Courage Essays

Courage: the state or quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain or vicissitudes with self-possession without fear. According to the thesaurus dictionary we can also define courage as the mental and moral strength of venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. Courage is something we all admire. When asked to describe courage, most people conjure up the image of a character like Batman or Superman and describe as a state or condition of being a hero. Everybody sees courage differently, but when ask to go deeper to define courage the only response that comes to my mind is “it’s a beautiful act that only after its finished can you see the beauty”. Mark Twain said “courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear not absence pf fear.” Whiles Bethany Hamilton also puts it that “courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you do not let the fear stop you. Self-encouragement in difficulty can be termed as courage. It does not necessarily imply one’s capabilities but in spite of the incapability strive for success with all boldness.

Courage comes in two different ways. That is physical courage and mental courage. Physical courage encourages man to do works of risk like rocket manufacturing, launching satellites. It encourages man to discover the other planets of the universe and all type of laborious works. Mental courage enables man to select right or wrong and act accordingly to his will. We have all faced the challenge to be courageous, and being courageous is not always easy because it takes heart to do a courageous act. Sometimes, losing someone so dear to your heart or having the school bully on your bad side are some of the difficulties we can face, but what sets courageous people apart from cowards is fortitude, having the fill to go out there and face those difficulties.

There are men who boldly defy public opinions for conscience sake but cannot face physical torture or danger to life. Such a men are mentally/morally brave but suffer from physical cowardice. Those who have neither physical nor mental courage are total cowards. People with both are the true heroes.

In transformative leadership, courage is very important because there are certain tough decisions you have to take in other to help your people. The likes of Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela and our very famous Yaa Asantewaa are example of leaders who exhibited courage in their tenure of office and it is being set as great examples for the young generation to learn. Many people claim Barack Obama as a courageous person, for having the confidence, determination and faith he possesses, to take courageous decisions like to grant innocent, undocumented youth protection from deportation, according to the New York Times. Nelson Mandela after being put into prison still came out and had the courage to fight for the freedom of his people. While Yaa Asantewaa is the courageous woman who lead a group of men to fight the British colonizers at their time. The examples above tells us that to be a successful transformative leader, you need to be courageous. A person that is going through a lot more every single day and anyway is looking forward is a courageous person.

Finally, as a young girl growing up, I have always seen mathematics to be the most difficult subject in the world. With this idea in my head, I never dreamt of pursuing a career in mathematics. Unfortunately on my side, when I applied for my undergrads, I was given mathematics as my major. I lost all hope but I still reported to school. A month into the semester and everything still looked new to me. I did not understand any topic taught in class, I became so frustrated, but I did not stop, I encouraged myself to work hard. After a year, am now doing my second semester with a not so bad GPA of 2.75. I am enjoying my university life and still think that my courage will make me a terrific mathematician. As Maya Angelou author of “I know why the caged bird sings” stated in one of her quotes “I can be changed by what happens to me but I refuse to be reduced by it”

Courage is an important virtue to practice in life because it leads to many rewards, like success, it gives us more strength to act more decisively. Courage is the benchmark of all successful people.