Dig Deep To Surface Your Courage

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”

 Eleanor Roosevelt

I’ve Been Thinking . . . that compared to some other people; I have the courage of the lion in the Wizard of Oz.

Courage is nothing more than simply doing what you are afraid to do.  Simple to say.  More difficult to do.  Maybe this true story of incredible courage will help.

In 1978 Roger Reynolds finished his fourth Boston Marathon in intense pain.  Running with one leg shorter than the other, Reynolds trained fifteen miles every morning.  According to a story by Bill Shaw in the Indianapolis Monthly, Roger’s real passion wasn’t even running, it was skydiving.

Before telling you the rest of Roger’s incredible story, keep in mind this comment from Brian Tracy:  “Fears diminish and lose their power over you as you confront them.  Every time you back away from a fear situation, the fear grows and becomes more powerful.”

Now back to the story.  In 1974, at age twenty-one, Roger was a Green Beret and a member of the U.S. Army parachute team, the “Golden Knights.”  He was, as they say, rough, tough, and ready.

It was April and the team had arrived in Charlottesville, Virginia, to perform at the Dogwood Festival.  Despite the overcast day, the team leader decided to go ahead with the performance.  Roger would be doing the dangerous “cut-a-way” stunt where he would intentionally collapse the first chute to thrill the crowd and then at the last minute open his second chute and land safely to the crowd’s wild applause.  This would be Roger’s 959th jump.

The plane bounced around in the cloudy turbulence as Roger jumped out of the plane at 2000 feet.  Moments later he was descending at more than a hundred miles an hour when he discovered his chute was tangled and not slowing him down.  He had committed the cardinal parachute sin that morning - he hadn’t checked his chutes.

Roger reassured himself that it was OK as he pulled the cord for the second chute to release.  However, the second chute tangled in the first, leaving him to slam into the earth below breaking every bone on his left side.

The doctors predicted he would die, and if he survived, he would certainly never walk again.

Sixteen months later Roger painfully walked out of the hospital with a cane.  Physically, he was fifty pounds lighter.  Mentally, he was determined to overcome the nightmares his hospital stay had produced.

While in the hospital Roger had studied for his pilot’s exam and shortly after his release, climbed into a plane and earned his pilot’s license.  One challenge down.

Next, he drove back to Indiana to an area where he had learned to parachute as a kid.  All those closest to him thought he was crazy.  Surely he would permanently damage his weak body or kill himself.  But Roger ignored their advice and prepared for a confrontation with fear.

The equipment was carefully checked - twice.  At three thousand feet Roger exited the plane and left behind a fear that could have crippled him for life.  The jump was successful as he carefully landed on his good leg, at the relief of his friends anxiously watching.

That’s when the physical conditioning began to rebuild his body.  Running produced unbearable pain.  Little by little he extended the distance but still felt excruciating pain.  Then in 1978, without anyone’s knowledge, he traveled to Boston to compete in his first marathon.  Although he participated as an unofficial entrant, Roger finished the race.  Another fear had been confronted and overcome.

For Roger Reynolds, pain became a way of life, but fear was overcome by facing it head on.

Many people discover when coming face to face with their fear, that their fear of fear was the only real fear.  As Logan Pearsall Smith put it, “What is more mortifying than to feel you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?”

Keep leaning against your fear.  In turn you will produce the intestinal fortitude to keep on forging ahead.  Courage will surface to assist you in acting in spite of your fear. 

Courage is the ability to acknowledge fear and work through it on the way to your dreams and goals.  Courage isn’t having the strength to go on - it’s going on in spite of the fact you don’t have the strength.  When defeat or despair knocks at your door and you answer with the courage of Roger Reynolds, you’ll find nothing there that you can’t overcome.

“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

Harper Lee
"To Kill A Mockingbird”