Quiet courage
There’s this idea that courage is big: a valiant act of risking your life for others or standing up in a public forum to fight for what is right and good. Courage underpins the work of firefighters and whistleblowers and moral giants such as Mahatma Gandhi, Malala Yousafzai and Rachel Carson. History books shout brave deeds loudly, leaving us in dazzled awe.
What our culture forgets is that courage also whispers. People perform courageous acts every day, in gentle and unseen ways.
Quiet courage is advocating for environmental stewardship and a more caring society, despite a fear of exposure. It’s when going out in public evokes the trauma of being chased but you do it anyway. It’s in revealing yourself to someone you’ve chosen to love in spite of your scars, visible and not.
We tend to lionise those who perform huge acts of bravery but courage comes in many shapes and sizes. Most of us won’t need to face danger or be called on to fight for our beliefs and convictions. Yet we all possess a potential for courageousness.
Defining courage
Courage is a complex quality that takes different forms—not just physical but also moral, intellectual, emotional, psychological, political, social and spiritual.
According to Clemson University psychologist Cynthia Pury, courage is very much in the eye of the beholder: “Courage happens when someone perceives a valuable, meaningful goal in their environment. But in order to reach that goal, they have to take a personal