liveonearth | Entries tagged with courage

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

--Howard Zinn

The sophistication of truth
Posted by Seth Godin on September 30, 2014
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/09/the-sophistication-of-truth.html

A common form of complexity is the sophistication of fear.

Long words when short ones will do. Fancy clothes to keep the riffraff out and to give us a costume to hide behind. Most of all, the sneer of, "you don't understand" or, "you don't know the people I know..."

"It's complicated," we say, even when it isn't.

We invent these facades because they provide safety. Safety from the unknown, from being questioned, from being called out as a fraud. These facades lead to bad writing, lousy communication and a refuge from the things we fear.

I'm more interested in the sophistication required to deliver the truth.

Simplicity.

Awareness.

Beauty.

These take fearlessness. This is, "here it is, I made this, I know you can understand it, does it work for you?"

Our work doesn't have to be obtuse to be important or brave.

Seth Godin is a writer, a speaker and an agent of change.

SOURCE
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/09/the-sophistication-of-truth.html

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
--E.F.Schumacher

If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. I'll always be with you.
~Winnie the Pooh

...and a fond goodbye to Dr Wilson, who taught us well and with great humor... he died two days ago in a motor vehicle accident...

The fool who persists
in his folly
will become wise.
--William Blake

Life is tough,
but it's tougher
when you're stupid.
--John Wayne

"The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph."
The Butterfly Circus
http://vimeo.com/17150524
22:35 long and well worth the time invested

‎Mistakes
are always forgiveable
if one has the courage to admit
to them.
~~Bruce Lee

Courage is not the absence of fear,
but rather the judgment that
something else
is more important than fear.
--unknown

The first form of bravery is being free of deception. If we are engaged in deception, we are intentionally covering up a bit of nonvirtue. It is difficult to be forthright, open, and genuine. We just go through the motions, so much that we fool even ourselves. Perhaps we have been wearing the clothes of spiritual lifestyle, memorizing the words of spiritual speech, and having spiritual thoughts. Maybe we have even encountered brave individuals on the path. But we have not had the bravery to truly manifest in our daily life.

When we are free of deception, we are able to be fully present. Because we are not looking behind our back, there is a feeling of readiness. We feel immediate. Therefore, the second form of braveness is abruptness, the ability to suddenly jump. Abruptness indicates that bravery is not an indiscernible slow-swinging pendulum, where somehow we move seamlessly from deception to bravery. Rather, abruptness is a sudden, immediate, and noticeable experience of true bravery.

Abruptness snaps our mind out of discursiveness and habit. Coming face-to-face with our deception, there is a moment of challenging ourselves. To practice truly being present, we cannot vacillate in the moment of immediacy. We must leap if we are to overcome our mockery of awakenment.

--Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
from: Bravery: Taking a Leap, June, 2011

To be a warrior is to experience life on our own two feet, without the companionship of habitual patterns. In order to engage in bravery, we must be willing to be free of deception. The Shambhala tradition regards any aspect of life as a potential path of warriorship. But if we use our activities as a buffer that prevents us from being, those same activities become a nesting ground for habitual patterns and cowardly traits — elements of deception that allow us not to be fully present.
--The Sakyong Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche, in Bravery without Deception, Feb 2011

Resiliency is a trait all leaders share
The ability to respond effectively in times of upheaval requires honesty, courage.
By Dr. William Sparks in Charlotte Observer | Sunday, Mar. 14, 2010
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/03/14/1309784/resiliency-is-a-trait-all-leaders.html
( text )

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at its testing point.
--C.S. Lewis

Many thanks to

1bigguy for posting this one. I'm getting better all the time at letting things slide. ( Tyler's Rules of Innovation )

Man of Courage
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008.
The Weekly Standard, 08/25/2008, Volume 013, Issue 46
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/417wvabo.asp?pg=1
by Harvey Mansfield
( article text )

INTERESTING TIMES

are better than no times at all.

Entries tagged with courage

Quote: To Be Hopeful in Bad Times

Can't it just be simple?

QotD: Simplicity

QotD: Always With You

QotD: Fool's Wisdom

QotD: Life is Tough

We Need a Little Wonder

QotD: Mistakes

QotD: Courage

QotD: on Bravery

QotD: Bravery from the Shambhala perspective

Resilient Leaders Know Their Shadows

QotD

Tyler Durden's 8 Rules of Innovation

Reflections on Courage from Solzenitsyn via Mansfield

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