Friends and flourishing are like cookies and milk: the addition of the one makes the other so much better. But friends and flourishing are unlike cookies and milk in that you can’t have one without the other.

“Friends,” Aristotle says, “are our second selves.” They help define who we are and improve our character. They are, he says, the highest external good.

All friendships are not created equal, though. We have this somewhat strange phrase that we apply to those friends of the highest caliber: best friends. I say it’s strange because it’s not uncommon for us to identify multiple friends as best friends.

But why it makes complete sense is because we aren’t really ranking friends like we do restaurants. What we are describing is the type of relationship we have with our best friends that’s different than the type of relationship we have with the other people we interact with.
Continue reading →

credit: )3runo

This post is a continuation of the Practicing the Virtues Series. This week, we’ll talk about practicing friendliness.

I’ll give a brief recap of where we’re at.

• We become more virtuous through practice. For more information, see this post.
• The virtues are interconnected in a very important way. Improving one virtue tends to improve others, and you’ll see those others listed.

I’ll spend a little bit of time on the Doctrine of the Mean, as it applies to friendliness, since many people think you could never be too friendly. First, by friendliness, I do not mean being nice to people, although being nice to people is often times a good way to practice friendliness. What I mean by friendliness is the virtue of being able to connect with people in a mutually beneficial way. To be deficient in this virtue is to be quarrelsome, i.e. constantly picking fights with people or going out of your way not to connect with them, and to have the excess of this virtue is to be a flatterer, i.e. going out of your way to connect with people.

Why we shouldn’t be quarrelsome is fairly evident. This is not so with why we shouldn’t go to the other end. Simply put, if you have to many “friends,” you’re not able to connect with them in a mutually beneficial way while maintaining proper balance with the other aspects of your nature. The amount of time and energy that it takes to develop and maintain true friendships is far too great to have 452 friends. Your mileage may vary, but the main point is that trying to have too many friends is self-defeating.

Continue reading →

The Global Elders, from left: Peter Gabriel, Muhammad Yunus, Mary Robinson, Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Sir Richard Branson. Taken from the Global Elders website.

Some people seem to be able to script themselves to change habits almost at whim. Where most of us falter and fight, these people make a quick decision either to radically change their lives or look at their current good habits and tweak them to make those habits even better. These people have what Clay at The Growing Life called the the habit of changing habits.

The self-improvement meta-habit is incredibly useful to have, but like any other virtue, it’s best taken in moderation. Those who go overboard in the productivity cult which many of us are in are far too familiar. These are the type of people who try to think about the most effective way to put out their burning house while standing next to the fire hose. Pick it up, spray, and adjust fire!

Perfectionism is very closely related to an excess of this meta-habit. Perfectionist, at their most crippled, fail to be able to create anything because they’re too focused on producing the perfect product from the get-go. The advice is much the same to the perfectionist as to the self-improvement fanatic: get something produced, review it, and edit!

We’re also far too familiar with those who are deficit in the meta-habit. Stuck in their ways, they will do the same ineffective behaviors or processes day in and day out just because it’s already a habit. Or, even worse, they have no inclination to change themselves for they see no need to change.

Between these two extremes is the sweet spot. Find small, tangible ways to improve yourself everyday, but understand that it’s a constant work in progress. Focus on becoming excellent, not perfect, and practice this virtue everyday.We become excellent through habit, and having the habit of changing habits make excellence far easier to attain.

But wait, there’s more!

What we often forget is that self-improvement is partly a social endeavor since we are essentially social creatures. You can’t improve being a friend in a vacuum–you have to practice it with people. It’s interesting, however, that we are really quick to look at the social environment we’re in and blame our lack of flourishing on it. That which has the power to negatively affect us also has the power to positively affect us, and we often forget that we make up a component of the social environment we’re in and have as much influence to affect others positively as they affect us negatively.

Sure, many of you are thinking, that’s easy for me to say, as I have the luxury of not working in the corporate structure with its incessant, emergency demands on attention. Merlin said it far better than I can, but positive productivity and self-improvement changes can start and are most effective at the team level.

(Warning: The video is something like 90 minutes long, but it’s good. Watch it with the notepad at the ready.)

Why is this? Because a team of 5-6 people can be accountable to each other for their personal behavior far easier than a corporate managerial team can be responsible for 500-600. If a team becomes more cohesive, productive, and begins flourishing, do you think it won’t be noticed? If that team becomes the superstar team, they have incredible leverage on other teams to get them to change.

