They called me reckless. The generals, the courtiers, the professionals who had been managing the war – managing, not winning – for years before I arrived. They looked at a seventeen-year-old girl with no military training who wanted to lead an army, and they used the word that people always use when they cannot find a better objection.
Reckless.
It is a word worth examining, because it is deployed so frequently against people who act that it has become, in practice, a synonym for “threatening to those who do not.”
What “Reckless” Means
When someone calls your action reckless, they are making a specific claim: that you have failed to adequately assess the risk.
Sometimes this claim is correct. There is such a thing as genuine recklessness – action taken without awareness or consideration of the consequences. The person who drives at dangerous speeds without reason is reckless. The person who makes a major decision without any information is reckless.
But the word is almost never used in this precise sense. In practice, “reckless” means: you have assessed the risk and accepted it, and I would not have.
That is not recklessness. That is a different risk tolerance. And the difference between recklessness and courage is not the presence or absence of risk. It is the presence or absence of purpose.
The Risk Calculus
At Orleans, the risk of attacking was real. The English were fortified. The French army was demoralized. The probability of failure was high.
The risk of not attacking was also real. The siege would continue. The city would fall. The war would be lost. The probability of this outcome was also high, and increasing daily.
The generals preferred the second risk because it was familiar. They had been living with it for months. It had become comfortable. The first risk was unfamiliar, and unfamiliar risk feels larger than familiar risk, even when it is not.
I chose the unfamiliar risk because the familiar one was certain to produce failure, and the unfamiliar one had a chance – not a guarantee, a chance – of producing victory.
This is not recklessness. It is the recognition that in certain situations, the greatest risk is the refusal to act.
Who Calls You Reckless
Pay attention to who uses the word. It is almost always someone who has something to lose from your success.
The generals who called me reckless had been in command for years. If a seventeen-year-old girl succeeded where they had failed, their competence was in question. My recklessness was their professional threat.
The courtiers who called me reckless had built their positions on the war’s continuation. A quick victory would disrupt the political arrangements they had made with the war as their backdrop. My recklessness was their political inconvenience.
The people of Orleans – the ones who were starving, who were watching their city fall – did not call me reckless. They called me hope.
Consider the source of the word. The person who calls you reckless may be protecting you. But they may also be protecting themselves.
The Permission You Do Not Need
I will say it again because it bears repeating: you do not need anyone’s permission to act on what you know is right.
The label “reckless” is a withdrawal of permission. It says: we do not authorize this action. You are proceeding without our blessing.
Good. The blessing of people who have failed to act is not worth seeking. Their authorization is not a credential. It is a constraint, and the constraint exists to protect their position, not to protect the people who need your action.
Be clear about the risk. Be honest about what you do not know. Accept the possibility of failure.
Then act.
If they call you reckless, you are probably doing something that matters. The people who do nothing are never called reckless. They are called responsible.
History remembers which word was worth more.