Today we will continue our journey through understanding the most crucial virtues or ethical values that economists and the business world have forgotten when it comes to creating healthy and integral prosperity. Aujourd´hui is the turn of “Courage under suffering”. Before learning about this beatitude, we shall comprehend the meaning of its opposite: “Cowardice of spirit in the face of troubles“.

“One of the most colorful beaks”. An aquarelle exercise by Eleonora Escalante. Handmade with love on Fabriano 5 paper. Size: 7 inches x 5 inches.

Let´s begin by stimulating a deliberation of what is “cowardice of spirit in times of difficulties”.

The context of life.  Life is not steady. It has ups and downs. During all our lives, we will face positive and negative experiences. The ability to accept that ethical virtues matter in everything we do is developed over time when we live those positive and negative adventures. In childhood, kids learn to acquire and believe in ethical virtues through their parents. Loving and caring parents help a lot to compose love and caring children.  Those ethical virtues learned since infancy are the shield that will protect our hearts through all our being. Jesus-Christ was charged with ethical virtues, that his parents (Joseph, Mary, and Holy God) procured into him.  Suffering happens in the middle of difficulties,  big pains, losses, treachery, deception or deceit, economic strain,  living in poverty, etc. Jesus also experienced suffering, to the utmost in his journey to the cross.

In the context of the difficulties that will cause us suffering in our life, we will be set up to fail. Inescapably. Many times because of envy that comes from others. Many times because we don´t think properly and we self-sabotage us. And in terms of businesses, we inevitably will experience many situations with people’s lack of ethical virtues, who will hurt us. This is a fact of existence. Betrayal, gossip, misunderstandings, dis-loyalties, abandonment, etc. Even the most righteous one will hurt without knowing. The waters of living are not a faultless dynamo where we sail in perfect clean conditions, but we will sail waves of difficulties intertwined with waves and currents of blessings.

The cowardice of spirit as the opposite of courage under suffering. Cowardice happens when we exhibit an ignoble lack of care or concern to stand up for what is true and proper in the face of danger or pain. Cowardice starts with a sentiment of anxiety or fear, which ignites us to act with self-indulgence. It is expressed in permissiveness or tolerance to don´t act for what is correct when confronting situations of crisis or chaos. Cowardice can be seen in an ample range of situations, let´s see some of the most common examples in every culture on earth:

• Obesity is the result of cowardice. Each of us understands that eating food has the purpose of replenishing our biological system with nutrients that are required for our well-functioning. In addition, we have to exercise at least 30 minutes per day if we want to be healthy. When we are obese, our body shows the consequence of insatiability which is a consequence of cowardice. Regardless if we live with scarcity or abundance of food, if we are obese, that means that we are cowards to take care of ourselves. When we don´t procure a healthy diet and we eat fried food, a bag of chips, sodas, tons of caffeine, fast-food, “pupusas”, and excessive amounts of food; we are cowards to ourselves: we are not just gaining weight, but increasing our risk of diabetes, heart attacks, and promoting a weakened metabolism. It is cowardice to be unable to say no to “bad food”, or to avoid exercising.

• Insensibility is the result of cowardice. Many of us are insensible as a result of conventional real violence or media violence. So many of us are accustomed to living in the middle of so much despair, particularly those who have lived civil conflicts, wars, street crimes by gangs, institutional corruption in the government, etc. Let me say that living in conflict discomfort is not normal. Living a Coronavirus Crisis is not normal, so it is not normal to see people, and we still are insensible of the pandemic. We are insensible today if we don´t use masks, or do not keep social distancing, or we continue partying as if nothing is happening.  Anyone who lacks sensibility towards the misery of someone else is a coward. At the beginning of the COVID19, I read about some leaders in Europe stating that the best thing to do was to let the virus do their work and if the elders’ population was going to be sacrificed, that was merely and perfectly OK, because the youngest was going to survive, be alive and moving on. I wonder what type of coward person can even think that? How could it be that we have leaders who think this way?

• Mediocrity is the result of cowardice. Our “buy cheap things-throw away” culture ignites the undesire to do the things correctly and care for them.  We dismiss the good quality and substitute it with the mediocrity of our possessions.  By pursuing and buying low-cost strategies products for the sake of making money, we have forgotten the beauty of the difficulty to make things with “high class and character”. We have forgotten the “hand-made” artisan creations, we have killed the process of doing things with “quality” and instead, we have cherished the “cheapskate” in all our industries.  Politicians, obsessed by trying to make a “bon social media image” with the determination of winning the next elections, sail their electoral promises with mediocre plans, ignoring the real priorities of their societies. In the middle of the COVID19 crisis, we perceive the mediocrity in economic recovery plans that do not protect their populations. If people don´t receive an emergency survival relief aid, they will go out to work, and they will get sick if not complying with the bio-security measures. International cooperation agencies are sending polls through Twitter, with the purpose to get their overview of the most outstanding issues on the planet, and these agencies use those polls for decision making (when we know that social media is replenished with millions of fake accounts which can tergiversate the results). Technological leaders promoting digital mediocre education business models, which do not offer the integral education required for our children and teenagers. Financial advisors offering debt to entrepreneurs in the seed initial phase, when loans are only applicable to companies that are already producing free-cashflows… And so on… The list of mediocrity actions that we perceive as “normal” is endless, and all this evidence is not only pampered and lifted; but those who have the guts to say something against mediocrity, are being persecuted or accused unfairly.

