Courage and Bravery

Courage and bravery can mean different things to different people, people who sky dive, rock climb, deep sea diving could be seen as brave, going to war, fighting someone who threatens you or stopping someone with a gun are seen as brave.

But what about every day things? To go into a job where you cannot stand the people you work with? To face your partner even though you know things are going badly? To be able to simply get out of bed in the morning when you are in a deep stage of depression? Would you consider this to be courage or bravery?

What in your mind is courage and bravery? How do you measure it and where is the limit? Do you think that it can be measured?

I always think of bravery as being more about the bigger things such as people with jobs in law enforcement, military and other more dangerous, selfless occupations.

I think courage has so many levels. I think the term encompasses everything from hobbies such as sky diving to wearing a new dress in a style one isn't used to or completely comfortable in.

Very well put Red.

Courage and bravery are a hard thing to measure, that's for sure. I think it depends on the individual - what's easy for one person may not be for another. I consider courage and bravery to be anything that an individual faces that requires inner strength, that provokes fear but they do it anyway, that may also attract ridicule and unpopularity, but again, they do it anyway. It could be anything from a shy person starting his/her first day at a new job to being in a war.

Tony Marino wrote:Courage and bravery can mean different things to different people, people who sky dive, rock climb, deep sea diving could be seen as brave, going to war, fighting someone who threatens you or stopping someone with a gun are seen as brave.

But what about every day things? To go into a job where you cannot stand the people you work with? To face your partner even though you know things are going badly? (Being brave) To be able to simply get out of bed in the morning when you are in a deep stage of depression? (Being brave) Would you consider this to be courage or bravery?

What in your mind is courage and bravery? How do you measure it and where is the limit? Do you think that it can be measured? (I think the human spirit is boundless and can't be measured.)

They're both so close in meaning that they're used to define one another but if I had to put a fine point on it I think that someone can be brave without being afraid but that courage is overcoming fear.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. ~Ambrose Redmoon

A politician who makes an unpopular decision because it's the right thing to do even if it will cost him an election is being brave. Nelson Mandela had courage. If you want to say he was also brave, so be it but that's the difference to me.

Courage is getting up the nerve to do something you are scared out of your wits to do and bravery is doing it.

My mother once jumped into a burning building to save some kids that started the fire by playing with matches. My bro and friend jumped on a roof with a garden hose to put out a fire while I kicked in the guy's door to get him out.

Was that brave or courageous? IDK... I thought of it as being human and having compassion.

Sometimes I think that when u do it for someone or something else, it is more brave or courageous than for self preservation. I HAVE to go to my job if I want the things in life that I want/need (home, food, etc). I would HAVE to take care of any kids I had cause that is my responsibility that I chose to take on when I had them.

Chris has a symbolic tattoo on his arm, and when i asked him what it means he said, "It's a buddhist prayer to help keep me alive". I was like DAMN! When I think about these guys who get on planes knowing that they might not come back, knowing they are going to be in fire fights.. it baffles me. But they believe in what they are doing--because they believe in America and the freedoms we stand for.

Firefighters run INTO a fire at risk of their own lives to save others... cops the same.

Saving others seems sooo much more brave and courageous than doing selfish things for myself.

They can go hand in hand. Like I think firefighters are THE bravest people in the world. They go IN to burning buildings, with no problem. I ain't that brave. Courage is something that you can build up. Bravery is something that you just have I guess.