Courage Redefined

Choosing Engagement Over Avoidance, One Landing at a Time

Introduction

Sometimes our languages and cultures give a linguistic shift to consumer product names. For example, Band-Aid (adhesive plaster bandage) metaphorically means a temporary or superficial solution to a problem. A processed cereal for infants or the infirm is produced in Canada under the trade name Pablum. Pablum is now used to describe internet content that is bland and unstimulating. So, when I decided to write a post on courage, and looking to see what is out there, most I found was about facing danger; about being brave and fearless; about meditating or digging deep into yourself for motivation. I don’t want to add to the pablum.

I want to reframe courage as an accessible, everyday quality that people already possess and exercise regularly, rather than it being a rare virtue reserved for extreme situations. In a world at war with itself we have plenty extreme and heart-rending situations, and I do not want to diminish the pain of people at war (whether militarily, economically, culturally, or psychologically) with platitudes where peace and hope are required. Maybe this post can help us to engage with life, not fearlessly but constructively, bit-by-bit, day-by-day. I want to change the standard dictionary-definition of courage to look something like this:

Courage /ˈkʌrɪdʒ/ noun

Traditional definition: The ability to do something that frightens one, being brave in the face of danger, pain, or adversity. The quality of mind that enables one to meet danger and trouble without fear; or the ability to control one’s fear.

Everyday courage: The quiet determination to engage with life's challenges, both large and small, without retreat or avoidance. The willingness to act constructively when faced with difficulty, uncertainty, or discomfort. This form of courage is not about heroic gestures but about the persistent choice to move forward rather than withdraw, to engage rather than avoid, to try rather than surrender to inertia.

Etymology: From Old French *corage* (heart, innermost feelings), from Latin *cor* (heart). The heart as the seat of feelings and as the centre of vital energy.

Usage note: Modern understanding recognizes that courage manifests not only in extraordinary circumstances but in the ordinary moments where we choose engagement over avoidance; and fixing what's broken, addressing what's difficult, or simply showing up when it would be easier not to. It is not choosing to stand heroically but choosing not to fall.

Choosing

Sometimes we are in situations where we are curtailed, limited and with our right to choose taken from us. But where we can make choices, they best be careful choices.

For example, for a Harris’s hawk perching at speed is one of the most demanding flight behaviours to learn. In study results published in Nature, scientists studying the biomechanical movement of birds spent months of monitoring, measuring and math to find which flight path hawks take to a perch. They found that the hawks, contrary to widely held belief, do not take the fastest or the most energy efficient path. They continuously took the flight path that allowed them to perch safely with the most control.

Like hawks reading wind currents and obstacles, we can learn to read the currents of our daily situations and choose the path that gives us the most control over our landing, not the flashiest trajectory that will end in a broken wing or falling. Courage is not choosing to stand heroically but choosing not to fall.

It is not choosing to stand heroically but choosing not to fall. 

Falling

Falling, in this post, is the subtle diminishing of the self, which is caused by the gravity of our internal insecurities. For instance, we readily take the bait offered by the wellness and beauty industries’ for-profit machines. We follow fashions, fads, fools, and fakes. We seek satisfaction in wealth, fame, and pleasure that do not provide lasting fulfilment. We tend to forget the limited nature of human existence. We seek ways to always look and feel selfie-good.

Further, we seek to escape from making choices or facing daily realities. It is human to want to escape out of war and critical circumstances that demand moral and ethical resolution. This is not the escaping I am referring to here. It is wanting to escape our daily problems through a range of diversion tactics or faux spirituality, wanting the seemingly faster path of instant gratification or avoidance not considering the effect this falling has on our psyche and people around us.

Cause-and-Effect

Hawks instinctively understand that their approach affects their survival. We can consciously understand that our daily choices create the thermals that either lift us higher or the turbulence that sends us crashing. Unlike a hawk’s survival instinct, humans can control the world: we understand cause and effect.

We have a cognitive capacity that enables us to think about how things affect and influence each other. We sort of know this but do not always apply this. Whatever we do, produce, or say is a cause that affects what and how others do, produce, or say. Considering the effect we have is the fulcrum on which a good personal life and society balance; it is the choice of which values we instil in ourselves, our families and through our community or institutions. Plainly said, applying our everyday courage influences whether we and those around us can perch safely or crash and fall.

Exercising everyday courage does not produce instant results. It takes practice and patience, just as a hawk had to learn how to find the thermals or approach its perch.

Everyday Courage

Just as hawks practice thousands of landings to master their approach, everyday courage requires daily practice. Each small challenge is flight training for bigger ones.