• Indifference is the result of cowardice. Indifference is characterized by a lack of mattering for something. An apathetic that is not active or not involved to stand up for what is correct is indifferent. Have you met someone that has no particular interest or concern to change things that are terribly wrong designed? As a corporate strategist, I can´t be indifferent to the pains that my industry has caused in business during the last century. Even the most recognized consulting houses in the world know that many of their consulting frameworks need serious adjustments, because of the lack of ethics at the “core”.  Nevertheless, no one says anything. No one has had the courage to shake the dust and begin at least a little change at a time. The international trade crisis that we are currently living is worst than the COVID19 pandemic because it is the consequence of the excessive implementation of strategic imbalanced frameworks.   The supply global value chains are beautiful on paper, but they have erased the possibilities of the artisan and domestic industries. Moreover, I have nothing against the exploration curiosity to discover other planets and galaxies, but we have millions of people who live with less than US $1.90/day, and our planet is agonizing because of lack of opportunities for them plus the effects of climate change; meanwhile, the space industry is spending billions of dollars to find life in Mars; that is so far away from what we already have left unprotected on the planet earth.  I wonder when will we stop our indifference?

• Gluttony for technology consumption is the result of cowardice. The boredom of societies is expressed in the way that youngsters try to fill the emptiness of their endeavors. The excessive and infinite offers of unregulated technology create thousands of possibilities for consumption. “The more the merrier”, but this endless technological offer induces the young to find contentment in the gratifying of their quest for answers in the current digital NAIQIs devices appearances ((Remember NAIQI means the combo of technologies: Nanotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Supremacy, and the Internet). Many technologies available for free through social media platforms, that obstreperous all together are worst than the drugs for our brains. Digital technologies based on NAIQIs, have become the only source of strenuousness activity to which youngsters are excited.  The gluttony to expose private lives on a device is only telling us how the young sufferers are: they expose who they are as compensation for their emotional lack or suffering. It is like trying to fill that emptiness of answers, with a new toy that is called Smartphone, that acts as a calm mechanism for that inner gluttony of consuming tech that doesn´t seem to have an end. Gluttony of consumption (in this case the product is the disruptive digital technologies) is a form of anxious seeking that consumes one-self in order to find, yet ends in losing.

Being courageous doesn´t mean being stupid. Before proceeding further, I also wish to state that being courageous or brave doesn´t mean to be shallowly stupid. In order to evolve from showing cowardice to manifesting courage, we also need time to develop our wisdom, that is why many years integral traditional education in classrooms at school and within families is so important. By learning from practice we also learn to be clever enough on how to be valiant or brave, without hurting ourselves in the intent.  Always remember that any ethical virtue takes years to be embedded in our brains and actions. But it is worthy to pursue their schooling, not just for ourselves, but for role-modeling our children and the next generations.

Cowardice in times of difficulties has been perpetuated over the years. Everything we see now that is related to the cowardice of spirit started centuries ago. It is not the fault of my generation. Generation X has only shown publicly what we grew up through the medium of mobile technologies. The cowardice disease has been transmitted on and on from past generation to ours,  to Millennials, to Generation Z and below. And the result of “Cowardice of spirit” in the face of troubles is expressed in complacency, obesity, insensibility, mediocrity, indifference, gluttony for technological consumption, and many other anti-values that we observe in the mirrors of our social networks as Tik-Tok, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. What is posted on the Internet ONLY shows the coward attitude trend that has to change (little by little) and be transformed.

Finally, as a counterpoint to “the cowardice of spirit”, the virtue of “courage under suffering”, is the only ethical declaration that can help us. Whereas cowardice is a form of indiscipline and self-pampering, “courage under hardship is self-discipline and contentment raised to the level of enduring tied with patience”. Courage under affliction is a form of being consumed that seems to lose, yet ends in finding. Courage under enduring times develops other virtues such as hope, faith, and miraculously also perseverance.   And this concept will be explained fully in our next publication. Wait and see. Until Friday. Thank you.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness´sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven”.

Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY.  Nevertheless, the majority of the pictures, images, or videos shown on this blog are not mine.  I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy