It takes courage, of course, to step out of the fray, as it takes courage to do anything that's necessary, whether tending to a loved one on her deathbed or turning away from that sugarcoated doughnut.
Interpretation
Courage is essential in both significant choices and everyday decisions, whether caring for others or resisting temptations.
This quote by Pico Iyer highlights the importance of courage in various aspects of life. He suggests that true bravery isn't just found in grand gestures but is also required in everyday situations, such as caring for someone in their final moments or resisting immediate gratification. It emphasizes that courage manifests in both profound and mundane decisions, and that stepping away from the chaos of life often requires a strong heart.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming personal challenges.
Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.
I think one reason, obviously, that I spend so much time in one place is that I've been lucky enough to travel a lot, and now there are other different, invisible trains that are more interesting to me.
I've never meditated in my life. I don't practice yoga nor any religion. I'm a tourist on the realm of stillness.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate.
I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did.
The one thing perhaps that technology hasn't always given us is a sense of how to make the wisest use of technology.
People have got to get together and work together. I'm tired of the kind of oppression that white people have inflicted on us and are still trying to inflict.
Courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible.
Human beings are made up of flesh and blood, and a miracle fiber called courage.
As a kid growing up, I didn't want to tell any of my classmates I did figure-skating because I knew they'd be like, 'Oh, you're a skater, you're gay, blah blah blah.' So I kept it to myself. Once I started getting to more of an elite level, I didn't really care what people thought, though.
Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.
He knew that his wings could ignite at any moment, but the closer he came to touching the fire, the more he sensed that he was fulfilling his destiny. As he put it in his journal that night: If I mean to save my life, then I have to come within an inch of destroying it.
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