Read those words as they are and it conjures up images of heroic abandon – knights on horses, Roman gladiators and royal courtiers on trial. But they are words we have totally lost track of, ideas we no longer understand and values that are somewhere in the ether and no longer taught to our children anywhere. They are foreign concepts that form the core of literature but don’t feature anywhere in our natural 21st century lives. We just take them for granted and flippantly brush them away as old-fashioned romanticism. They are “higher” ideals that escape us in the midst of the daily chaos of our everyday lives, but when lived out inspire us in heart, mind and soul.

Back in those medieval days we associate them with, the average life expectancy was often less than 40 due to disease, war and basic medical knowledge, so every second mattered and your legacy was carved in the minds of people, not on a movie reel or a book in a library. What you did with your life and how you did it meant everything, and it set both your and your family’s reputation for generations. People lived their lives wedded to the ideals that all of us innately hold is such high esteem. We aspired to them, men died for them. Nations and cultures devised entire constitutions based on their integrity.

Somewhere we’ve lost that dedication and passion.

The media shares a lot of culpability for our devolution, as does postmodern consumer culture. We aren’t encouraged to live our lives and make our own history, we are seduced into living our lives vicariously through TV programs and movies. Everything we want to be and want to do is expressed on video screens and satiates the desire we all have to be loved, heroic, noble and remembered. The actors and players take all the risks for us inside stories that don’t even touch on real life and make us believe that we should have more than we do. But those desires, that burning, are there for a reason, and have always been there.

People often ask me if I get disheartened by the length of time it’s taken to bring Prophecy to fruition and whether my credibility has suffered as a result. My answer almost always surprises them, as it’s a resounding “no”. Not because I’m superhuman or in some strange denial, but simply as persistence by itself gives credibility. It means you’re serious, totally committed and will never back down when the going gets tough. It shows you won’t crumble when things look like they’re falling apart and you’re battle-hardened and focused like a laser. Consistency is a powerful indicator of your will and that credibility. Even if it all did fall apart, I’d go on with a standing ovation simply for my strength in persisting.

Let’s start with definitions to give us a strong foundation. Firstly the notion of courage, then what honour is, and finally, the revolting idea of cowardice.

cour·age /ˈkɜrɪdʒ, ˈkʌr-/ –noun
1. the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.
2. Obsolete. the heart as the source of emotion.
—Idiom
3. have the courage of one’s convictions, to act in accordance with one’s beliefs, esp. in spite of criticism.

hon·our /ˈɒnər/ –noun
1. honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions.
2. a source of credit or distinction: to be an honour to one’s family.
3. high respect, as for worth, merit, or rank: to be held in honour.
4. such respect manifested: a memorial in honour of the dead.
5. high public esteem; fame; glory.

and finally, the opposite of courage:

cow·ard-ice /ˈkaʊərd/ –noun
1. lacking courage in facing danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.; being timid or easily intimidated.
–adjective
2. lacking courage; very fearful or timid.
3. proceeding from or expressive of fear or timidity.

Strong emotive stuff. They amount to the idea of being respected, trusted and admired as a person who is brave, consistent, goes the extra mile and lives their life to the very full like it will end tomorrow. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen morons adopt maxims about living your life to the full and its about offensive as it gets simply because they wouldn’t know the essence of vitality in their lives if it smacked them round the face. These values and ideas aren’t optional. They are a duty and obligation that’s incumbent on all of us and not just a masculine macho notion. We all have a duty to inspire and motivate others, as they do us. In a community that holds the idea the inspiring each other at its centre, amazing things start to happen.

It’s all well and good recounting tales of courage or enjoying its rewards when everything is going well, but that’s not what the virtue itself is. It is something that is demanded and subsequently discovered in our darkest hour and our weakest moments, not when we’re feeling happy or invincibly strong as an ox. Courage is feeling the fear beforehand but doing it anyway. It’s going into the line of fire, taking risks, getting hurt, being humiliated and suffering pain. It means going in with passion, force and will, knowing we will be injured. It means you don’t know what’s going to happen – there’s a big black foggy void ahead in the future and it could all go terribly wrong.

But courage also has it gentle moments, where it can be the most profound. It is overruling your despair and thinking positively when all you want to do is curl up in bed and cry it away. It’s having faith when there is no reason to, and the whole world seems like its crashing in on you. It’s getting back on the horse when you’ve been violently kicked off and humiliated. It’s going against the grain, standing up on your own when everyone else thinks you’re mad or wrong, or telling someone you love them when you have no idea at all if they feel the same or whether they will reject you and knock you back. There are no guarantees with courage, but the truth expression of such a virtue is walking in with dignity and strength when you know you are almost going to die or get badly hurt.

Those risks are terrifying, which makes the courage to put yourself in harm’s way all the more dramatic and admirable. It means you go in knowing there is no back-up plan, safety net or any guarantee you will succeed or live through it. There is nothing to soften the blow if you fail or fall, but the making the leap and striking out regardless is paramount because fortune favours the brave, and you fight for your values and principles. The biggest risks carry the biggest rewards, but the hidden joy of courage is that the world always admires someone who adheres to their principles and acts bravely in the face of resistance, even if they don’t agree with them. The underdog is almost always favoured over the incumbent. Politicians and world statesmen aim to be that character than personifies the hero.

