It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, "Always do what you are afraid to do." Ralph Waldo Emerson
It was 4:00 AM. I walked through the dark, cold, and lonely maze of more than 100 apartment buildings. I would go in the front door, throw a couple of newspapers in front of apartment doors, and go out the back door. It was 1974, and I delivered newspapers seven mornings a week. I was a year out of treatment for alcoholism, and life was difficult as I sought to compose a new life.
As I worked hard in my sobriety, the rest of my life fell apart. My marriage was strained, jobs were scarce, bills were stacking up, and this honorable work was difficult and paid little. I was discouraged and scared about where my life was going. Sobriety was not what I expected it to be.
I attended AA meetings and a weekly growth group at St. Mary's hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Many people shared their well-intended advice with me. I was confused and befuddled as I tried to sort out the conflicting voices. The more I listened to others, the worse things became.
I did not trust my own perceptions of life after experiencing the denial and projection of alcoholism. My confidence in myself was shaken. I felt reluctant to break away from the advice of those sober longer than I. But I had to do something. I decided on that dreary winter morning that I would make my own choices in life from that moment forward. I had little to lose.
I focused, went through my fear, and from that day forward cut my own path in life instead of doing what others or society expected of me. I quit the growth group and switched to a different — non AA — 12-Step group. Those I left predicted my return to alcohol in short order. I am now sober for 27-1/2 years (knock on wood).
Twenty years after that morning, near the top of the company I delivered newspapers for and more successful than the organization could handle, I walked away from the corporate world rather than conform to pressures to be less than my best. Eight years after that I continue to make choices that go against expectations. Fear remains a frequent companion, along with my resolve and passion to live an authentic life.
Aristotle believed that courage is the first of the human virtues, because courage makes the other virtues possible. Philosopher and author Peter Koestenbaum said courage begins with the decision to face the ultimate truth about existence: we live free to define ourselves at every moment. We become what we choose to be from the depth of our souls.
Rollo May differed from Aristotle and wrote that freedom, not courage, gives birth to all values. Freedom equals possibility. Freedom engages our destiny in our day to day choices. Freedom, essential to human dignity, ignites our authenticity.
This inner personal freedom underlies our political freedom. When we give up our inner freedom, we lose our autonomy and self-direction — the qualities that distinguish us from robots and computers. If we give up our inner freedom, we ultimately give up our political freedom.
To be courageous and to exercise our freedom fully is difficult. None of us can be authentic completely, as our imperfections and pressures to conform confront us daily. Also, our defenses protect us from the anxiety that comes with freedom and authenticity. We often limit ourselves to control the anxiety we feel and, in the process, lower our visions and shut down our creativity. Many live marginally like the robots and walking dead in organizations. Many choose mediocrity in exchange for the illusion of security.
Freedom and courage became important topics of conversation after the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. We see our freedoms threatened by terrorist attacks, intrusive security measures, and new laws to help law enforcement combat the terrorists (beware of those who would protect your freedom).
The anxiety provokers — media, politicians, and armchair generals — increase our level of fear, often for self-serving reasons. Fear corrodes our freedom to be. Fear confuses our thoughts, clouds our decisions, and impedes normal life. Fear blocks hope. With all the outside threats, we — you and I — remain, as always, the greatest threat to our own freedom.
Parker Palmer wrote that people who find the courage to stop living divided lives do so when they come to understand that no terror or punishment anyone might inflict on them could possibly be worse than the punishment they inflict on themselves as they conspire in their own diminishment. Anxiety and freedom go together. Anxiety accompanies the move into possibility. We accept fear and go through it if we want to be free.
Our organizations and institutions do not exist as bastions of freedom. We lived in a fear-based society long before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. With so much fear in our society and in our organizations, many do not live free or authentic lives.
What lies beneath our conformity in organizations, our compliance with injustice, and our failure to bear witness for others in our organizations, if not fear? What determines our choices to stay in bad relationships, to pursue material things mindlessly, and to be unable to make important decisions, if not fear? Why do we settle for mediocrity, if not for fear? Why do we not hold people accountable, if not for fear? We are inauthentic and only a fraction of what we might be. Why, if not for fear?
The terrorist attacks simply gave us another opportunity to be victims, another chance to claim powerlessness, and another excuse to participate in our own diminishment. They also gave us the opportunity to say "NO MORE."
We live free when we make our own authentic choices (including our mistakes) in life and move toward our inherent potential. We can, if we want to, choose to live courage-based lives in all we do just as we can choose to be victims, helpless, and powerless. We can choose to be alive, and we can choose to be soul dead. Each of us bears the responsibility to choose for ourselves. Our organizations and our institutions have the same responsibility.
Leaders can use the powerful blow of terrorism to jolt people from the mediocrity so common in many organizations and institutions. Leaders can turn the misfortune of tragedy and economic decline into new resolve and new learning and development for employees. Leaders can look this tragedy in the eye and use loss to move us to our proudest efforts, our most profound sensitivity, and our brightest creative vision.
Leaders can choose to respond to recession and create courage-based organizations that embrace change, honor diversity, and value responsibility and accountability in pursuit of a sustainable future. Leaders can also choose to live in fear, remain mediocre, withdraw defensively, demand conformity, and reward irresponsibility as they accept the inevitable demise of the enterprise.
When we claim our freedom, we commit to live our purpose in life (why we exist). We can think of 911 as a call for self-examination and movement to a higher state of consciousness. We can purge from our souls the potential for similar evil in our lives and see anxiety-creating situations as opportunities to develop our souls, spirits, and selves. We can engage, confront, cooperate with, and challenge our highest potential. We can become Abraham Maslow's good person: aware, responsible, and self-evolving.
The world lives in the midst of a massive transformation. The outcome remains unknown and will be decided by the moment to moment decisions of all. The choice of courage and freedom externalizes a great virtue. Through our struggle, the tired, lonely, and discouraged can reach through the darkness and change the world with faith that every life lived authentically contributes to the health of the whole.
Nothing guarantees the outcome when we choose freedom and authenticity in our lives. We often make our choices for courage and authenticity from the dark, cold, and lonely places of our souls from where our greatest creativity always emerges. Frequently we pay a price and have obstacles to overcome in exchange for being alive.
Mike O'Donnell of Ouray, Colorado, guided blind Eric Weihenmayer to the top of Mount Everest last spring. At 27,000 feet Michael had to make a tough decision: should he stay behind to help the team's photographer repair broken equipment and perhaps lose his chance to reach the summit or continue on with Weihenmayer, with whom Michael had been training for a year? He chose to help his teammate.
They fixed the equipment and continued on toward the summit. At 28,000 feet, Michael ran out of oxygen. He had to choose between going down the mountain or continuing to the 29,000-foot summit, knowing that few who ran out of oxygen above 25,000 feet survived "the death zone."
Michael, drawing on his knowledge of himself and a lifetime's experience as a climber, decided to continue to the summit. Each laborious step, without oxygen, was a journey in itself. Michael O'Donnell went through the wall and made it to the summit of Mount Everest on May 25, 2001.
In Latin, the word mediocre means "halfway up the mountain." Many of us and many organizations have settled for the illusion of safety and security halfway up our personal and organizational mountains. Often, the last steps to the top of the mountains present the most challenges. When taken with courage and commitment they often lead to the greatest realization of our potential. Michael O'Donnell would tell you and me that if he can climb his mountain, you and I can climb ours.
Our hearts beat free. I hope each of us has the courage to go where our heart will take us.