For some reason--maybe because I was walking alone in an area where I had once seen a badger--I was thinking about bravery yesterday. It's a quality I've always worried that I lack entirely.
And yet I can't count the number of times various individuals have called me "brave" for quitting my job many years ago and starting a publishing company--with no money and no experience in business. "Naive" and "crazy" might be more appropriate terms, though I've never regretted doing it.
Many of the same people who call me brave think nothing of para-sailing, bungee jumping, sky diving, or hurtling themselves down steep mountain slopes on skis at a gazillion miles an hour. I think of all of those activities as taking truckloads of bravery. They think of them as "fun."
So what is bravery? People facing a serious illness are often described as brave, as in "her brave battle with cancer." But since the person has no choice in the matter, is facing the disease really brave? Or does it have to do with attitude? Is battling the disease cheerfully or optimistically what we mean by bravery?
I don't know. Maybe bravery is just doing what you have to do in the moment. When I quit my job and started Cottonwood Press, I was doing what I felt I had to do. The desire to do something different and be my own boss was so strong that I didn't really feel I had a choice. If you are battling cancer, you're doing what you have to do. If you're marching into battle during war, you're doing what you have to do. If you are getting ready to leap out of a plane....well, okay, no one generally has to do that. So maybe that isn't brave. Maybe it's just exciting.
I would not jump out of a plane, even if someone offered me ten million dollars to do it. But what if the only way I could save a loved one's life would be to jump out of that plane? I'd have to do it. Would that be brave? I don't think so. I would not suddenly be infused with courage. I would be suddenly infused with terror. I would be just doing what I had to do.
Maybe bravery isn't something we feel ourselves. Maybe it's a word we use to express a kind of admiration for what someone else does, something we can't imagine doing ourselves--unless, of course, we have to.
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