The Courage To Be in 2007

Quote of the day:
“It was a situation of somebody coming along in history who, in simply being themselves, ends up crystallizing something that the nation at large is feeling.”
--Carl Sferrazza Anthony, a presidential family historian, talking about Betty Ford.

Title of theologian Paul Tillich’s most-famous book:
"The Courage to Be."

We admire Betty Ford’s honesty and openness as we look back on it. We forget that, at the time, she was also regularly and viciously berated for her views, and for her candor in expressing them. Public figures would often say--indirectly, of course-- that she should “know her place.”

When someone says something about the need to “know one’s place,” he is saying that there is some kind of absolute hierarchy, and that it is the highest priority that each of us know our place in it.

This is like dogs at the local dog park. When a new dog arrives, all the dogs are nervous until it is clear exactly where this dog fits in the hierarchy. Sometimes dogs get so nervous with the uncertainty that they growl, bark or even fight.

We seem to both crave openness and honesty and loathe it, even at the top of the hierarchy. We want people to “be themselves”, but then they do something we don’t like and we wish they were someone else.

The question I’m dying to ask is: “If I can’t be myself, who can I be?”

From this comes the conundrum of our lives: It takes much courage to be ourselves, yet we have no choice about it. If we want to live the life we were born into.