A friend was describing the work he is doing and linked it with ambition.

Listening to his ambition and how he is approaching it, the word that came to mind for me was courage. It didn’t resonate with him.

Discussing a bit further, it became clear that he could understand why I was seeing courage and he could acknowledge that. It still wasn’t relevant for him.

I was reminded of the fact, that courage is something that may fail on us.

His ambition went beyond. It is not only a purpose, it is something that he believes so much in, that it simply needs to be done.

It may be linked to the ambiguity of the situation. Their ambition is to heal every child that comes into the hospital. However, one or two continue to die weekly. It brings to the forefront that the ambition is unlikely to happen. At the same time, it is the only ambition worth going for.

Courage is not sufficient. Committing to such an ambition requires knowing that it needs to be done. It doesn’t expect things to be comfortable.

As I’m watching the many hesitations linked to the different existing vaccines I’m reminded of this. Lack of ambition is not only slowing us down it is moving us away from what needs to be done.

And it’s probably normal that it happens. For too long, fear has been a focus in the pandemic. No wonder people find it hard to lean into courage.

Sometimes, it’s better to settle for what needs to be done.