Recklessness Is The Courage Of The Weak

This applies to mountaineering as well as to management.

A few days ago, I was asked on Twitter about a reckless attempt to climb Mont-Blanc – Western Europe’s highest mountain – made by an American adventurer with his two young children.

I would like to elaborate on the answer I gave: Recklessness is the courage of the weak.

In essence, courage is facing danger. Awareness of danger is thereby consubstantial with courage. If there is no awareness, there is no danger and therefore no courage.

This is why, in my eyes, recklessness is the courage of the weak. They do not see the danger or, even when they see it, they do not perceive it, do not conceive it. So they act without any awareness of it, i.e. without understanding the risk.

They think they are mentally strong when they are in fact morally weak because they are showing no maturity and putting others in danger. This applies to mountaineering (read my book on the management of fear by professional climbers, only available in French, for more on this) as well as to management.

That may be why the verb “apprehend” has a double meaning of “understand” and “be afraid.” To be afraid, it is indeed necessary to understand the danger we face, to be aware of it. Only in this way can we show courage in overcoming our fear to confront the risk head-on.