On my birthday, a few days after the New Year, we went out for dinner with my parents, sister, and brother-in-law. Everyone at the table made a toast at some point in the evening. Mine was To a year of Courage.

Courage: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear or difficulty (Merriam-Webster).
Courage means being in action in the face of fear. If you experience no fear, you summon no courage. I think it’s interesting that a word we associate with physicality (the image of a knight, sword in hand, going out to meet the dragon) is actually about mental or moral strength rather than physical force. Courage is the mental game behind the physical action – what goes on inside your head and gut as you leap (or crawl) into the unknown.
When Mikhail and I made a list of things we want to do this year, it included:

I would definitely say we are being successful with that one. Because when you’re in the middle of major transitions, when your life becomes make-it-up-as-you-go, when you’re searching for purpose and vision and security and income, there’s lots of scary stuff to do. It’s inspiring and invigorating, confronting and exhausting — often inside the same day.