The Courage Calendar
It’s easy, in hindsight, to applaud courage. To admire those who challenged the prevailing attitudes or powerful systems of their time, saying unequivocally, “Something is wrong here, and I will stand against it with my life, if need be.”
It’s easy to forget how revolutionary that action is, how rare the individuals who take that path. The names we were taught in school take on an ordinary, boring cadence from repetition. (They never taught us the really interesting parts, anyway.) From our safe perch in the ‘future’, we feel that their vindication and success were inevitable, and we are certain we would have been on their side, the right side, the winning side. The depth of the struggle is glossed over, the cost minimized. As public opinion evolves, so too does the reframing of history. None of us would have owned slaves. If we grew up in 1930s Germany, we would definitely have opposed the rise of the Nazis. The government that fought and persecuted Martin Luther King, Jr. gives him a federal holiday, and the FBI celebrates him in a tweet.
Statistically, we are full of shit. If we humans were so good at identifying and standing for what’s right, atrocities and systemic wrongs would not happen over and over. So where’s the problem?
The problem is two-fold:
- We are products of the very systems that cause and perpetuate wrongs, and therefore we tend to be bad at identifying the injustices of our time;
- We’re not as brave as we think we are.
Take a few minutes to remember your childhood. Dig deep into that swirl of misunderstood emotion and desperate longing, that pit of social pressure, that intense desire to belong. Remember when you witnessed another child being bullied, ostracized, or teased? Remember the “weird” kid in your class or the “fat” kid in your church group… the “poor” kid in the neighborhood… the girl who developed breasts early, or the boy with darker skin. Did you look the other way? Did you laugh? Did you join in?
Were you the ringleader?
If you were also picked on, were you glad that this time it wasn’t you?
Those social pressures don’t vanish in adulthood. Instead they morph and become entrenched more subtly and deeply in our identity. As children, our social groups tend to be foisted upon us by chance of birth and upbringing. As adults, we choose where we want to belong, making us more invested in defending that choice, even, sometimes, against what’s right. When was the last time you ignored something deeply offensive or inherently misguided? It’s easy to call someone out when the stakes are low — when it’s a stranger in the comments section or a friend of a friend you never liked anyway. But when it’s your boss, a longtime friend, or the person you’re infatuated with, your brain finds reasons to excuse them, or at least reasons to excuse why you said nothing.
I am not claiming to be better than you. I have fallen victim many times to social pressures, to accepting the status quo unthinkingly, to making excuses when a situation called for difficult integrity, sacrifice, or courage. The only thing I’m claiming is that I know this is a problem. I’m thinking about it. I want to be better. I want to be brave.
Even if it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard, because that’s when it matters.
Recently, I’ve been collecting lives of courage. I put the person’s birth or death date into a Google calendar, so I am reminded, here and there throughout the year, of their deeds. Some are well-known names — Dr. King, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman; others, you’ve probably never heard of. Hans Litten, a German lawyer who represented opponents of the Nazis, subpoenaed Hitler, and died in a concentration camp. Hugh Thompson Jr., a United States Army Captain who put himself and his crew between his fellow American soldiers and the civilians they were slaughtering at My Lai.
I particularly pause when it comes to those who stood up to their own and said, “No further. You’ll have to get past me.” We’re all skilled when it comes to yelling about what the “other side” is doing (and lord, have we all been getting a lot of practice lately). Where we fail is calling out our own side. Or ourselves.
That’s difficult. That’s painful. That’s heart-poundingly, knees-tremblingly beautiful.
That’s courage.
Suggestions for additions to The Courage Calendar? Email mara.j.schmid@gmail.com. To view and subscribe to The Courage Calendar (a work in progress), click here.