My point? The meta-change habit applies to groups of people as well as it applies to individual persons. Look at successful families and peer groups and you’ll see this in action. The ideal situation is when the group is making the individual better at the same time that the individual is making the group better. We, as groups, become better through habit, but we, as groups, also become worse through habits.

I’ll be explaining this social aspect of self-improvement in the upcoming posts. These posts will likely be staggered through some of the other themes running through this blog, but they are in the works. We’ll start with some Aristotelian goodness and go from there!

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed, commenting, or submitting it to one of the social media sites below. I appreciate your time and support and look forward to hearing from you!

In my overview of Aristotelian ethics, I noted that we become more virtuous through practice. This post gives activities and suggestions that help you practice courage.

The virtues are interconnected in a very important way. It turns out that working on one virtue has reciprocal effects on other virtues. You’ll see the reciprocal virtues listed in each bullet, as some of the different activities that make us more courageous tend to make us more virtuous in some areas than others.

It’s key to remember the Doctrine of the Mean when reviewing this list. For every activity mentioned, there’s a way to overdo it, leading to rashness, and there’s a way to underdo it, leading to cowardice. Find that middle ground between the two and begin flourishing.

Name Your Phobias and Conquer Them.

There’s a difference between being uncomfortable in situations and having a spine-tingling phobia of something. The thing is, some phobias are such that they keep us from flourishing. Agoraphobia (fear of large crowds of people), for instance, keeps us from interacting with other people in ways that they’re comfortable and limits the way we can find joy outside of home.

Muster up the courage to name your phobias and work through the fear they generate. The reality is that you may just move to being uncomfortable with whatever you’re currently scared of, but you can function as a rational person through discomfort. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Friendliness, Indignancy)

Get in a Romantic Relationship if You’re Not in One Due to Insecurities

Perhaps an odd tip for becoming more courageous, but many people never find their true happiness for fear of being rejected, accepted, stifled, or whatever other fear of intimate relationships they conjure up. The root of their relationship avoidance is fear, and this fear leads to sub-optimal flourishing.

Fight the fear and open up…what’s the worst that can happen? You could end up lonely? That’s the route you’re currently on, anyways. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Friendliness, Truthfulness, Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Generosity)

Handle Tough Emotions when They Come up.

A lot of people shove tough emotions down when they come up and they never deal with the source of the emotion. Some are afraid to know what lurks in their core and, as a result, they never know how to process their emotions and figure out who they are.

But you can’t make meaningful decisions about your life if you don’t know who you are. You’ll waffle from year to year, make commitments you can’t keep, be insecure with jobs you take, and be in awkward relationships with others. It’s possible that you could stumble into flourishing, but it can sometimes be really easy to confuse temporary, security blanket positions for lifelong flourishing. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Temperance, Spiritedness)

Talk to Someone Who Is Not like You.

We naturally tend to congregate with people who are very much like us. They have similar skin colors, financial statuses, and political and religious ideologies. Though there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it has a tendency to make us very narrow-minded when it comes to different perspectives on the human condition.

Find someone who has a different perspective on the human condition and talk to them. Try to understand their position, but most of all, get slightly outside your personal comfort zone. Break down the unconscious social barrier that you have set up for yourself. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Friendliness, Generosity, Benevolence)

Tell Your Boss “No.”

Many people are scared to tell the Boss “no” because they’re afraid of long-term repercussions like being fired, so they constantly take more work than they can possibly do, which impacts other areas of their lives. They become stressed about work, disgruntled, and frustrated at themselves for not standing up for themselves.

Find a good reason to say “no” before the Boss asks. Usually, all it takes is looking at what all you currently have to do and being prepared to use that as the justification for you not taking anymore work. Saying “no” is much easier when you can say “I’m sorry, but if I attempt to do that Project X may fall further behind” or “I had this great idea about Project X that’s taking a little bit longer to complete than I thought…would you rather me drop that, or work on what you’re proposing?” Be able to talk about the status of the project, and then over-deliver on the product.

Lastly, remember the difference between being the “go-to person” and the “default person.” The go-to people get the hard jobs, but their Bosses use them differently than they use the default person. The default person just gets all the jobs because the Boss knows she’ll do them. You want to be the go-to person, not the default person. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Industriousness)

Stand up for What’s Right when It’s Hard to Do.

