Hollywood Connect: Courage

I’m always glad to hear from those of you who are taking up the challenge of exploring your own unique, God-given creativity. As I recently mentioned in this space, therein lies your very own Calling. Along with it, as with every creative calling, will come great Risk and Adventure, and when pursued whole-heartedly, it will ultimately require a great deal of Courage on your part, regardless of how confident you feel about the matter.

Of course, anything that requires real Courage, by definition, also will run the risk of hitting those occasional pockets where Courage is stolen away, where it is in rare supply, where you find yourself gasping for it like oxygen at high altitudes. Where you are dis-Couraged.

I’ll admit that I pushed through one of those breathless moments of discouragement myself just the other day, and in a strange sort of way, I’m fairly happy to be able to say that. It’s not that I enjoy the feeling of discouragement, and to be quite honest, it isn’t something in which I recommend spending a whole lot of time. It’s just that the folks that I know who never experience discouragement are usually, though not always, the ones who avoid any situation that would require Courage at all. Because you can’t be truly dis-Couraged until you’ve had the occasion to have Courage in the first place. The fact that I was gasping for oxygen must mean that I was still climbing the mountain.

And I know you, my dear Crazy Friend, and you are not one of those people who are content to live in what Theodore Roosevelt called that “gray twilight” where no risk is required.

Onward and upward…

All my best,

Shun Lee
Actor & Writer

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THIS WEEK'S QUOTES:Courage

The brave man is not he who feels no fear,
For that were stupid and irrational;
But he, whose noble soul its fears subdues,
And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.
– Joanna Baillie, poet & dramatist

Courage is like a muscle; it is strengthened by use.
– Ruth Gordon, actress & screenwriter

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face… You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
– Eleanor Roosevelt, author, speaker & political activist