Facing up to your mountains is one of the hardest, but most rewarding of my simple changes. There’s nothing enjoyable about confronting something that scares you. Mostly, if there’s the odds-on chance we can avoid it, we will (the brain avoids pain).
We live in a ‘peaceful’ society, so war and pillage don’t often visit my neighbourhood. The monsters instead will be social challenges; grief for a loved one, relationship or financial woes, sickness, a problem with work, yobs outside the pub, council tax going up yet again to pay for those public-sector bloodsuckers. Symptoms of worry include a rapid heartbeat, blood pounding, counting sheep and getting past 1,000, fear of failing, fear of the unknown, not feeling so good.
If you’ve been through the wringer, you’ve already learned a lot about yourself, and some of it you don’t like, such as your real courage vis à vis the courage you show others. Take heart. Being brave is not being without fear, it’s being scared and having the courage to go on. As Winston once put it, ‘Never, never, never, NEVER give up!’ And who better than the old bulldog to know about dire straits, dark alleys and choosing the road less travelled by?
With Hitler’s divisions poised across the Channel complete with a seemingly invincible Luftwaffe, and the shattered remnants of his own army recently disembarked from Dunkirk, a stark choice now confronted Churchill. Should he surrender to the damnable Nazis, or haul up the drawbridge and sentence Britain to what Poland got? History is replete with such moments of desperate endeavour and we know how they triumphed, and what happened when they didn’t. Churchill’s immortality derives largely from the fact that he was a keen war prime minister, and even with his back against the wall, the old boy famously chose to make Britain’s darkest moment her finest hour:
‘Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and
famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all
the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go
on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and
oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and strength in the air,
we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on
the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the
fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.’
Words, turned into action.
We should train ourselves and our children in the skills required to overcome. Being brave is far easier when you take action. Taking action depends on having a plan. Having a good conscience and leading a blameless life will also lend a moral courage to accept that bad things happen, and when they happen to us, we are better off getting through the best we can with the minimum of bitterness and bellyaching.
So be of good courage, these things too shall pass. Take action and help others do likewise, and like Britain and her Right Honourable Member for Cigars, this too could be your finest hour!
Resources
The Little Book of Attitude by Phillip Day (ebook download)
Simple Changes by Phillip Day