Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave (The Stoic Virtues Series)

In truth, we are paralyzed with fear. Overwhelmed by options. By second guesses.

Know-how is a help. But it’s preparation that makes you brave.

As the song goes, even if you choose not to decide—even if you put things off—you still have made a choice. You are voting for the status quo. You are voting to let them decide. You are voting to give up your own agency.

Scholars remind us that the opposite of andreia—the ancient Greek word for “courage”—is not cowardice. It’s melancholia. 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. It’s throwing up your hands and saying, “What’s the point anyway?”

When you do the thing that people think you shouldn’t or can’t do. Otherwise it’s not courage. You have to be braving something or someone.

The opposite of courage is not, as some argue, being afraid. It’s apathy. It’s disenchantment. It’s despair. It’s throwing up your hands and saying, “What’s the point anyway?”

Sometimes people can be bold and fearless in one part of their life and exhibit extreme (usually moral) cowardice in another. Because people compartmentalize. Because we rationalize.

All growth is a leap in the dark. If you’re afraid of that, you’ll never do anything worthwhile.

The brave are not without fear—no human is—rather, it’s their ability to rise above it and master it that makes them so remarkable. In