A
little over a year ago, I took up Brazilian jiu-jitsu, though I am far from a
typical martial arts practitioner. I am skinny, unathletic, and never competed
seriously in any sport, let alone a combat sport. Why then did I, at the age of
30, decide to take up something like jiu-jitsu? The short answer is that, for
some time, I had been preoccupied with the idea of cowardice. This preoccupation
may, on the face of it, seem silly. To call someone a coward in this day and
age feels old-fashioned. It’s an insult that one Victorian gentleman might render
to another in a matter of honor. The word coward may call up the same wry smile
as such old-fashioned insults as “blackguard” or “ne’er-do-well.” For many
years, I took for granted that this reframing of cowardice was good. It meant
that we had matured as a society and weren’t beholden to outdated moral codes. We
no longer judge people by silly shows of useless bravery. Instead, we’ve
learned more critical values like compassion and understanding.
Gradually, however, I have altered my
perception. All too often, cowardice isn’t taken seriously as a vice the same
way gluttony, greed, or maliciousness is, though it deserves to be. The
consequences of cowardice can be every bit as serious as any other vice, and
the only way to combat it is, to be honest about what it is and then do
something about it. Rather than suffering from insufficient compassion, we are in
the throes of having too much. Or perhaps we suffer from the outward shows of
kindness at the expense of all other values. Too often, we don’t speak the
truth because we fear it will hurt someone’s feelings. While there is genuine
merit in seeing things from another’s perspective, this can’t allow us to lose
everything of value that we may already hold. If someone comes to us and tells
us that something we said has hurt them, it’s good form to reflect on whether
we said something un-constructive. However, sometimes such self-reflection
shows us that even though what we said may have been harsh, it was still the
truth. We can say that the other person is free to disagree with us, but we must
stand by what we say.
In
addition to these general cultural concerns, my preoccupation with cowardice
had manifested in my personal life. This problem first preoccupied me when, a
few years back, I took the OCEAN, or the Big Five, Personality Traits test. For
those unfamiliar with the test, the five traits for which the acronym OCEAN
stands are: openness—the attraction to novelty and new ways of thinking,
conscientiousness—one’s devotion to duty and task execution, extraversion—the
measure of one’s positive emotion, agreeableness—how likely one is to care for
others over themselves, and neuroticism—the measure of one’s negative emotion. While
several parts of my results were no great surprise to me, I was shocked to
discover that I scored in the 29th percentile of Agreeableness, a
trait I had assumed I would score highly in. After recovering from my surprise,
however, this information began to make sense, especially when I considered my
results on another of the Big Five traits: neuroticism. In neuroticism, I
scored moderately high: the 64th percentile. This revelation was no
surprise to me, but when I considered it alongside my relatively low score in
agreeableness, it got me thinking hard about my self-image.
I
had always taken for granted that I preferred to avoid conflict because I saw
the best in people and could see things from everyone’s point of view. While
there is some truth in this, it likely comes from my high score in openness—96th
percentile—rather than from agreeableness. I am genuinely intrigued to discover
new perspectives on various issues. I took many of these other aspects of my
personality matter-of-factly, but for some reason, my low score in
agreeableness bothered me, though there were no clear reasons why it should
have.
After
all, neuroticism, like any personality trait, isn’t a judgment of one’s
character. People all along the spectrum of neuroticism exist for a reason.
Different situations and environments pose different levels of potential
danger. Someone like myself who is high in neuroticism is more likely to
imagine what potential hazards a novel situation might hide. While people like
us need to differentiate between testing a new environment for real dangers and
avoiding a new environment due to imagined threats, we can prove very useful.
People on the opposite end of the spectrum are equally predisposed to failure
if they don’t exercise dispassion when implementing their temperament. They can
see the opportunities in a new environment but also imagine possibilities that
aren’t there and fail to see the dangers. Should they do the former, they can
bring significant value to themselves and those around them. If they do the
latter, they can rush headlong into a dangerous situation and suffer unexpected
consequences that could have been avoided if they had observed their situation
more critically.
Such
sober reflection wasn’t my first reaction when I considered this fact. Perhaps
I could have been too hard on myself, but when I continued to think on these
unconsidered facts about myself now staring me in the face, I knew deep in my
gut that something else was at play. I didn’t think of myself as someone who
avoided or withdrew from conflict because it made logical sense to avoid
conflict in that time or place. I first thought I didn’t like conflict because
I care about other people’s feelings.
What
then was going on? After trying to rationalize the issue several times, I reached
an uncomfortable conclusion. There had been many instances in my life when I
had succumbed to the vice of cowardice and retroactively reframed my motivation
as compassion. So, I decided to confront this tendency in myself head-on.
Whenever conflict reared its head and I wanted to duck out, I would ask myself
why. Did I want to avoid conflict because it was honestly the right thing to do
or because I was scared? Occasionally, I would find that I had a good reason to
avoid unnecessary conflict. On many
other occasions, however, I feared the consequences of speaking up or speaking
back. I was worried that people would lose the perception of a compassionate
considerate person, which for so long had been the perception I had held of
myself. Gradually, I started to tap into the less agreeable side of my
personality.
If
I’m honest, my initial attempts didn’t immediately yield a more commanding and
authoritative personality but manifested as delayed adolescence. Previously, I
had been a risk-averse rule follower. For the most part, I had never spent much
time with the people my mother warned me about as one usually does in high
school, but later in life, I struck up an unusual friendship. This friend
possessed many qualities that I admired: he was ambitious and strong-willed,
but he was also infamous among our mutual friends for getting into fights. He
had even done some prison time for assault. He had once asked me to work for
him. When he first asked me, I had had a comfortable restaurant job and had
turned him down. Then the COVID pandemic struck, and the restaurant closed. I figured
this was as good a time as any to get a new job and hang around with someone
who didn’t seem to have any of the problems I had with accessing his
disagreeable side. So, I called my friend and asked if he was still looking for
workers. Sure enough, he was. The work was difficult, and balancing the
personal side of my relationship with my friend with the professional side was
often very stressful. I’m sad to say that this relationship flamed out in both
the personal and professional spheres.
Despite
this discouraging failure, if it hadn’t been for my time with this person, I
might never have started jiu-jitsu. Before my friend and I parted ways, we took
on another friend of his as a customer. This friend soon invited both of us to
start training jiu-jitsu at his gym, and we accepted. The first six months, in
particular, were very grueling. However, even when I spent an entire 5-minute
round getting smashed by a more competent opponent, I would still feel immense
satisfaction just for having voluntarily undergone something like that. Now I
still go, even when I don’t feel like it. I always feel good when I decide to
go because I know it’s good medicine. As much as we would like to think
otherwise, we need a carrot and a stick to discipline ourselves. I look forward
to working on my jiu-jitsu game and learning new submissions and sweeps, but I
also go because it is a defense against a very serious vice.
Now
that I take cowardice seriously as a vice, I actually look with greater
objectivity at the neurotic side of my personality. In the past, I would veer
between a defensive and romanticized attachment to this part of myself,
soothing my ego with the self-image of an imaginative but misunderstood loner,
and feelings of insecurity that there was something wrong with this side of my
personality, and I would start to wish that I could change it. Now I see this
side of myself with measured compassion. Now, when I avoid conflict, I don’t
have to beat myself up because I know it’s just part of my temperament, but I
can also control it when I see that it is genuinely time to stop being a
coward.
