Do you remember this show ‘Courage the cowardly dog’. I remember growing up watching this show, and every other episode, I was thinking “Why is his name Courage, the dog is a coward. Every time a monster appears he gets scared. He actually gets so scared, he ends up looking like a cat”. I didn’t get why that was his name as a kid, but now as an adult, sitting back reminiscing. I now understand, thanks to some life lessons, why his is Courage.
To have courage, to be courageous, is not about the absence of fear. It is you feel fear, but you choose to ignore the fear and do it anyway. It is to have goals/aspirations so big, that you are willing to face whatever monster that appears on your path, because not achieving that goal, is not an option.
In the case of the dog, Courage, his goal was to protect his family. They saved his life, and he feels indebted to them.