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while the other outcome holds financial ruin, despair, being wrong, scorn and mockery, loss of friendship, ridicule, and even temporary ostracism. |
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Fortitude is a virtue that strengthens courage. Fortitude is a general and a specific virtue. As a general virtue, it must be firm and not readily subject to change. As a specific virtue, it gives the spirit firmness by controlling impulses from the conscious and unconscious mind. When you are confronted with a situation that requires courage, your spirit must remain firm so as to balance the fearful impulse and the foolhardy impulse. The virtue of fortitude strengthens courage against the passion of fear and curbs the immoderate stirrings of foolish daring. Opposed to fortitude are the vices of cowardice and foolhardiness. |
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Endurance is the more difficult aspect of fortitude, and requires more courage, other things being equal. In attacking an evil object, we at least have some hope that we will overcome it, and hope that we will prove stronger than the threat. In endurance we submit to an evil that seems stronger than ourselves. Attacking an object in the face of danger usually occurs over a brief period of time, whereas endurance usually covers a long, continuous period of time. Endurance in this context is not a mere passive submission to danger and suffering; it involves, more importantly, a strong action of the soul holding steadfastly to the good and refusing to yield to fear and pain. |
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Successful traders submit their will to the stronger will and dangers of the marketplace. In doing so, they are able to maintain their strength and resolve by the validity of their beliefs. Courage often is described as the ability of the mind to overcome fear. The greatest fear that any individual has is the loss of life. It is for this reason that when most people think of courage they think of a soldier or a martyr. Throughout history people have thought of courage in terms of a battle or of religious persecution. Every culture and religion has its generals, and its martyrs. People think of a great trader as possessing great courage because they perceive the trader as risking financial ruin by trading. |
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In most instances, courage is thought of in relation to fear. Most people do not consider that overcoming anxiety also requires courage. Anxiety and fear both originate from the same part of our psyche; however, they are not the same. Fear originates from a definite source, allowing our conscious mind to focus upon it. This means that fear can be faced, analyzed, attacked, and defeated. In acting upon fear, we participate in it. Courage can act upon fear because fear is an object, and therefore can be engaged. By contrast, anxiety cannot be engaged, since it has no objectour conscious mind is unable to focus upon it. |
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