Think back to a time early in your schooling. Recall the moment (maybe it was in third grade or sixth) when your teacher asked for a volunteer. One boy’s hand shoots up into the air–that boy, you think–and the teacher, looking at him, quips, ‘But I haven’t even told you yet what you’re volunteering for?’ ‘I don’t care,’ he replies, his hand still kept up. ‘I’ll do it.’

This is the boy, the one who volunteers for something he’s never done before before knowing what it is or whether he can do it, that you want to be friends with. Or become yourself.

The overly eager boy is primed to become properly courageous later on in life. He can learn temperance and deliberateness with time and through formative experience. Whereas the young boy who begins in timidity will grow into a frightened, embittered man, clawing and clutching for what lies near.