What's Courage?

Wrapped up in, nice and warm towels, I paused for a moment. I looked up and made out what seemed to be snow-covered mountains, and as my view swept down, I observed the glittering lights of Burnaby, Vancouver. I sighed, seeing my breath rise up before me as I wrapped the towels even closer to my body, thinking about the options presented to me: fifty cents and a chance to become an ice cube or the safety of a nice, warm house. I sighed again, and pulled off my towels, and jumped, as the icy-cold water quickly enveloped my body. As I reemerged on the other bank, my friend's dad admiringly said, "My, what a courageous boy you are."

Almost two months later, I still shiver at the memory of my icy plunge into the river. But looking back at the event, I still sometimes wonder to myself, "Was that act courageous? Or just plain foolish? Is there even a line between the two?" Courage, some people believe, is what they call an act of foolishness after it succeeds. In basketball, a player who disobeys a coach to run his own play, which loses the game, is deemed foolish. However, if this act ultimately results in the winning points, the player is praised for being courageous. Much similarly, Martin Luther King, Jr. was bashed as a fool when he first started leading the civil rights movement in the 1900's. After the color barrier broke, however, he was recognized as a courageous leader to all of America. As examples pile up, it becomes increasingly harder to argue that the difference between foolishness and courage is success.

But if one thinks a little bit more, one can realize that success is not really that barrier between courage and stupidity. Many unsuccessful acts of heroism have been praised as courageous. In the recent Tucson shootings, a man threw himself in front of his wife to protect her from the bullets. Knowingly risking his life, he decided to protect somebody else instead of himself. In the end, he ended up dying, but many recognize this as a truly courageous act. The reason is exactly that: the reason.

Reasoning is something ingrained into all of us. Each one of us has a moral compass inside of us, no matter how deep it is burried, that tells us what's right and what's wrong. In the case of stupidity and courageousness, this little moral compass inside us is that thin little line. Your reason to perform an ordinarily foolish act can elevate that act to courageous. Whether the reason is greed, longing, unselfishness, or love, this is what seperates foolishness from courage, because only a fool what purposely harm himself/herself. But only a courageous person would harm himself/herself for another person.