A man does what he must in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures- and that is the basis of all human morality.
A man does what he must in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures- and that is the basis of all human morality.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Doing the right thing does not always pave the easiest path in life upon which to travel.
In fact, in many cases, it provides the complete opposite. It can provide obstacles of significant consequences, which are ominous enough at times to dwarf our own perception of reality, such that we may opt to fold our proverbial cards and cave to the pressures surrounding us.
When something stimulates us on a magnitude of this scale, we lose sight of the size of engagement that we are facing, and our entire being rises to take on the situation at hand. The greatest epic stories and films are all entirely based upon such a supposition.
The protagonist finds themselves confronting a battle of significant proportion, which calls upon them to dig deep within and summon all of the courage, determination and fortitude required to prevail…. At all costs.
Why would a person risk everything in order to achieve something, when there are potentially alternate options that would not put them in such a dangerous predicament? JFK labels it as the basis of all human morality. I would interpret that as meaning that when the stakes are so high, and the possible negative outcome so potentially devastating, that the only option that a person of conviction can choose is the path of direct engagement.
These are truly the moments in which we are taught of that of which we are made. We discover whether or not we have the proverbial “right stuff” to take on such a battle and emerge victorious. On October 16, 1962, John F. Kennedy found himself in one of the most intense crucibles of all history when the Cuban Missile Crisis emerged.
In such a course of action, we are in the duality of using all that we have learned thus far, while simultaneously learning of everything that we must, during the heat of the moment. We refer to these experiences as being “baptized by fire,” for while they are transpiring, we are on full internal alert for all that can go wrong, and continuously seeking solutions to prevent those negative outcomes from ever transpiring.
Discarding the epic nomenclature for a moment, these battles can be tiny and very personal, just as much as they can be significant and global in their scope. The scale of the battle and resulting outcome is far less important than what has been experienced by the individual and what they were capable of learning in going through the process.
Almost everyone finds themselves in such a battle at one point or another. How we choose to evaluate those potential moments, and how we opt to react to them, will define who we are for the next chapters ahead. When it is your turn to discover that you are in such a moment, find your internal peace of mind, sort through your options, and then take the best course of action with all of the conviction that you can muster.
Happy Thursday!
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