Courage - Repeatedly going into the unknown

​Years ago, I read the book 'Undaunted Courage'. It's the biography of Meriweather Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

After reading the book, I took several trips out west. All of them left me in awe of Lewis and the courage it must have taken to venture into the complete unknown.

I imagined what it must have been like to cross a river larger than you'd ever seen. Scale mountains taller than you'd ever imagined. Fight off animals larger and more ferocious than you'd ever crossed paths with. Endure blizzards the likes of which no one was remotely prepared to endure.

And I imagined what it was like, each morning, for a year and a half, to get up and tackle yet again - the unknown.

I woke up yesterday morning and wanted to tackle a light walk. I thought, I'll do the mile and a half loop around the block. It's been a dauting week, really, and I deserve a bit of a rest. That short walk will suffice.

Then I thought, no - I did an eight mile trek a couple of weekends ago. I really need to press into that kind of effort today. I need the mental and physical distraction.

That's when it occurred to me what I really needed wasn't rest or distraction, what I needed was courage.

More.

Courage.

I've spent a lot of my life evading courage. That's what unknowingly happens when you create a life full of as many knowns as possible. The known becomes your idea of peace; the unknown your greatest threat to that peace.

Until one day you find yourself in the unknown. And you tackle it. And come out the other side realizing you never knew anything about peace at all. Or anything about yourself.

You come to know that the known was a lie and the unknown the source of your greatest truth.

So I got out of bed and tackled not the short walk or the walk I did a couple of weekends ago - I tackled the 10 mile walk I'd been telling myself I was going to do for months but kept finding reasons not to. Most of them reasons found in the known....

It's not the first time I've tackled the distance. It wasn't a complete unknown. But yesterday it felt unknown enough - and scary enough - to know it was just the kind of push and reminder I needed.

The reminder that courage isn't born in knowing everything will be okay. Courage is born in the willingness to repeatedly go where you have no idea if it will be.

We all have western frontiers in our lives.

Western frontiers no longer scare me as much as the thought of what I might miss if I don't explore them.

I have discovered many spaces and places within my own heart and mind and soul the last several years that I had no idea existed. Places I found venturing into the unknown. Places that have come to be the most beautiful parts of my identity.

Places that have redefined the unknown in my life. It is no longer a threat; it is only opportunity. An opportunity the known will always try to talk us out of pursuing.

But we must go there. Repeatedly. If we are to be our most courageous selves.