It’s really easy to stand up for what’s right when everyone else is already doing it. It’s much more frightening to the be the first person to stand up for something or to be part of a small group who are going against the tide of injustice or social slights.

Dr. King observed that it wasn’t the small minority of evil people that made the world so bad, but rather it was the silence of the majority that went along with what was going on. Don’t be a part of that silent majority. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Generosity, Truthfulness, Friendliness, Indignancy, Spiritedness, Benevolence, Conscientiousness)

Become Slightly Rebellious About Something

We are all unique people, with unique tastes and slightly different perspectives. Many people are afraid to be their true selves, though, for fear of rejection or because they don’t want be singled out as being different.

If you figure out who you are and what you like, manifest yourself and pursue those things you find valuable. If someone asks you why you’re doing what you’re doing, stick up for yourself and defend your choices. Ask them why their position should be the default one. You’d be surprised how many people don’t have an answer for that question.

The key here is not to through your life choices and beliefs at other people. No one likes a zealot. But don’t let either people’s ways dictate your just because they’re in the majority. If they press you, press them back. Check out Amy’s rebellion for a good example of how to pull this off. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Temperance, Conscientiousness, Generosity, Truthfulness, Friendliness, Indignancy, Spiritedness, Benevolence)

Become a Guardian

I’m not talking about a parental guardian. This is a reference to Plato’s Republic, which listed types of people out by what function they performed for society. Guardians are those who protect the fabric of society. In today’s context, they are the policemen, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, military servicemembers, and emergency response personnel (think FEMA).

All of these civil service organizations have volunteer or part-time positions available, so you don’t have to have a major career change to become part of them. Many, like the National Guard or Reserves, give financial benefits for being a part of them, so you get a side-benefit, as well.

Few things test and temper your courage like being in emergency situations and having to respond. And there are few things more rewarding at the end of the day, or one’s life, as knowing that when the time came, you were able to face your fear and help others. If you join one of these organizations, you will have at least one situation where your courage will be tested. But the organizations will also train you how to become more courageous, and those lessons apply outside of emergency situations. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Temperance, Conscientiousness, Benevolence, Spiritedness, Industriousness)

Run for a Political Office.

Few things are as frightening as living your life with others watching. What’s even more frightening is doing that while you have to make important decisions that affect the lives of others. This fear keeps many from considering running for office, with the result that a lot of otherwise qualified, good people sit at home on the couch and we get the…er…other type.

I’m not saying you have to run for President, but run for something important that you believe in. Don’t like the way the PTA is operating? Rather than complain, run for PTA president. Overcome the fear and make positive changes for those around you. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Temperance, Conscientiousness, Generosity, Truthfulness, Friendliness, Indignancy, Spiritedness, Benevolence)

Start a Blog

Expressing yourself to people you know is a bit scary. Expressing yourself to people you don’t know, and (potentially) a lot more of them, is even more scary. Observe that most blogs don’t take off when their authors are hiding behind the text; it’s only when those authors expose themselves as true people that others become interested.

Deliver the content, but deliver it through your person, not your computer. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Conscientiousness, Friendliness, Industriousness, Wittiness)

Start a Business

Fear of failure and uncertainty keeps most people from considering starting their own business. Some people find meaningful employment working for someone else, but many, many others don’t, and rather than flourishing while doing something they love, they wither most of their adult lives while they look forward to retirement.

Even if you like doing what you do, starting your own business will make you a better person and will allow you many different options should your desires or conditions change in the future. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Industriousness, Temperance, Spiritedness)

Read Philosophy

No, this is not about job security for me. This is about the fact that most of us live comfortably with unexamined lives because we’re afraid to subject our beliefs and choices to the scrutiny of the wisdom of the ages. What’s so scary about philosophy is that it has a tendency to get us to move from comfortable certainty to uncomfortable uncertainty.

Overcome this fear and learn to live the Good life. Or at least learn that though the Good life is simple, it’s not easy and it’s not really certain. (Reciprocal Virtue(s): Temperance, Indignancy, Conscientiousness, Spiritedness, Truthfulness, Benevolence; Practice Wisdom, in general)

This post is Part One of an 11 Part Megaseries that lists every virtue displayed here. My goal is to do one virtue a week until completed.

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed, commenting, or submitting it to StumbleUpon or Digg. Thanks for sharing your time with me, and I appreciate your support!

