The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them.

Bravery gets pictured as a charge, but the harder form is staying put. Attacking gives you momentum and a target; holding a position means absorbing pressure with nothing to show for it, day after day, while the danger does not move either. Most of the courage that keeps a life or a family intact looks like that.

If you are in a stretch that cannot be fixed and can only be outlasted, you are not failing to act. Ask what would let you hold on another week: sleep, one ally, a shorter horizon. Endurance is a decision made repeatedly, not a trait some people simply have.