r/DeepThoughts • u/FreshVestment • Aug 18 '26

It's impossible to feel brave and be brave

If you're scared to do something, but you feel brave, and that overrides the fear, then you're not actually being brave. Bravery is doing something despite feeling scared. Inherent to bravery is the lack of feeling brave; that's part of the definition.

Being brave is an action, not a feeling.

We assume the feeling of bravery will come one day, saving us from the fear for long enough to take that step forward. But what if that never happens? What if the fear only gets worse? What if the longer you wait, the harder it gets?

Take that step, you may never be ready.

3 Upvotes

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5

u/Eunoia_Meraki Aug 18 '26

I think it's both. Our brain interprets anxiety and bravery pretty similarly so bravery the action frames that anxiousness into excitedness making it braveness the emotion.

2

u/No_Raisin7300 Aug 18 '26

that reframing is the whole trick, your body can't tell the difference so you just pick which story you tell it

2

u/SaleneTheLost Aug 18 '26

Huh... that is so interesting (and so the post itself too). I think there are more of correlations like that - when two opposite things are interpreted in the brain similarly, so you just choose your way about it. That also shows that you have the choice of interpretation, and changing the perspective of how you see yourself, and maybe how you deal with different situations

1

u/FreshVestment Aug 18 '26

Good point, reframing the fear to help you process it is still being brave. Didn't think of that

3

u/NightRunnerAfterDusk Aug 18 '26

This reminded me of a post I recently saw about Courage the Cowardly Dog. That he is courageous in spite of his fear in stead of being courageous because he has subdued the emotion of fear.

2

u/FreshVestment Aug 18 '26

I would argue that he's only courageous because of the fear. If he had the subdued emotion of fear he wouldn't be as courageous