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Aristotelian ethics here lately…partly due to me teaching it a few weeks ago but even more so due to me thinking about personal development issues. The concept “flourish” has become the predominant concept that’s began to infuse most of my thinking about GTD, personal development, and life, in general. The word actually is on the tail end of one of my recent posts, and I’ve had to stall some of the other posts that I have on the burner to get out what I mean by flourish and why I think it’s a great framework to understand what we are all after, anyways. To get that off the ground, though, I’ll have to briefly explain Aristotle.

Aristotelian Ethics…in Ten Minutes

To get the basics of Aristotelian Ethics, you have to understand three basic things: What Eudaimonia is, What Virtue is, and That We Become Better Persons Through Practice.

1. Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia is Greek and translates literally to “having good demons.” Many authors translate it as happiness, but I don’t think that’s the best translation and way to understand it. “Well-being” and “flourishing” are closer to what he means, and I think of the two, “flourishing” captures the full range of the way he uses the word. And someone who is flourishing is living The Good Life.

According to Aristotle, all humans seek to flourish. It’s the proper and desired end of all of our actions. Flourishing, however, is a functional definition. And to understand something’s function, you have to understand its nature.

There are four different aspects to human nature, and Aristotle is often quoted as saying “Man is a political creature.” There’s actually more to it than most attributions give him, for “political” is often misunderstood. A better attribution is the following: Human beings are social, rational animals.

Two of the aspects of our natures come from being thetype of thing we are…that is, we are animals. The other two come from the type of animals we are. So, a breakdown is in order:

1. We are animals.


Animals have two components:

1. They are physical.

As physical beings, we require nourishment, exercise, rest, and all the other things that it takes to keep our bodies functioning properly.

2. They are emotional.
   What separates animals from plants, according to Aristotle, is that animals have wants, desires, urges, and reactions. We perceive something in the world that we want and we have the power of volition to get it; likewise, we have the power to avoid the things we don’t want. For humans, these wants can get pretty complex, but at rock bottom we all have (emotional) needs and wants that spring from rather basic sources.
2. We are social.


We must live and function in particular societies. “No man is an island,” and we are the type of being that does well only in social settings. Our social nature stacks on top of our emotional nature, such that we have wants and needs that we would not have were we not social creatures. For example, if we were the type of creature that flourished as hermits, the need for trust and friendly cooperation would not be nearly so pressing.


3. We are rational.


We are creative, expressive, knowledge-seeking, and able to obey reason. We might not always obey reason and we may sometimes not want to exercise our minds, but a large part of our existence relates to us being rational animals.

You can’t truly flourish if you’re not flourishing in one of these aspects. This is played out in our everyday lives when you see people who are so emotionally stunted that they can’t function well in society…or who are so obese that they can’t enjoy life…or who are so socially inept that they can’t fit into the type of society that would develop their intelligence. The list goes on and on.

The different aspects of our natures are tiered in the way that they are presented above, so that the physical is below the social which is below the rational. This may sound familiar to some of you familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy because it’s in effect the same thing. Only it took Maslow 2500 years to verify what Aristotle had said all along.

With an understanding of flourishing in hand, discussing virtue becomes easy.

On Virtue

• What is a virtue?

A virtue is a trait of character that enables a person to flourish.

• The Doctrine of the Mean

This is a key phrase to understand Aristotle. Consider the virtue of bravery, for example. An excess of bravery leads people to do really stupid things; the example I normally use is the frat-brat who’ll jump of the fraternity house just to prove how brave he is. It’s not brave; it’s rash. On the other hand, people who have a deficiency of bravery are cowards; they won’t put their ass on the line for anything. The virtue of bravery lies somewhere in between the deficiency of bravery (cowardliness) and the excess of bravery (rashness).
So it is with all of the different virtues: the virtuous trait is that which is between the deficiency of that trait and the excess of that trait.


• What are the specific virtues?

The Virtues
Vice (Deficiency)	Virtue (Mean)	Vice (Excess)
Cowardliness	Bravery	Rashness
Insensibility	Temperance	Intemperance
Stinginess	Generosity	Extravagance
Self-deprecation	Truthfulness (Modesty)	Boastfulness
Boorishness	Wittiness	Buffoonery
Quarrelsomeness	Friendliness	Flattery
Melancholiness	Spiritedness	Boisterousness
Not Responsive to Shame	Conscientiousness	Overly Responsive to Shame
Envious	Indignant	Spiteful
Unkindliness	Benevolence	Over-kindliness
Slothful	Industriousness	Over-industriousness


I’ll not discuss all of the virtues, but some are worth a quick discussion:

• Temperance


This one has to do with calming one’s bodily passions and desires. Always acting on your physical passions and desires will not lead to flourishing. However, always denying your physical passions and desires is also denying component of your nature and will also not lead to flourishing.


