There are times when we have no choice but to fight. There are times when, after all other options are off the table, our best choice is to strike first and strike hard. These times are exceedingly rare, but they are out there: When someone attacks you, and you fear for your life, and you […]
Why A German Pilot Escorted An American Bomber To Safety During World War II. This is an incredible story, especially if it’s true. The fact that it includes dates, names, and the bomber’s target lend some credence–and I know of a handful of similar stories from World War II, so I choose to accept this […]
38 Life Lessons I’ve Learned in 38 Years : zenhabits. I’ve come to love Leo Babauta’s zenhabits site since I discovered it a few weeks ago. He and I seem to share an interest in quiet living and finding joy within rather than without. I thought it would be appropriate today to share this list […]
We’ve just about managed to remove courage from American politics entirely. I won’t claim there was ever a “golden age” of politics, in the U.S. or anywhere else–it’s always been a dirty, messy business, in which men and women of varying shades of integrity debate in public and make deals in private. It’s always been […]
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain, from here Moving forward into the unknown is terrifying. […]
Badass. One reason I’ve chosen not to spend too much time on examples of physical courage is that it’s been done many times. In the case of Ben Thompson’s Badass of the Week, it’s been done really well, for a very long time. Each week, as you might have guessed, the site features a diferrent […]
Motivational Speaker Josh Sundquist | Bestselling Author of Just Don’t Fall. Josh Sundquist has one leg–and he’s kicking butt. Take a look at his Photos page to see three amazing one-legged Halloween costumes. Oh–he’s also a skier. Not just a bunny-slope slow-on-the-greens skier, either; he’s a freakin’ Paralympic ski racer. He competed on the US […]
I can’t ignore Veterans Day, or Armistice Day or Remembrance Day as it’s known in other countries. Today is one of a very few days set aside explicitly to honor courage. The day’s original purpose was to commemorate the end of the First World War, or the Great War as it was called before World […]
Pope Embraces Man with Rare Genetic Disease | Neurofibromatosis | LiveScience. Compassion requires courage, particularly at this level. The man the pope embraced and kissed on Wednesday suffers from Neurofibromatosis, a condition I’d never heard of before reading this article. In a word, he’s hideous, the sort of man most of us would be much […]
This article on the Smithsonian web site makes me think about courage. According to a new book by Richard A. Serrano, at least some of the men who claimed in the 1950s to be veterans of the Civil War…weren’t. Some of them were children, too young to go to war, when the shooting stopped. Others […]