Courage is born and inbuilt as a natural virtue we all have, whereas cowards are made. We innately respond to courage emotionally and are deeply inspired, and we also automatically react with revulsion and contempt to cowardice, even if we claim to understand and have compassion for a person’s weakness. Underneath, we don’t understand and we don’t respect it. Armies shoot deserters, and in many African and Asian countries, you can be murdered by your own family for bringing shame on them with your cowardly behaviour.

One thing does need to be said however. Courage isn’t a principle indulged in exclusively by the “strong”. The greatest and most profound acts of courage are demonstrated by those who are weak or vulnerable. When they stand up and strike out, the whole world notices because it’s extraordinarily dramatic and requires more strength than whole groups can muster collectively. True bravery comes from these people and their moments of heroism, not from the typically noble Goliath renowned for his/her impenetrable armour and wilful argument. Those are the times for standing ovations.

You also can’t talk a coward round, and I learnt this lesson recently. One of Aesop’s Fables teach that no matter what you say or how you argue it, words will never inspire courage in a coward. It’s an infectious and disgusting disease, and shows itself in the modern first world as bystander apathy. It won’t happen to me, it’s not my problem, someone else will do something about it, don’t stick your neck out, don’t make a scene, lead a quiet life and be like everyone else. In short, that pathetic bystander apathy. The fear of doing anything that will draw attention to yourself or draw the spotlight onto you in more detail in case they see your shortcomings and/or humiliation. What’s missing is the will and determination to stand out.

Bullies and sadists are cowards, but we often don’t believe that because of their violence and the accompanying intimidation that comes with it. Bullies never pick on those who are bigger than them, and only stop when it’s too much hassle to carry on harassing their victim. Standing up to one once isn’t enough, because they come back to try again. Bullies don’t pick on those they know are brave or courageous as they don’t have similar qualities and fear them in others. The key is keep standing up to them and making the consequences worse each time. Acts of courage can be discerned from false bravery in that courage always requires an uphill struggle, whereas “strong” forceful behaviour found in things like bullying is always the easy option, with easy prey, and no challenge whatsoever.

Social cowardice is even more pervasive and engaged in under the guise of diplomacy, particularly by women and their natural instincts to keep the peace and maintain harmony. People-pleasing, keeping people happy, pacifying, lying, being “diplomatic” with hints and indirect speech, passive aggressive behaviour and doing anything you can to avoid an argument or conflict of any kind is naïve, foolish and ultimately cowardly. It’s a simple case of not wanting to face difficult situations and finding a way to back out. It may be awkward and uncomfortable, but conflict is a natural, inevitable and healthy fact of life that only the childish and terrified run from it like its some unnatural and threatening event.

Bills, house prices, debt, social awkwardness all keep us down and obedient. There is something deeply worrying about a culture that actively suppresses courage and encourages bystander apathy, a.k.a cowardice. It’s not in anyone’s interest for the community to be softened. War, change, evolution and social diversity are what catalyse growth and provide the adversity that reveals genius.

Our battlefields that we need heroism on aren’t fought with guns, swords or long-distance weapons. Our battlefields are the heart, the knowledge industries, cyberculture, our economical ecosystem and the desperate need to make the world a better place. What we need are heroes that inspire us in these places. Just as heroism on the blood-stained battlefield stirs the deepest of emotion, the smallest gestures in the sterile, mechanical and formulaic 9 to 5 life can change the world. As one very wise man so beautifully, if you don’t believe one on his own cannot change the world, try to go to sleep in a room with a noisy mosquito.

Being brave isn’t a luxury, its a duty for all of us and if you’re spiritually inclined, a direct command from a warrior God with his cloak soaked in blood:

“Have I not commanded you ‘Be strong and courageous’? Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9 (New International Version)

There you have it, straight from the the boss. I made the heavens and the earth. I built you for this. Don’t waste what i’ve given you by being a fucking pussy.

In case you forgot, in the words of Peter, my exec coach, when he always poses the simple question of “what does [feeling|concept|thing] look like?” this is what courage looks like. When was the last time you were that brave?

So if you’re feeling ineffective, weak, disillusioned, directionless, frustrated, confused, lost, unsure or apathetic, its because you’re not doing what you are designed for when you should be. You’re a coward. In the same way that if you’re bored, its simply a) your own fault, and b) because you’re boring. You’re too comfortable. You’re not taking enough risks. And you’re denying your nature and justifying it to yourself with silly self-deception like you want a quiet life, have bills to pay, that you couldn’t do it, would upset someone or that its not worth it. The point is you aren’t the person you think you are, sat behind your desk and limping around trying to make sure nobody finds out that you actually don’t know what you’re doing.