• Wittiness


Many people don’t think this should be on the list, but when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. People naturally want to be around people who are funny and who lighten the mood. We tend to avoid grumps, and buffoons, though initially fun, grow old after a while. So, having the virtue of wittiness enables us to flourish in the social aspect of our lives. The analysis of friendliness is much the same.


• Spiritedness


The insight here is that you should be passionate about things in the right circumstances. There are situations where anger is the appropriate, virtuous response, and if you’re never able to become angry, you’re deficient in spirit, and if you’re always angry, you’ve got an excess of anger. This trait is the emotional analogue of temperance.


• Indignant


Aristotle discusses indignity as a virtue in the sense that he thinks we should be upset if people do well undeservedly. For example, if someone wins because she cheated, the proper, virtuous response is to be upset or angry. On the other hand, some people are so envious that they are angry when anyone does well, and some people are so spiteful that they delight in other people’s misfortunes. The proper, virtuous trait is to be delighted when other people do well because they deserve it.


• Benevolence


How can one have benevolence in excess? Isn’t it always a good thing? Nope. If we get an excess of benevolence, we can’t see that sometimes to do the right thing you can’t help someone. Do you know a drama queen that always calls to talk to you when they’re going through their crises? The proper response is to, at a certain point, recognize that you can’t help them (in reality they don’t want it) and walk away. However, never helping anyone is a defect and should be avoided as well. (Some confuse this with generosity. That one has to do with how you handle your resources.)

• How are all of the virtues related?


What links all of the virtues is phronesis, a Greek word best translated as “practical wisdom.” It’s not quite intelligence, although it is a rational trait…it’s more like knowing what the mean is in the particular circumstance you’re in. How does one know what to do in a particular circumstance?…

We become more virtuous through education and habit.

If we’re lucky, we’re brought up in an environment where the adults around us teach us how to be virtuous. There are two ways that they can do this.

The first way is just by training us to have habits that enable us to flourish. For example, they may instill in us the tendency to exercise or to play sports. They may also instill in us the habit of sharing, being friendly, brave, and all the other virtues. In other words, they make it part of our innate character; they are training us how to be.

The second way normally follows the first. After we reach a certain age of maturity, they can start to teach us why it’s good to have the habits that they’ve been inculcating. Children don’t understand flourishing, but adolescents and adults can. They’re honing our practical wisdom at this stage, since they are teaching us in what circumstances we ought to do certain actions. They are in effect teaching us why we ought to be the type of person we are.

Of course, the best way for them to teach us to be virtuous is to exhibit virtue in their characters. If we ever wonder what we should do in a certain situation, then finding the answer is as easy as finding a virtuous person and asking her what she would do. And how do we know who a virtuous person is? We just look for someone who’s flourishing.

At a certain point, though, we become responsible for our own characters. It is at that point that we begin to actively, intentionally hone our characters. We continue to improve our physical body, our emotional state, our ability to live with others, and our minds. We continue to reinforce good habits, acquire more knowledge, help those around us, and find peace with ourselves.

We have the knowledge, we have the habits, and we have the understanding that the good life is up to us. The end state: we flourish.

[Sidebar: the metaphor that I often use to explain Aristotle’s ideas is that of planting a tree. A tree planted in bad conditions will not flourish, just as a child brought up in a bad environment will not flourish. Just planting the tree in the right conditions, however, will not necessarily lead to the tree’s flourishing; to help it flourish, you’ll need to prune it and tend to it properly (just as we train children). At a certain point, though, you won’t need to prune the tree. It will have the structure and setting such that it can flourish on its own. Just provide it the nutrients it needs and the tree will continue to grow and flourish. The metaphor translates quite well for human development.

If you understand and remember the points just mentioned above, you can talk meaningfully about Aristotelian ethics. The real reason I’ve discussed Aristotelian ethics, though, is that it will likely infuse a lot of my writing about GTD, personal development, productivity, and creativity. It’s an excellent framework to think about how to flourish in all of the important areas of your life.