Thought Picnic: Having the courage of your convictions

The spirit

There are very few people with the spirit of courage, a boldness and daring to venture out of their comfort zones in the quest for something different and new.

Sometimes, what leads people to chart a course of short-term loss and hurt for long term peace and fulfilment is the desire to absent themselves from those situations where they have comfortable and unchallenged, where the danger of being settled is the encroachment of the predictable and mundane.

Indeed, I have experienced scenarios where self-satisfied ease with encumbrance presages a future of being left behind and having no other options but to descend the rungs to climb if there is scope to embrace change.

The disrespect

However, the worst environment to be in is where you are easily held in contempt, where you’re used and abused, belittled, patronised and disrespected. I have known people of high office but of no grace, breeding or manners whose only means of validation is to seek to hold in contempt others who are more confident, self-assured and fearless.

It is not long before a better person in the know of who they are in person, personality and the personable would decide they are taking no more of that kind of nonsense, be it from so-called friends, colleagues, acquaintances, bosses or strangers.

The courage

It is neither hubris nor pride to determine you are better than to be treated in a particular way giving you the impetus to walk, to have the courage of one’s convictions and act on them without looking back out of fear, dread or anxiety is the making of achievement small and great. In such people, I find encouragement because to dare is to stand with principle, integrity and honour.

I salute those who are ready to disrupt the norm, introduce that temporary discomfort into their well-laid out schemes to achieve a better outcome and story. They discover that the earth is not flat, they face down uncertainty with a steely will to bring in new certainties, they take the first step in what might be a journey of indeterminable length and time, facing forwards and pressing on to a goal that is only in the eye of the mind.

The eagles

Thinking differently, listening attentively, speaking carefully, understanding intently and loving life with infectious passion. In the little things and the great things, they rarely recognise that they are beacons of the possibilities that gives others the daring to leap out of their comfort zones to embrace adventure and the unknown.

They are the living examples of that – One step for man, but a giant leap for mankind. Keep doing what you know to do, aspire, inspire and conspire to make the world a better place. The ducklings who suddenly realised they were eagles, from then, they took flight and became the kings of the air, in poise, grace and class.