“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

Practicing virtue

It is not an easy business and it is, at the same time, the most necessary as well. The only path to true and lasting peace and human fulfillment.

Freedom is one of its prices and as Epictetus said, it the only worthy goal.

Virtue is a hard thing to practice because it has to be practiced all the time, virtue needs to become not a part of who you are, but who you are. 

It’s very easy to read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and feel that rush of stoic proud feeling for thinking such high morales to exist.

But let us get a bit more real. What are some examples of virtue? Why is virtue important not in some but in any area of our lives?

Well, let’s think about it a bit. Suppose that you want to get married, or you want to find a fulfilling relationship. First, you have to find the courage to actually go and do something about it. Courage is needed everyday:

• The courage to pursue your dreams
• The courage to face your challenges (and be thrilled by them)
• The courage to face everything ignoble.

 

But what happens when you come into a situation

where practicing virtue is hard?

Virtue must be practiced when we feel insecure, when we feel inadequate, when we are facing loss and when we are happy and doing pretty good.

When we are in pain, it is hard to be virtuous. But it is in those times when we most need to practice. Also when we are doing real good, not getting to attached of something that can be lost. In the end, virtue is the sole good.

I truly believe that stoicism is the solution to many of yours as a person and ours as a society. Stoic answers aim is to provide answers for the deepest human questions, which sadly, are almost always never asked.

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