Your hopelessness and perpetual feeling of being lost is not only about lacking a direction or purpose, it’s about not having strong values and principles as the central foundation of who you are. If they are not imparted in you in the early days, you’re required to develop, nurture and live them yourself on your own initiative. They determine how you live and the standards you aspire to. Without a framework, you are just a sprawling mass of chaotic jelly, oozing under the nearest door instead of opening it with a strong hand and continually falling apart and complaining.

Fear is a barrier, and it is a disgusting pathetic thief. Growing your life on fear and the bitter pain of past experience only achieves one end – a wishbone where your backbone should be. The alternative madness of facing off anyone and anything is the school of hard knocks and baptises you in fire for what’s next. Your strength, integrity and fiercesome will are always remembered. Wanting to give in or give up isn’t cowardly – actually doing it is.

And at the end, it all comes down to one thing, as morbid as it sounds. You have to know that some day, you will die. And as Tyler Durden preaches, until you know that, you are completely useless. There’s nothing morbid or depressing about appreciating your existence is temporary, quite the opposite – it encourages you to live for every second, just as they did many hundreds of years ago. It’s the only thing that’s certain in your life, and everyone else’s. You’re running out of time.

Darwin’s theory of natural selection is very, very clear: only the strong survive. We all know those who are wishy-washy almost 23 hours out of the 24. The ones who never know which side of the fence they are on, even if there is fence in the first place or where that fence might be. Stragglers who become estranged from the herd and its leaders fall behind, get preyed on and trodden underfoot. They are the first to be targeted and ripped apart. Hiding in the herd doesn’t protect them, as the only way to survive is to be strong enough to be one of those cornerstones that forms part of the herd’s structure in the first place.

So if you are one of the wishy-washy, indecisive, wet blanket, soggy cabbage types who can never make their mind up or decide what they want, you’re going to die as you’re meant to. You’re going to get crushed and thrown away, and I’m glad for it. My indifference is quite obvious, and your destruction, sublimation of concession means nothing to me. You’ve earned it, and you deserve it. That might be cruel, but once you’ve got over the teenage baby ideal that everything should be nicey-nicey.,nature’s way makes sense and becomes very real. Complain as you must, but you exist inside nature and are part of it. It’s the world’s way and it’s a bit like pointing your finger and complaining as you’re attacked by a lion or facing a tidal wave.

Complaining is a favourite activity of drama queens and attention whores, who never seem to have enough or appreciate what they have. They create drama in their lives because its not there on its own, i.e. their lives are boring, meaningless and empty. If your life isn’t exciting enough on its own, you make your own drama. Those who live truly vital and exciting lives don’t need to create it and often play it down as they have enough already. Their time is spent managing the chaos and bringing it to some order, alongside finding time to rest and recuperate. The moral of the story being that you should treat anyone making a lot of noise with suspicion and contempt, not any kind of concern or reverence.

Don’t try to save these people, or even to help them to change their minds. Don’t sympathise with those who have every opportunity to better themselves, create a world that’s better than their ancestors had or just desire more in their life, and then have cowed and shunned action when the window arrived. Some just drift along, never knowing what to do, where they are going, what they want and just can’t be bothered to work it out. Not bothering to help yourself is a choice like any other, these people are not victims. They are destined to be mediocre and die unsung. Leave them to fall because you cannot assume responsibility for them, mourn their inevitable loss vicariously or force the horse to drink once you’ve led it to the water.

Life requires hard choices, and those choices just keep getting harder as the 2 sides of a story split into dozens and black and white become a million shades of grey. We must rise to those decisions, not shrink from them. And once we have made them, we must stick by them, come what may. Decisiveness, strength and pragmatic action are the only things that blast us through the glass ceilings and invisible plateaus we face every day. The oil fires from the first Iraq war were put out by controlled explosions that suffocated the oxygen from around the flames at the ends of the oil pipes themselves, and it’s a similar metaphor for moving forwards decisively. Decisiveness, authority and strength put out the fires we need to fight every day, and the expression of that is often in acts of courage. Any resulting chaos within our control is usually due to cowardice.

Fortune favours the brave and the bold, and has always done for millennia.  You can’t walk on water unless you get out of the boat, and you cannot win anything unless you take the risk of failing. But ironically, that risk of failing is what drives you on, and it propels you to action so you won’t fail. Nobody who has ever given everything they have to something has ever regretted it, and arguably even more valuable rewards and lessons come from the process itself. The prize is just icing on the proverbial cake. This is the reason for going out and doing it that is always, always overlooked.

You are responsible for your own life and if you don’t make your decisions, someone else will make them for you. The world owes you nothing, so don’t complain when it rapes and purges you like it does to everyone else – you’re nothing different to the billions of others that have come before you in the last 3000 years and the only way you stop yourself drowning is to fight back, for yourself, and for those you care about. The success of the few is arguably dependent on the relative failure of the many. If you want, and you desire, no-one is going to help you or do it for you. If you wake up in the morning having to force yourself to work, then do something about it because if all you want to do is whinge, eventually everyone will stop listening and just let you drift off.

One of the most important and profound things that anyone can ever tell you:

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Harold Whitman