This is a time of tremendous, life-altering transition for many people in my immediate circle. Some are family, some are friends; I love them all deeply. Some are dealing with the end of long-term relationships, some with the daunting task of redefining the purpose of their lives, some with the equally daunting task of coming into adulthood. Some struggle with the unanswerable questions that surface in the wake of a family member’s death. I am profoundly moved by their ability to choose courage to move forward, to survive.

The Courage to Choose

Sometimes life goes sideways with such speed and force that it completely derails you. You are left stunned and bloodied, your comfort and confidence shattered, worldview irrevocably altered. You never saw it coming, but now it has been here and gone; a hit-and-run that left you disorientated and in pain.

I have spent a lifetime in service to those who have been struck down by life’s vagaries. I started in emergency medicine and moved to work in intensive care, where I saw the physical ravages of unexpected tragedy. My later education and experience was in counseling, and clinical psychology. My experience evidenced an unfortunate truth:

Some do not survive those collisions.

Whether physical or mental, survivors are able to summon uncommon courage. Here’s what surprised me, early in my understanding: at some point, a conscious decision is made, a choice to survive.

The choice to prevail in spite of great mental and/or physical pain - sometimes lasting years - always seems to bring the need for change. Thoughts, habits and actions that were once adequate now fall short and must be replaced by new strategies and behaviors.

The first step in growth - no less survival - is to make an unshakable choice to move forward.

The Courage to Change

Not all situations in life rise to the level of life-or-death. Courage is still needed to make and maintain decisions and commitments to action that lead to a better life. And change can be the most frightening aspect of growth.

When it becomes apparent that our present situation is now untenable or just unpalatable, new actions become necessary. In many cases, the most difficult part of new action is new thought.

Like it or not, we are the product of conditioning and habit. This is where we get stuck: even though we are aware that we need to make a change, the fear of change itself is daunting enough to keep us in our comfort zones. The old saw, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” was undoubtedly coined to describe exactly this paradox.

Courage is required to break this stalemate, the fear of the unknown. Life comes with few guarantees (and the ones we can count on are extremely unpleasant; death and taxes come to mind), so risk is always present.

“Should I change careers?” “What if I don’t like the new one?”
“I want to invest, but what if the market crashes?”
“What if my new business idea doesn’t make any money for a while?”
“I’m not really happy in my relationship, but what if I can’t find anyone better?”

Risk aversion is a protective instinct, and is adaptive in specific circumstances; it is usually a bad idea to “throw caution to the wind” when making consequential life decisions. But too much fear - the "what if" reflex - can keep us locked in unfortunate situations.

We have no way to be certain beforehand if that new city will suit us, or if that blind date is a good idea, or how long it will be before the new business equipment pays for itself.

So we perform our due diligence, to the best of our abilities, and then muster up the courage to choose a new course of action and the courage to actually make the change.

But there is one other component of courage to consider.

The Courage to Stay the Course

One last pitfall lies in wait for the unwary. Once we make a choice to change and then make the change itself, we may be tempted to bail if things aren’t immediately what we had hoped.

But, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and “Good things come to those who wait,” and other cliches underscore the precept that sometimes we need to just “keep on keeping on.”

A master’s degree still takes about 6 years of college, an apprenticeship isn’t completed in a week and experience is still a function of time. Competence takes time. Seniority takes more time. Hindsight alone is frequently the final arbiter of the value of our decisions.

The decision to stay the course is a long-term commitment to courage.

Choose Courage

We frequently need an experiential “leap of faith” to jump up and forward, to elevate ourselves to the next level of our potential. And that leap is always fueled by courage.

See you on the other side.



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To learn more about how to use these concepts or to inquire about working with me, you can contact me on the Jeff W Welsh website, the comments section on my Substack or Medium accounts or the Hardcore Happiness blog page. If you have found value in this article, follow my Instagram account for daily insights, or my X account for occasional tweets. To support this community, you can Buy Me A Coffee or donate through my Patreon account.

- JWW