As we sort of know of cause and effect, we sort of know that we already have everyday courage. However, it has not occurred to (some of) us to apply it cognitively. We blindly adhere to the philosophy of I can, I must, I will do, and we do so with haste, restlessness, and nervousness instead of seeking the quiet determination to simply engage in what is before us. We seek tools, constants, directions, hints, or models to do/be the fastest and most efficient. But like a hawk seeking thermals to take him higher, we can find our everyday courage thermals through daily small interventions. The alternative is deciding which squabbling and jeering rabble, revellers, or revilers to join as turbulence drives you off your course to a safe perch.

I recently had an unwelcomed challenge. I wanted to change the domain name of this blog from its .io extension to .com. I had to work through the help files of two ISPs and their (for me) hard to understand technical language. I came across tech-speak such as DNS, @, CNAME, records and redirects, pointing to IP, TTL, 4H, A and a load of errors I did not understand or know how to resolve. I eventually roped in AI and even with it, it took almost two days of wrestling in a language I don’t understand. But I succeeded. The sense of accomplishment was instant and enormous. With my fists punching the air as if it was to blame for my struggle, I shouted, “I DID IT! I FRICKEN DID IT!” I saw my everyday courage. It was worth the irritations and annoyances.

Examples

Examples of practicing and applying everyday courage are learning a new skill instead of hiring it out; doing hard things; pressing "send" on an email that might receive pushback; learning to parallel park in city traffic; asking for help when you're drowning in tasks; speaking up in a meeting when everyone else is nodding along; and admitting you were wrong in an argument. You will see none of these require physical bravery, yet each demand that moment of choosing engagement over avoidance, of action over inaction.

Of-course there’s a lighter side to exercising everyday courage. I salute those with jobs that require traditional courage, such as soldiers, law enforcers, firefighters, and first-responders trained to be at their best as they deal with the worst. But even you need your everyday courage. How about when you take your first newborn in your arms, realising you are responsible for it the rest of its life; then, some years later drop them off at college as they leave the nest. Or to take that first kiss. Or challenge someone taller than you to a basketball shootout.

Yes, but why?

The traditional courage narrative focuses on dramatic, once-in-a-lifetime moments, while most of our lives are built from small, repeated choices. We need a courage framework that matches the actual texture of our contemporary existence and that honours the accumulated weight of daily decisions.

We are overwhelmed in an era of infinite choices and constant connectivity. Every day, we're bombarded with news, economic uncertainty, and global crises we feel powerless to influence. We are overloaded with so many choices and options that we freeze or default to avoidance—and we fall. We postpone instead of deciding—and we fall. We consume other people's curated lives instead of engaging with our own messy reality—and we fall.

Daily, choose something small. For instance, the most boring, mundane thing you've been avoiding. Complete it. You will notice how this helps you do something incrementally bigger each time.

Notice your daily "thermals" such as people, activities, or environments that naturally give you energy and lift you up. Schedule more of these before tackling challenging tasks.

Then, you must choose:

1.       What's the fastest path? (avoidance or quick fixes)

2.       What's the easiest path? (delegation or procrastination)

3.       What's the safest landing path? (the one that gives you the most control over the outcome)

4.       Choose the third option.

Conclusion

The hawk doesn't know it's being courageous when it chooses the safest landing approach. It simply engages with what's in front of it, using its best judgment to maintain control. Similarly, you don't need to feel brave to exercise everyday courage. You just need to choose engagement over avoidance, one small decision at a time.

I hope that this post helps you to engage with life, not fearlessly but constructively, bit-by-bit, day-by-day.

For those of you who are battling with extremes, your energy sapped by the constant onslaught, your wings of choice clipped, do the tiniest thing that you can cope with. Your heart will see the tiniest bit of hope grow, but for now, that is all that is needed. That dreadful thing will cease just as flowers cease blooming because no flower blooms all year. Remember this until your right to choose again returns as a hawk returns to its nest.

You are welcome to share your moments of everyday courage with us in the comments. You might just be the thermal somebody else needs to lift them up and find their path to a safe landing. You are also free to share this post with your family and friends.

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[i] Photo Credits: Creative Commons Acknowledgements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris%27s_hawk#: Alan Vernon, Fernando Archuby, Gregory "Slobirdr" Smith, Peter K Burian, Tony Hisgett. https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwarby/. https://peregrinefund.org/explore-raptors-species/hawks/harriss-hawk. Sabine Nolting Pexels.