OFTEN, we admire other people for their courage. Someone who put a lifetime’s savings at risk to succeed in business. Another who combated a disease. Or someone who took on forces_both legitimate and illegitimate_for public good.
And deep within us, we feel it is impossible for us to display such courage. We conclude that, given our insecurities and apprehensions, we are incapable of pulling off such valiant acts.
Be sure, if there was ever a courage quotient, all of us human beings are endowed with this quality in equal measure. But the reason why we don’t tap into this resident reservoir is that we define personal courage wrongly. It is not about bravado or a special skill set or any form of physical supremacy.
Personal courage is about, always, choosing what’s right over what’s easy. What’s easy is always seductive. It will entice you to believing that in choosing that path you will gain. Indeed, you will feel indulged in the short-term. What’s right, however, always appears difficult and uninviting. But in the longer term, it’s doing what’s right that gives you everlasting joy, success and peace. Personal courage is about allowing the real you to take wing and do what you really want to do with your life.
Consider the story of Irom Chanu Sharmila.
Sharmila, 39, hails from Manipur. And for the last nine years she has been on an indefinite hunger strike, fighting for the repealing of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, a.k.a AFSPA.
The AFSPA, promulgated to deal with insurgencies in any “disturbed” region of India, gives the Army sweeping powers to shoot and kill on suspicion or arrest anyone without trial indefinitely. In the last several years, some officers in the Indian Army, from time to time, have been abusing the powers vested in them through the AFSPA. Horror stories of rape, killings and illegal detention under the AFSPA abound in the North-East.
In November 2000, Sharmila was detained by the Army for holding a hunger strike protesting against the AFSPA. This only strengthened Sharmila’s resolve. She has not given up her hunger strike since. It has been nine long years, but she ploughs on. Alone. Not allowing even a drop of water to enter her mouth__using dry cotton wool to clean her teeth daily. She has been forcibly kept alive on intravenous feeds__mandated by law. Every time courts intervene and release her, she is promptly re-arrested as she refuses to give up her fast. She continues to be in hospital custody because, an indefinite hunger strike is classified as an attempt to suicide under Indian Law mandating detention and forcible intravenous feeding.
Sharmila does not run a political outfit. She refuses to align with or endorse any political party. She has overcome intimidation by both government and defence establishments. She has even been requested by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to give up her demand in consideration for a ‘dilution’ in the AFSPA. But Sharmila has not relented. Her focus is on exposing the lacunae in the AFSPA and the vulgarity of its abuse__and demands its total repeal. She continues with her mission without fear or favour. She is just an ordinary citizen, like you and me, with no axe to grind, no stakes to gain; just the desire to do what’s right to make her world__and ours__a better place.
This is personal courage.
It is likely that you are hearing of Sharmila for the first time. It is also likely that you find her story hard to believe.
You don’t have to necessarily find the next cause and launch a crusade. That’s a matter of personal choice. If you just looked at your life, took charge and did what’s right for you, rather than what’s easy, that would be an act of personal courage by itself. Inside you is trapped a genie that is struggling to break free. And instead of wallowing in mediocrity and self-pity, demonstrate personal courage and let that genie take wing.