The Meaning of Courage

Kevin Patel

Instructor Schmidt

English 1B

22 March 2010

Essay #2

Final Draft

The Meaning of Courage

        The term courage can be a rough one to define. Courage is what many of us aspire to gain in our lifetime for the respect from others, but more importantly for the self fulfillment that can be achieved. But what is courage? Is it something that can be shown through physical appearances, personality, the way an individual lives their everyday life or the actions a person take during a certain situation; maybe all the above. Also, courage can be classified as to when a character does whatever they have their mind set to; they don’t let anything get in their way no matter what, to meet their goal.

        There can be many different variations of courage that one can obtain. Forms of courage can vary from age group, a person’s sex or the type of family they come from. For example, as a child courage can be classified when they begin to learn to compete with other children older than them in activities like sports. As a child, I remember when I first started playing baseball in a league. My parents would always remind me not to let the older kids intimidate me; which built self courage and improved my skills because I was not scared to show them. Moving forward, as human grow older and get into their teens, a great example of courage would be asking a girl out that one might like. Although it may seem hard to do, once it’s accomplished, the individual would feel a sense of pride, which in turn builds courage. As an adult, courage really expands to many different levels. For instance, a person can defend their country in the armed forces, can be there for their significant other during rough times, help their children though school, bullies and teaching them the right values of life or just learning from their past mistakes. In the aspect of family, courage can be shown if a certain person originated from a deprived family. To illustrate, say a child from a low income family recognizes that their parents can’t make ends meet, so they don’t complain when they don’t receive presents and gifts when other children do. Acts like these don’t typically glow of showing courage but deep inside that’s what it is. Feats of courage can be seen from all age groups, but it can only be attained from inner want and desire deep inside a body and mindset.

        Courage can be taken into context many different ways, but in the end it is the individual that obtains it or looses it. An individual can gain courage by setting their mind on something and then accomplishing it, or courage can be lost if the goal is not achieved; it all seems to be a matter of faith. For example, I can set my mind on getting top grades in my class, and if I do it would boost my courage because I would then know I have it in me to perform significantly better than any of my peers. On the other hand, if I try my hardest and end up toward the bottom tier of my peers, it can lower my courage and might lead to me be scared of competing with peers like that in the future or maybe giving up in school. Courage is always achieved or loosed, but in the end if one tries their hardest it will usually lead to self-fulfillment.