Summary
· Having Courage Means Being Afraid
· Angus
· Do It Scared
· Ted Lasso
· Turn and Face the Strange
Quotes
"Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. He is also a fool."
Robert A. Heinlein
"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."
Nelson Mandela
"Courage is about learning how to function despite the fear, to put aside your instincts to run or give in completely to the anger born from fear. Courage is about using your brain and your heart when every cell of your body is screaming at you to fight or flee—and then following through on what you believe is the right thing to do."
Jim Butcher
“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I’m Glad You’re Here
Welcome to the Simple Ways to Have a Good Life newsletter, your monthly guide to cultivating the life you want without spending money on gurus, gimmicks, or influencers. Two decades of helping people change their lives has taught me that the best things are simple and don't require spending a dime. I use this space to share those things.
A Simple Way to Have a Good Life
Halloween is coming up, so it's natural that our simple way to have a good life is to have courage.
That sounds a little old-fashioned to me. I almost decided to write about being brave or overcoming our fears, but the idea of having courage seemed more important for some reason.
I think being brave and overcoming fears are too specific. We can all be brave in certain situations, but this opens us up to not being brave in other situations. We can all overcome a fear here and there while others dominate us.
Having courage is different. It's like the water at the bottom of a well. It's always there when we need it. It's not conditional. It's constant, ready for us to draw on it when we are afraid. This leads us to the most essential part of what we will talk about today: you cannot have courage without first being afraid.
This messed with me for a long time. I thought that since I was so afraid of so many things, I did not have courage. When I thought of courage, I pictured strong men who weren't afraid of anything. I've never been one of those.
This often surprises people, especially those who knew me when I was younger. I've talked about my struggles pretty openly, but I don't know that I've talked a lot about the fact that I was crazy and took a lot of risks.
I was obsessed with rock climbing for a long time. I climbed on cliffs, I climbed in gyms, I climbed on buildings, and I even climbed in some competitions. I loved it. I would often climb without a rope because it had a different kind of thrill.
Once, my friend was below me on the cliff, and I needed to get around him. Instead of climbing down, I stepped out from the rock, fell past him, and grabbed onto a hold a few feet below him. People were watching from down in a park below us, and I still remember hearing them scream when I did it. I enjoyed that. People who were there bring it up now, and I feel ashamed about the whole thing. What a stupid way to risk your life.
That was the thing, though. I didn't care about my life. I was crazy on the rocks, I was crazy on skis, I was crazy in my car, I was crazy in so many ways. Now, I recognize that a lot of that was driven by fear.
I was afraid of the world and what it expected of me. I was afraid that I would always be a loser and that there wasn't any hope for me in life. I was dealing with serious depression and severe anxiety in a time when we didn't talk about depression and anxiety, so I didn't know what was going on. Doing crazy things like jumping off cliffs on my skis and falling off of cliffs while I climbed kept all that at bay for a few seconds, and it made me feel good every time I survived.
That's another reason why I chose to talk about having courage instead of being brave or overcoming fear. There's something more profound to courage, something more intrinsic to who we are. I was brave enough to ride on top of somebody's truck while they drove 70 miles an hour down jeep roads in the mountains but committing myself to anything in life terrified me. I could overcome my fear of the water long enough to jump off a cliff into a lake (I still don't like the water), but I didn't have the courage to confront the mental health issues and the addictions that resulted from my avoiding them.
All this fear and avoidance made me feel like I didn't have courage and that I never would. I thought since I was so fearful, there was no way I could have courage. I wish I could have recognized that you cannot have courage unless you have fear a lot earlier.
Let's talk about where I learned that lesson.
An Example
Angus is a criminally underrated movie from the mid-90s. I don't remember it ever being popular, but it's great, and it's where I first understood that you cannot have courage if you do not have fear.
Angus is the story of an overweight, unpopular teen who has a crush on the most popular girl in school. I know this isn't a unique story, but Angus has a depth and heart that a lot of movies are missing. One of the neater aspects of the movie is Angus's relationship with his grandfather. This is an excerpt from one of their conversations:
Grandpa: Superman isn't brave.
Angus: Did you take your pills this morning?
Grandpa: You don't understand. He's smart, handsome, even decent. But he's not brave. No, listen to me. Superman is indestructible, and you can't be brave if you're indestructible. It's people like you and your mother, people who are different and can be crushed and know it. Yet they keep on going out there every time.
This is the heart of what we are talking about this month. There is no courage without vulnerability. There is no courage without fear. Invulnerable people are not courageous because nothing can hurt them. Fearless people are not courageous because they aren't scared in the first place.
Invulnerability is also boring. There's nothing to connect with there. This is why they had to introduce vulnerabilities to magic and Kryptonite to keep people interested in Superman. This is why Spiderman is the most popular superhero of all time. As far as I can remember, he was the first superhero who struggled with things like getting to work on time and paying his rent. He had the real fears of real people.
I wanted to be invulnerable for a long time. After a lifetime everyone seeing what a mess I was, I was tired of it. I was tired of being volatile. I was tired of being a mess. I was tired of everyone seeing what a disaster I was.
My answer to this was to become someone who was unbothered by things and did not struggle with anything. When I first started trying to figure out how to do life better, a story in a book on Zen Buddhism grabbed my attention.
A warlord attacked a small village. He was murdering his way through the town when he came to the monastery and found a monk meditating. Angered by his lack of fear, the warlord asked the monk, "Don't you realize that I could cut you in half without blinking an eye?". The monk replied, "And don't you realize that I could be cut in half without blinking an eye?".
That appealed to me.
I wanted that.
After years of chaos, I wanted that kind of detachment and composure. This is why I started meditating. I hoped it would bring me to a place of complete peace and equanimity where nothing bothered me. I wanted to be invulnerable.
