Courage And Fear

True courage is not the absence of fear—but the willingness to proceed in spite of it.--Unknown

Recently a friend of mine and I entered into a little debate about whether courage and fear are different or the same. I took the stance that courage is very different from fear. You see, I believe that fear is what feeds into courage. That is what you have to overcome, but fear itself is not really courage. Usually, when it comes to courage, people tend to think a lot before acting on something they know will take courage to do. They weigh out the pro's and con's and are more exact in the way they choose to overcome whatever obstacle they are facing. For example; should I join the military? Should I tell so and so how I feel about them? Should I follow my dream even if it takes me to a foreign country far away from my family? Should I enter into a convent/seminary? Should I stand up for the beliefs I have against things like abortion even when the majority of my friends are pro-choice? So forth and so on. Sometimes the fear is too great that a person ends up that they stay in their safe area. They freeze. That is what happens when fear consumes you. You back down.

At one point my friend used this, "courage is knowing that jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is insane, but doing it anyway cuz your friend pushed you out the door," as an example of fear and courage being the same thing. I do not really agree with this at all. I think that with this particular example I feel as though if you are forced out of a plane without personally choosing to do so yourself, then you immediately mentally react. You go into survival mode. Whatever your body is doing it is automatic. There is no time to think what moves you will make, you just have to move because you don't have a choice.

In the end after going back and forth on this I finally ended it with the above quote. I think I might have won with it because I have not received a response since.