The Path to Human Flourishment
The virtues and character traits that make one’s character
Mind Candy is a newsletter on practical philosophy and human flourishment—aka how to live “the good life.” Each month we tackle a new theme.
This month we’re exploring the theme of happiness and flourishment.
Throughout much of history, there have been debates about what it means to live a good life. Ultimately the answer always comes back to things deeper than money, winning, and material objects. While people have spent their lives attempting to gain these things, there is a hollowness to them.
It is instead virtue that is returned to throughout most traditions as being what leads one to a good life. The ability to control our emotions, to enact discipline, and to pursue wisdom.
Each philosophical tradition had their own set of virtues and vices but across all traditions, from East to West, there are six that consistently appear.
According to Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, these six virtues and their associated character traits define one’s character and help to provide the individual a flourishing life.
The path to the good life starts with us individually. And by pursuing the following six virtues in our daily lives, we set ourselves up for not just a good life, but a flourishing one.
Wisdom
“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.”
Marcel Proust
Wisdom is more than just being smart. It’s about having a specific outlook on life, one filled with creativity and a sense of curiosity.
The individual who pursues the virtue of wisdom does so by abandoning judgment and allowing themselves to be free to learn. They love learning as they see it as a key to solving the mysteries of themselves and life.
One can imagine Benjamin Franklin pouring over his books, experimenting with different ideas, and documenting what worked and what didn’t.
By keeping an open mind, by using creativity and always being curious, we allow ourselves the ability to investigate life, and in turn, pluck its wisdom for our own use.
Courage
“Living a good and moral life is impossible without the courage to take risks.”
Tamler Sommers
Many think of courage as pure bravery, standing up to the challenges in hard times but courage is much more than that. Courage is the ability to be brave but also to persevere in hard times.
It also is about holding integrity in one’s actions. Courage provides us the ability to take on life’s greatest tasks and learn from them, building knowledge and strength to tackle more problems.
One who exemplifies the virtue of courage often holds the character trait of vitality, always loving a challenge knowing they can grow from it.
There are different levels of courage and you can imagine the physical courage as those who risk their lives for others daily such as firefighters or police officers. But there’s also the lesser reflected on moral courage, about doing the right thing when it needs to be done. You can think of someone like Frank Serpico or other whistleblowers who knew a light needed to be shined on corruption that exists.
Humanity
“The faces of people around us, when we let ourselves look at them, can reveal on a visceral level the fact that they have lives to live… It can move us to treat others in more humane ways than we might otherwise be tempted to.” Todd May
None of us live on this planet alone and our lives are filled with interactions with our fellow citizens. Having an understanding and sense of the larger world is key to the virtue of humanity and is one that the Stoics held central to their own philosophy.
Pursuing the virtue of humanity entails not only having the emotional intelligence to recognize our shared humanity but also to have love and kindness toward everyone.
We won’t always get along, and we know that, but we also know, and see, there’s more at stake than being right or winning.
Humanity is the virtue that holds us together, each of us to one another, because we recognize our ability to overcome life’s challenges when we work together rather than against one another.
One can imagine the philosopher John Rawls trying to argue for his concept of the veil of ignorance and remind the world that we share our humanity and that the systems in place are not necessarily for the benefit of all.
Justice
“The moment we conceive of justice as being fully separable from human well-being, we are faced with the prospect of there being morally "right" actions and social systems that are, on balance, detrimental to the welfare of everyone affected by them”
Sam Harris
Justice is in parts a continuation of humanity. It’s about knowing we share this world with others and in turn learn to be good citizens because of it.
Justice is not just about the legal system, but rather, the experience of being human, of learning to have compassion and understanding for your fellow citizen.
Justice is about learning how to lead n good times and bad. It’s about being able to stand up for the injustices of the world not as a single individual but as a shared collective.
One does so because they understand the importance of fairness in an unfair and unjust world.
One can imagine Martin Luther King, Jr. fighting for the equal rights, or a public defender who is trying to save his client from a wrongful conviction.
It’s about doing the right thing when it needs to be done.
Temperance
“A disciplined mind comes not by control but in attunement to what lies beyond.”
Aaron James
Temperance is filled with numerous character traits that we use every day—prudence and self-control, humility and modesty, forgiveness and mercy.
When one pursues a life of discipline, the world becomes clearer because we blockout the noise of excuses or temptations that come with trying to do the right thing.
Instead, we set boundaries and know what we can and will accept as well as what will not be allowed.
The pursuit of discipline assists us in the cutting away of excess in a world filled with it.
David Goggins may take discipline to the extreme but we can also think of those who, on a daily basis, stick to their diet and workout schedule, make sure they’re home on time to see their family, and ensure they are living within their means.
Transcendence
“Sometimes simply attending to the edges and breaks of experience is enough to bring on a "coming to conscious.” Transcendent moments--whether you want to call them beautiful, or sublime, or genuinely divine—can occur after, or in the midst of great personal turmoil. It is as if something has been shaken free, the scales fall from our eyes, and we witness our surroundings as if for the first time.”
John Kaag
Life is about experiences and it is through these experiences we are changed. A pursuit of the virtue of transcendence usually is accompanied by the character traits of wonder and gratitude, hope, humor, and a sense of spirituality or greater purpose to our lives.
Transcendence often has us experiencing a sense of awe, a sublime feeling of the beauty and fragility of life.
The virtue of transcendence often is accompanied by a much greater appreciation for life and for our own existence.
John Muir, for example, took great pleasure and was filled with wonder as he explored nature. He wrote about it to share his love and help others find their way to it.
When one is in nature, they are often easily filled with the feeling of something greater.
When Carl Jung was a young man starting out his career, he would often sit and doodle a mandala, its concentric circles always merging in middle before doing a sweeping oval shape and returning once more to the center. Eventually Jung realized these drawings were in fact representative of himself, that everything ultimately came back to him.
We too must keep in mind that everything starts and ends with us. We do not control the world but we control our response to it. We do not always get to decide what happens but we get to decide how we will react. We may not have the role-models we want but history is filled with the ones we need.
In order to live a good life we must take responsibility and ownership for our lives, understanding that ultimately everything returns to us.
“Character is more than just having principles. It's a learned capacity to live by your principles,” writes
.Each and every morning you wake up and have a decision to make. You have to decide the person you want to be. It all starts with that—with whether or not you want to have character. Every decision you make flows from the question of who you want to be.
So, who do you want to be today?
Before you go…
If you enjoyed the above article, you may be interested in the below one to continue your exploration:
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Until next time,
D.A. DiGerolamo
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