"Karmanyeva adhikarasthe..."

What brings courage to somebody? I’ve always thought confidence brings courage. Well, to some extent it is true but i think real courage, infallible courage that can never be wavered has more reckless nature about it. Yes, reckless. May be even foolish. It’s not a big difference and I don’t mind calling courage foolishness because foolishness is not always so bad. Sometimes you’ve just got to be foolish and go ahead instead of being clever and avoid being in action.
So what is courage? Courage is fearlessness. When will you be absolutely fearless? When you know that you’re going to win for sure?? Of course not. Speaking of foolishness, thinking that you’re definitely going to win or be safe is the height of foolishness. No, you will be fearless when you don’t care about the result, when the outcome does not bother you, and when the purpose and goal of the entire thing is facing the problem in hand and not overcoming. That’s when you realize you’ve got nothing to fear about, as you’ve got no other purpose in your life other than tackling that problem in hand. You wont be even afraid of death, with an attitude of “do it or die trying”. Courage is when you enjoy the work to its fullest extent, and you don’t really care if it turns out good or not.
I figured this out when I was watching the Lord of the Rings movie. Aragorn, while leading his armies to fight the Orcs at Helm’s deep, gave a battle call to his soldiers, “to ruin! to death! he did not say “to victory!”.  That gave his soldiers the courage.

Courage does not come by thinking good. It comes with an attitude that nothing can affect you, and even if it does, you’re going to give your best shot at it before it does. Yes, courage comes from what some may call foolishness. 300 men against 10,000. But there’s a deep philosophy rooted into those courageous hearts that no one decides the future and we can say nothing about anything until it has happened. It does not depend on logic or reason because it knows too well that logic has a number of variables and it can change at any instant. If courage is foolishness, then foolishness it one the best things ever conceived on the earth.
May be that’s what my Krishna meant when he said “you have authority on the work only and not on the result. So don’t expect the result.” If you don’t expect anything, then you will perform at your best. that does not mean you don’t love your work. it means you doing the work itself brings you the biggest joy. I experienced this many times, something which I don’t care about much turns out to be the best, and something that I keep worrying about always turns out to be the worst.

Face your fears. All your fears, however silly, then you will never ever be afraid of anything your whole life, and nothing can disappoint you.