Courage is often mentioned in heathen circles as a virtue that we must exhibit, we see it in the Sagas, the poems, and the history of our ancestors. Regardless of the type of heathen you are(Asatru, Anglo-Saxon, Continental, Odinist, whatever) our ancestors were courageous, they faced the foe in battle, faced winter with courage, and looked at horizons as a challenge not a boundary.

What does this mean for a modern heathen? Most of us aren’t warriors, we rarely have to worry about winter, and our horizon is the wonders of space. Can we exhibit goodly courage in the face of the comforts of modern society? In what ways has modernity changed the face of courage?

Today the dictionary defines courage as either A) The ability to do something that frightens you, or B) Strength in the face of pain or grief.

Proceeding from that definition let us get one thing straight, if our ancestors were transported to meet us in the flesh today, we would mostly be seen as soft and weak. Those of us who are warriors would be understood, but even the farmers and warriors of today would be both envied for their bounty, and seen as soft for not knowing the struggles that were so common place for them. That is likely not our individual faults, it is a consequence of the bounty that has blessed western culture, even the poor among us are decently fed and mostly have little fear of the things that caused our ancestors to be the hardened men and women of the past.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about being courageous in our day to day lives. This is going to get a bit personal for me, just so you know.

There are many things that make people frightened today; we fear failure, rejection, embarrassment, and our fellow man.

Failure is a fear that we are often taught, inadvertently, from a young age. We are encouraged to succeed at academics; any failure is treated as “Life altering.” This fear is reinforced in our media despite the feel good stories of how often successful people failed before making it big. Now I am not saying that children should be taught to embrace failure, or settle for it. Children and adults need that fear of failure, however for some (read, me) it was learned that failure can be avoided all together by not trying. I cannot fail if I don’t take the risk, I also conveniently ignore that by not trying the default position is failure (I am a flawed human). It wasn’t until I embarked on this path of worshiping the old gods, and venerating my ancestors, that it even occurred to me that this was cowardice. I realized that I had been robbing myself of courage and hiding behind affected apathy. I have realized that if I am to live courageously I cannot fear failure; I must strive to face it and overcome it. Not in a lovey dovey “failure leads to success” kind of way, but a much more realistic “rub some dirt on it and move one” kind of way. It may not be much, but it is courage.

Rejection hurts. We have all felt it, professionally and personally. We know that feeling of being told “You aren’t good enough.” Professional rejection, and more importantly the fear of it, can lock people into thankless lackluster jobs. We may be good at the job, we may take pride in the level of work that we do, but we fear being rejected from something better and thus never strive to set foot on that horizon. This hobbles us, courage should be ambitious. Personally some of us(you should know this mean me) fear rejection because the pain changes us into someone foreign to ourselves. It can be hard to be rejected by someone who tugs on the heart. So in the face of that rejection we close ourselves off, we refuse to play the game, we “friendzone” ourselves before there is even the opportunity for more. Conversely we may become malleable, changing into who we think the other wants. It takes no small amount of courage to place your heart on your sleeve and ask someone to accept you, and more to ask them to accept you for who you are.

Embarrassment is a tricky one, the first two points I mention can lead to embarrassment, and thus overcoming embarrassment will help overcome the fear of rejection or failure. We cannot control a blush, but we can decide not to run from it.

Fear of our fellow man is a fear that even our ancestors knew, even the High One says:

Let a man never stir on his road a step without his weapons of war; for unsure is the knowing when need shall arise of a spear on the way without.

Some of us(hey it isn’t me this time) seek to limit the freedoms and rights of men, and women, due to this fear. This too is cowardice, and it should be overcome. If you fear a man with a gun, become familiar with firearms and how they work, get to know them, and while that fear may not go away you will gain the knowledge and tools to overcome that fear. If you fear women, as they may seem foreign or conniving to you, make the effort to get to know them.

Courage is facing your fears, and pushing forward. It doesn’t mean forging blindly ahead, or not feeling fear. It means being prepared and knowing your fears.

Be courageous for a man lives only as long as he lives, not a minute longer.