Wishing you a beautiful weekend. The month of July 2020 is a few hours to be over. Let´s begin today with the last paragraph of our last publication.

“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.

As a counterpoint to the cowardice of spirit, the virtue of “courage under suffering”, is the only assurance that can help us. Whereas cowardice is a form of indiscipline and self-pampering, “courage under suffering is self-discipline and contentment raised to the level of suffering with patience. Courage under suffering and persecution is a form of being consumed that seems to lose, yet ends in finding. Courage under suffering develops other virtues such as hope, faith, and miraculously also perseverance.

Since the virtues of hope and faith are included in our ethical virtues journey, we will have to wait for a few posts to study them. The virtues in blue have been already covered, and today we will finish with the 6th virtue: courage under suffering.

1. 1. Humbleness ↑ Ok.
   2. Meekness and Peacemaking (kindness) ↑ Ok.
   3. Mourning ↑ Ok.
   4. Hunger for Righteousness (justice) ↑Ok.
   5. Mercy ↑Ok.
   6. Courage under Suffering ↑Ok.
   7. Purity of Heart
   8. Love
   9. Faith
   10. Personal and genuine concern for others
   11. Hope
   12. Integrity (honesty, sincerity)

Let´s begin.

Courage has a significant tri-meaning. From a secular perspective, courage is the ability to be brave when we are living in a difficult situation or even a dangerous one. Usually, this virtue is confused with “being unafraid”, which is not correct. You can be courageous and still be dismayed, or alarmed or experience fear. So, the virtue of courage springs up only when we are able to face our fears in the middle of vicissitudes, with self-control and valiantly we act upon to resolve those difficult situations. Genuine courage in times of difficulties is tied to three other virtues: wisdom, patience, and perseverance.

Let´s explain the purity of this definition. It is keen to understand that to be courageous or brave or valorous or valiant, or even heroic is not born out of desperation to “gain the approval from others” or to win the “status of a hero” in front of the multitudes. To be “ethically courageous” has nothing to do with the wish to be famous or the desire for recognition. Why? Because at the instant that we act upon to win recognition for our heroic acts, we definitely are not being courageous but wolverines or gluttons of our selfish “self-interest”. Which land us again in a state of cowardice.

On the other side, to be courageous or brave or valiant is not hatched out of stupidity or lack of common sense either. For example, we have observed many people who decide to take the risk of climbing to higher buildings or bridges, just to take themselves a selfie with the smartphone. That is not courage but deflected foolishness. To search for risky places to picture yourself with your mobile has nothing to do with courage either. Moreover, in terms of professional or work attitudes, to be courageous doesn´t mean to disrespect your boss in front of your colleagues, just to be considered as the brave of the group.

Undeniable courage in times of difficulties is tied to wisdom, patience, and perseverance. To become courageous is not easy. Sometimes it takes years but years of patient waiting, just to find the right second of time for acting upon what is right. During those years of waiting under suffering, we learn to be wise, to understand and bear the situation (and also we are posed to learn patiently even without complaining). And we also learn to persist.

Wisdom. The only way to be a courageous person is by being open to learning, and wisdom only comes by learning, by personal development. It takes years and years to be wise. During the time we endure our character, we learn to contemplate, to identify what is really happening. We learn to identify who is who and what are the economic, political including personal interests behind each person who is involved in a difficult situation. “Wisdom is an advanced state of personal development that relies on extraordinary knowledge. Wisdom is rooted in perspectives, interpretations, values, and courageous actions”.  To be “vraiment” courageous goes hand by the hand of gaining wisdom because by devoting our brains to learn, we open our minds to think properly, we also learn to have good judgment. Wisdom, the reason why we go to school is not just to gain knowledge and good grades, but to acquire wise teachings of the ancient sages that are classified in subjects. Our brains also acquire wisdom from experience. By each mistake, we learn to become wiser. And this process to become wiser doesn´t end until the day of our departure to heaven.

