to open the door for them?” And you might really worry about offending them, but you’re likely also worried, maybe more so, that they would make you feel bad if they took offense to your offer.

Courage is about stretching out of your comfort zone and doing the right thing. You won’t always get congratulated for that, but, when it comes to helping people out, they are almost always appreciative of kind gestures.

How does fear show up in your life? What are you avoiding out of fear? How is that affecting your relationships? Your job? Your character?

General courage versus personal courage

Brené Brown said, “The root of the word courage is ‘cor,’ the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant ‘To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.’”

So when you’re thinking of giving someone a compliment, give it to them, instead of holding back. And if you’re the type to brush off compliments, honor the person who’s speaking to you by receiving their words and really feeling them. And sometimes courage means having more difficult conversations, as well.

While I’m sharing the Latin root of words, here’s another one: virs is the latin root for the word ‘energy.’ In the Enneagram workshops I’ve taken, they talk about energy as a free-flowing life force, our virtues. Serenity, courage, and right action are expressions of our life force, our virtue.

You may recall in the Enneagram 101 episode I did on LIVE Without Borders that all nine types have a vice, also known as a passion, that keeps us stuck in a pattern that’s particular to our Enneagram type. Our autopilot way of being. And each passion has a virtue, which is the antidote to that passion, or vice. If you can’t remember, go to sarahmikutel.com/enneagram101 for a refresher.

So why am I bringing this up now? Courage isn’t just taking action on an external situation. Courage is also taking a look at the shadow side of ourselves, our blind spots, and doing the growth work to improve our wellbeing, for our own sake, as well as those around us. That’s what Stoics do.

Robert Biswas-Diener discusses this in his book The Courage Quotient:

“Researcher Cynthia Pury and her colleagues draw a distinction between two types of courage: general courage and personal courage. General courage is what most people think of when they think of bravery.

General courage is present in all those dramatic acts of bravado that would scare the pants off just about anyone: a soldier rushing out into gunfire to help a fallen comrade; a parent jumping into a freezing river to save a child; an employee blowing the whistle on an illegal company practice; a camper yelling to frighten a bear out of a campsite.

Personal courage, by contrast, is in evidence in an act performed by an individual for whom that act is scary; it might not be present when the same act is performed by anyone else. That is, personal courage represents overcoming a personal limitation, even if others would not be intimidated under the same circumstances…

We may not all be likely to climb into a burning vehicle to save an accident victim, but each of us has the potential to face down our own psychological demons, overcome them, and get on with the business of living. Personal courage represents our best possible return on any investment we make in learning courage-enhancing strategies.”

Download: Thought Record Worksheet

Get in the arena

These days, our culture outsources courage, watching superhero movies and living vicariously through imaginary characters.

But you have what it takes to show up differently. To be the leader of your life. To really show up. To be curious. To be courageous. Not everyone will love and praise you for that. But you will live a richer and more fulfilling life.

Our fears about how others perceive us not only have a silencing effect, they can twist how we think and act. On social media, it’s more acceptable to be snarky and sarcastic than it is to be sincere and curious. How we act becomes who we are. It is who we are.

I’d like to end with a passage from Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech, officially known as the “Citizenship in a Republic” speech, delivered in Paris in 1910. These words feel especially relevant today:

The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt...

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

It’s time we stop letting the critics dictate our actions and emotions. The unhealthy people who spend their days leaving negative reviews and tearing people down on social media. Who talk trash on strangers and even people they supposedly care about. Who judge others for trying something new while they make no effort to change their unhappy situation. Their complaints and critiques don’t matter because, while you’re choosing courage, they don’t even have the guts to get in the ring. People hiding in the shadows don’t get to call the shots. You do.

So be a role model. Live up to the standards of your highest self, or, your inner daimon (your inner spirit / inner knowing / conscience / genius). Be someone your 10-year-old self would be proud of. Be someone who stands up and takes risks. Be courageous.