Courage is unavoidable

CS Lewis famously said that courage is “the form of every virtue at the testing point.” But the more I think about it, courage only looks that way to a (weaker) outside observer. It’s what we label actions that are good but we’re too scared to take ourselves.

For the person acting, “courage” is an unavoidable consequence of authenticity and integrity; a byproduct of embodying “right action.”

Courage is not a superpower or even act of will, but bending with the stream, perpetually heeding the call. Because the alternative — complacency, cowardice — is falseness. It’d reflect a deep misalignment with “what is.”

Earnestness has never heard of courage. It only knows destiny.