Patience. Real courage is also united to the virtue of patience. Patience emphasizes calmness, self-control, and the willingness or ability to tolerate delay. It is impossible to be a genuine courageous person of impact to change the injustices or the faults of societies if we do not learn to be patient.  It requires years of learning when we should stay quiet and shut up, and when is the correct timing to act, so we can make a change of meaning to the difficulty, including we can get out of the despair alive. Otherwise, if you act before the time is right, it is impossible to be courageous with a purpose to change. As Edmund Burke wrote: “Our patience will achieve more than our force”. Nowadays, with social media,  it is extremely difficult to be patient because all our constant and current daily stimulation is linked to the gratification of immediate results.  No one wants to wait because many believe that by waiting we are simply falling into resignation.  Which is not true. To wait and be patient doesn´t mean “acceptance of” or submission to something which is immorally wrong. For instance, many of my former business ethics students (I taught them this course during the years 2003 and 2004), probably have been suffering for trying to be courageous, meanwhile, others are suffering for waiting for more than 17 years for their own timing to act upon with courage. I am sure they have been able to see many crooked and wicked situations, in which ethics has been dismissed. I am also convinced they have been enduring their character through hardship, struggles, and even forbearance or oppression. But I truly hope, they have never forgotten my teachings. Sooner or later, in a couple of decades, our Generation X will extend the baton to them, and I pray with all my soul, they can continue to express the courage for ethical virtues in their actions, by changing all the things that our generation probably won´t be able to do. Of course, as an absolute representative of Generation X, I know for sure that many of us are aware and are beginning to change the non-ethical frameworks of thinking in all that we can. I hope you can believe in us, we, Generation X is just starting and we still have another 20 years for it.  Please youngsters, don´t dismay, we have waited to build our character, in the middle of despair for quite a while too.

Perseverance. Finally, authentic courage is linked to the virtue of perseverance. Persevere is not absurd stubbornness. It means to persist in a purpose, an idea, or a task in the face of obstacles or discouragement. Let´s dig deeper into this virtue,  please because perseverance is tied to many misunderstandings that need to be disclosed. Perseverance has nothing to do with being mindless or injudicious or thoughtless. That is why in order to persevere to act upon genuine courage, the reasons why you persevere must be integrally established. Otherwise, you risk carrying on for unreasonable or foolish reasons. Let´s see four examples: The first one:  In our personal lives, for a woman, how beauteous is to be attracted to someone. It is much beautiful to persevere for the purpose of winning the heart of our beloved one. That is fine, only reasonable if the man of your illusions also likes you and sees you as a potential partner. Otherwise, it is idiotic to be dreaming about someone who doesn’t even like you in the first place. Love can´t be forced, it is a matter of two. Coming to my own terms, I do not like men who speak with vulgar vocabulary, or who are always whistling or spitting phlegm or who are dirty or who don´t want me to have babies; regardless of their good looking appearance or social position,  I decide to don´t match with a man as such, for instance. As you know I am in love with a Spanish man of my age, Alex Guillermo Lozano Artolachipi, who was my former boss when I was working as a consultant at Mesoamerica Investments in Costa Rica. I have chosen him above many others, and I have persevered, praying every day that God can join us in holy matrimony after this Pandemic. The second example is related to cryptocurrencies as Bitcoin and similar digital money. Why would we invest time into such a business model, if crypto-currencies can be utilized by narco-trafficators for money laundering? Indeed, the current financial system has been mobbed by organized crime.  The third example is associated with the exploration of other galaxies. Since the times of Jesus,  erudition has treasured the observation of the planets and stars. It is a demanding race for those who are leading the missions to Mars and have invested trillions of dollars in the space. But please, our planet is sick. It needs to be healed at an integral level, starting with our thinking frameworks and ethical concepts, then politically, socially, economically, environmentally, etc. and it is completely mindless to persevere investing so much money in the space discoveries (at this specific point in time) as if that is the priority in human endeavors. If people in Africa, or India, or Latin America are living with less than US$1.90 dollars per day, what unmerciful stuff are we doing?. Space research and discoveries could be an option for those who are pursuing that domain and some extremist galactic investors can´t be forced to drop their plans either, but that line of action is not the main priority for planet earth at the moment. And we hope those investors with integral and common sense mindsets, can prioritize accordingly to heal all our Terra structural system defects before proceeding further. Lastly, the fourth example is related to perseverance with pushing boundaries to the wisest than me, to create a new theory about how and when to use debt in entrepreneurship. I have understood after many years of strategic analysis, that debt is not good when you are starting your companies. The business system of igniting new businesses can´t inflame the usage of debt in entrepreneurs’ hopes during their seed-preseed phases. Loans are only good for growth and expansion when you have a company that is already profitable and it has provided several years of free-cashflows. I will persevere preaching about this until business and economic schools begin to instruct about the proper and correct utilization of debt-loans.

We will stop here.  Until next week, thank you for reading to me.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness´sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven”. Matthew 5, 10.

Sources of reference studied to write this article:

“Steering through Chaos- Vice, and Virtue in an age of moral confusion”. The Trinity Forum, 1999. 

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