Beyond Legacy Code

The Courage to Grow

We tend to do the same things over and over, even when the results are not what we want. We do this not because we’re insane, but because the unknown is so scary. We fear the unknown with good cause. Chaos is hard to deal with, so we tend to stick with what we know, even if it’s not ideal.

But it’s only in the unknown that something new can be discovered—something no one else has found. Going there takes courage. It may seem strange to consider courage to be one of the greatest qualities of great thinkers, but it is. Courage comes in many forms. As Leo Rosten, author of the book Passions and Prejudices [Ros78], once said, “Those who do not know fear are not really brave, for courage is the capacity to confront what can be ...