It didn't go as planned.
I did not become happier or healthier. I became detached and repressed, terrified of any weakness or flaw showing to others. I think I weirded people out because I didn't seem quite human.
It eventually sorted itself out because, ironically, meditation gets you much more in touch with your emotions whether you like it or not, and you start to become more human whether you like it or not.
This was a good thing.
Over the years, I've learned that it's our flaws that connect us to other people, and we can all recognize that being connected to other people is good. The key is not to be fearless or invulnerable. It's to be human, to recognize our vulnerability and our fears, and to do what we need to do anyway. Being scared or fearful doesn't mean you're not courageous. They are the only ways that we can be courageous.
A Practice
"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."
Dale Carnegie
I wish I had some super cool trick that would teach you to overcome fear, but I don't think that exists.
Fear is probably our most basic emotion. Your brain does not care if you are happy. It wants you to be alive. Fear is the primary way it keeps us alive. We are all the product of fearful ancestors. In the world of the past, people who did not have fear probably didn't live long enough to pass on their genes.
This month’s practice might be disappointing in its simplicity: think of something you need to do but have been avoiding out of fear, and then do it scared. That's the essence of courage.
Journal Prompts
What do I believe about the relationship between courage and fear?
Do I see myself as a courageous person?
Do I see myself as a fearful person?
What scares me the most?
What are some things I have avoided out of fear?
What would it look like to acknowledge the fear and do these things anyway?
Am I capable of doing it scared?
Media of the Month
I know, I know – I'm always behind the curve on the cool, popular things in the world, but I want to talk about Ted Lasso this month. I watched the first season and then realized it was a show my wife might also enjoy, so I started over so we could watch it together. It's rare for her and I to find a show we both enjoy.
I won't give away any spoilers in case you are the one other person on the planet who hasn't seen this show, but Ted Lasso tells the story of an American football coach who goes to England to coach a Premier League soccer team.
Ted Lasso embodies courage in a lot of ways that are contrary to how we are often told courage is supposed to look. I like him because he embodies so many of the ways that I have to work to be courageous.
Ted Lasso is relentlessly open, caring, and optimistic. I often struggle with these things. That might sound funny coming from a guy who has a section in his newsletter called Toxic Positivity, but it's easy for me to write about being positive or to be positive in my own head. It's a lot harder for me to offer this to people in situations where they might reject me.
It's hard for me to always be caring toward other people when they are suffering because I fear them lashing out at me or rejecting what I'm offering. It's hard for me to be open with other people because of the number of times in my life that being open with someone has caused them to reject me because it clashed with the image that they wanted to have of me. I have a clear link in my mind between honesty and rejection.
Over the years I've learned that being caring and open can cost us, but we have to do it anyway.
People who are hurting will sometimes lash out at us.
People who are invested in having a particular image of us because it serves a purpose for them will probably reject us when we do something that challenges that image, even if that something is honest.
Having courage is recognizing these potential rejections and abandonments and doing the right thing anyway. I don't know that I've ever seen a character on a television show who embodies this as well as Ted Lasso.
Quick caveat: Ted Lasso is, in my mind, heartwarming and life-affirming, but they swear a lot. Please don't watch it and then send me an angry e-mail if this bothers you.
Postponing Toxic Positivity and Housekeeping, Cancelling Memento Mori
This is getting long, and someone asked me if I could detail my gratitude practice since I talk about it so much, so I will send that out as a separate post instead of doing the normal Toxic Positivity this month. Look for that in a few days.
Housekeeping will be its own post as well. I'm considering some changes at the end of the year, and I would appreciate feedback from all of y'all. We are taking an indefinite hiatus from the Memento Mori section of the e-mail newsletter, though. I've had quite a few people tell me that they do not enjoy it and that it often leads them to feeling down or even a little depressed at the end of the newsletter, and I need to listen to that. I forget that the things that motivate me do not necessarily motivate everyone else. I have to assume that with the number of people who've taken the time to send me an e-mail about it, there are probably a lot more who skip it each month.
What’s Going On
September was busy.
We went to Beaumont to watch my son fight at the beginning of the month. We were gone for about 36 hours, and 21 of those were in the car. The weekend after that, we went to Santa Fe to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday, and the weekend after that, I ran up to Red River to help my parents close the property down for the winter.
I'm headed back up there in a few days to help with a few things at the Community House and finish putting everything up after the last guests leave. I love being on the road, so this is all pretty cool.
I went back to the endocrinologist a few days ago. She said that my thyroid levels look good since we have stopped the medication, but she thinks it will take another few months to get back to normal. I feel better than I did a month ago, but I'm still fatigued and not sleeping well. I did get in trouble about my sleep and rest, but I’m not sure what to do about that. I’ve never slept well and I like doing stuff, so resting is difficult. I have managed to lose some weight, though, so that has been nice. Overall, it's been a tough year, but I've learned a lot from it.
The biggest news I have is that we closed on our new house yesterday, so now we need to start the process of moving and getting the house we're in ready to sell. I've lived in our current house for 22 years, so there's a lot of work to do, especially considering we've raised three kids and had nine animals here. I'm excited about the move, but I'm also struggling with leaving somewhere I've been for so long. I may do a post about that this month if I feel self-indulgent.
Until Next Time (Tomorrow)
As always, I'm grateful to everyone who reads the things I write. I'm hoping to answer a few reader questions this month, and I'll send out a post tomorrow about the future plans I'm considering. I hope everyone is doing well. Remember to love yourselves and love everyone around you. Little things like that make the world a better place.
Go watch Angus, let me know what you think.
Take care,
James
For myself, I find perfectionism and fear joined at the hip. This entire post hits home, as all yours do, James but this one: bullseye, though for different reasons than you named in your own life. Thank you, for all of it.