The Unremarkable Business of Being Brave

/ˈkʌrɪdʒ/ | noun

Dictionary definition: The ability to confront fear, uncertainty, difficulty, or opposition and act despite the possibility of an unfavourable outcome.

AJ’s interpretation: Doing what needs to be done while a thousand perfectly reasonable excuses argue against it.

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The Things Nobody Applauded

An Original Free Verse Poem by AJ Gabriel

I used to think courage
was a rather impressive thing.

It belonged to people
whose names appeared in newspapers,
whose portraits hung in corridors,
whose extraordinary decisions
became stories
other people told.

I imagined it arriving
with a confident voice,
a perfectly straight back,
and the remarkable ability
to know exactly what to do.

Naturally,
I assumed I would recognise it.

Then one Tuesday,
I watched a woman
return an incorrect order
at a crowded restaurant.

She had rehearsed her sentence
three times beneath her breath,
apologised before explaining,
and thanked the waiter
as though requesting the meal
she had actually paid for
were an unreasonable favour.

Nobody applauded.

The waiter corrected the order.
The woman resumed her conversation.
The restaurant continued
its ordinary business.

But I wondered
what else she had practised saying
before finding the nerve.

Perhaps courage
was less interested in ceremonies
than I had imagined.

Perhaps it lived
in the email left in drafts
until someone finally pressed send.

In the trembling admission,
“I was wrong.”

In a person asking for help
after insisting for years
that everything was manageable.

In the decision to leave
an argument unfinished
rather than win it
at somebody else’s expense.

I have known people
who could speak confidently
before a hundred strangers
but struggled to tell one friend
that something had hurt them.

And others
who were afraid of almost everything
yet somehow continued
to try unfamiliar things.

Fear, it seems,
has never been particularly fair
in choosing its audience.

It visits the experienced,
the intelligent,
the ordinarily sensible.

It sometimes arrives
when the decision is small
and stays remarkably quiet
when the consequences are enormous.

I have met it myself.

At unfamiliar doorways,
before difficult conversations,
while considering choices
that could not guarantee
a satisfactory ending.

There were occasions
when I turned around.

Others
when I stood there so long
that courage looked less like bravery
and more like being tired
of my own hesitation.

But I began.

Not always confidently.
Not always gracefully.

Sometimes with a sentence
I had practised badly,
a plan revised several times,
and hands occupied
with absolutely unnecessary tasks.

I discovered
that fear did not disappear
when I made a decision.

It simply had to accompany me
without being permitted
to make every choice.

And no,
not every attempt succeeded.

Some conversations
ended awkwardly.

Some opportunities
proved unsuitable.

Some decisions
required a second decision
to put things right.

But I learned
that the absence of certainty
was not always a reason
to remain where I was.

Yesterday,
I watched someone
take the first step
towards something unfamiliar.

There was no audience,
no remarkable speech,
no triumphant music
rising conveniently
in the background.

Only a person,
a decision,
and a moment
that probably looked ordinary
to everyone else.

I thought of all the brave things
that will never become stories.

The apologies.
The beginnings.
The honest answers.
The boundaries finally spoken.
The attempts made
without any promise
of success.

And I wondered
how many acts of courage
we have mistaken
for ordinary Tuesdays.

— AJ Gabriel

The Dictionary of Human Feelings | Entry 008

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A Note From AJ

I’ve always found our idea of courage rather interesting. We tend to associate it with extraordinary circumstances, dramatic decisions, and people who appear almost incapable of fear. Perhaps that’s because courage makes a better story when accompanied by danger, sacrifice, or a particularly impressive speech. Everyday bravery, unfortunately, rarely comes with suitable background music.

But I’ve come to think that courage is much more ordinary than we give it credit for. It can involve admitting that we don’t know something, challenging an opinion we’ve held for years, apologising without immediately offering an excuse, or trying something unfamiliar despite the possibility of embarrassment. These things may seem insignificant from the outside, but their difficulty depends largely on the person experiencing them.

I also don’t believe courageous people are necessarily fearless. Confidence and courage aren’t interchangeable. Someone can appear confident because a situation feels familiar, while another person may need considerable effort to do the same thing. What seems effortless to one person might represent a meaningful achievement to someone else.

There have been times when I’ve delayed conversations because I was considering every possible outcome, including several that were probably invented entirely by my imagination. I’ve also discovered that being well-prepared doesn’t guarantee feeling ready. Sometimes preparation is necessary, but sometimes it becomes a respectable-looking excuse for postponing a decision.

I’ve learned that courage isn’t measured by how little fear we experience, but by how thoughtfully we act when fear has something to say.

That doesn’t mean every fear should be ignored or every risk should be taken. Caution can be sensible, and knowing when to reconsider a decision is just as important as knowing when to proceed. Courage without judgement can become recklessness, which is an entirely different subject and deserves its own dictionary entry.

What matters to me is recognising when fear is protecting me from a genuine problem and when it is simply making an unfamiliar situation seem more threatening than it is.

And perhaps we should occasionally give ourselves credit for the small acts of bravery that nobody notices. Not every difficult conversation becomes a turning point. Not every new beginning leads somewhere remarkable. Sometimes the achievement is simply that we tried, learned something useful, and became a little more capable of handling whatever comes next.

Although, if someone ever invents background music that plays automatically whenever I make a difficult decision, I wouldn’t object.

AJ Gabriel
Occasionally brave, frequently overprepared.