We Can Do Something With Courage

 

 

If you are a person who has no money and no power but a big idea, what would you do? Complain about the unfair treatments of society? Or just devote yourself to the idea hastily? When these situations take place, our natural instincts will usually resist adventure and courage, and we choose the negative way, and avoid the difficulties and blame the society. However, we do really know that somebody, just like you and me, succeeded – even in a garage. You may say you can’t remember such a story. Actually, there were two Stevens who built a computer in a garage once. And we all know what happened next: they founded Apple. This time, because of their actions and ability to follow through, their courage emerged to act of its own accord. In fact, courage can be shown everywhere. It is courage when a scientist cherishes the hope that one day he will be rewarded for what he has been studying for a long period; it is courage when a group of ants prepare to beat an elephant in a race; it is courage that you can believe in yourself no matter what other people have said about you. In my world, the core of courage is: to dream and imagine, to act forthrightly and to earn results, and to believe in yourself.

“Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts who stood their ground” (Anonymous). This saying can be put in two different ways. One way says that everyone is negligible before he becomes famous, so we should have the courage to cherish the hope that one day we will be amply rewarded; the second meaning is that we should have the creativity to imagine the future of even a tiny seed, or nut. For the first one, we have plenty of tales to cite. For instance, nearly all the Nobel Prize laureates have an extremely difficult early-life story, which basically shows that courage plays an important role during the time the laureate was unknown. For the second interpretation, there is no better example than Kodak and Apple. No one could believe Kodak could be beaten, especially in its kingdom of Kodak Moments. But Sony did, inventing the first digital camera in the world. Again, no one could imagine what could beat the CD industry. But iTunes was released by Steve Jobs several years ago, and now it has grown to be a giant. To mix metaphors, the stream of human progress never stops flowing so we must have the courage to imagine, catch and follow what trends will change and are changing in the world. We never know which one is the oak tree’s seed.

Now, we may have the courage to imagine, but that is not enough. Harper Lee said in her book, To Kill a Mockingbird, “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of seeing courage as a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway, and you see it through, no matter what.” In three words, real courage is to grasp the nettle. No matter how impossible the situation seems, it’s always good to fight for what you want. Fuxin Software, founded in 2003, used to be a tiny company in China, and was operating by writing small computer programs before 2004. In that year, the founder of Fuxin noticed that a PDF file hadn’t been granted authorization from Adobe, so he quickly wrote a letter to Adobe but was refused, Adobe forcing him to pay $5 for every file. As it was quite a large amount of money for such a small company, he began to dig into PDF files, although he knew he would be defeated in this industry because of the monopoly of Adobe. He and his company acted forthrightly and developed software that was quite different than Adobe, allowing others to access PDF files at reduced prices, and his first product was released in 2009, just five years after that crazy idea came into his mind. Needless to say, his company, Fuxin, got a venture investment of $20 million from Amazon, and has already grabbed 150 million customers from Adobe’s hand, bringing me to declare that groups of ants can beat an elephant if they have courage.

If we didn’t explode in silence, then we would die in it, just as some stars implode, and comets burn out. Some lives are just like shining stars. Other lives may burst in a second, like comets crossing the sky, while some can shine forever, and form a group of stars, making constellations. Either way, those lights that flash up in the darkness of human history are lighted through a basic quality, that of courage. Helen Keller stated, “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” In my definition, courage, in most conditions, does act like a living force, like Prometheus’ Flame, which gave humans power.  We need to fight with difficulties; there is no use in dodging them. To win, we have to fight. I think of my early years in primary school. I was not good at math at that time. When the first math exam for selecting high IQ students was held, nearly all my friends were selected except me. They thought I was a fool, which, in my eyes, wasn’t true. I failed, but not because of my IQ, an obvious excuse. I later found the courage to learn math and devoted myself to it. I always believe that facing difficulties may let you fail, but avoiding them will never ever let you win. To believe in courage, I believe in myself!