Life is the reward of virtue. And happiness is the goal and the reward of life.
If you haven't, please do yourself a favour and go back and watch the video that I recorded last month on values. You'll get a lot more out of this one if you do.
Values are something that you wish to gain and keep. In this video we are going to be discussing virtues. Virtues are the ways you go about keeping things.
For example, let's pretend that family's a value for you. The question you need to ask yourself is what virtues do you need in order to have the type of family that you want. What do you even mean by family?
Is family a husband, and a wife, and kids? If that's it, then maybe you think honesty is an important virtue to practice. Or maybe you think about being a mentor to your kids is an important virtue for you to have.
One of the classic commercials that is being aired right now on the radio is an anti-drug ad. Say no to drugs. Meanwhile, some parents are taking boatloads of prescription medications.
Kids are smarter than that. They know that there's no difference from taking those prescription medications and taking marijuana. They see the breach of integrity. Integrity would be an important virtue.
What if your value was to create a lean and strong physique? What virtues would you need? Would determination be a good virtue? Would hard work be a good virtue? Would organization be a good virtue?
So the exercise is really simple.
Go back through your values or even pick one value and ask yourself what qualities do I need in order to successfully make this happen in the proper way?
And here's the interesting part. If you don't pick good virtues, going back to my quote at the beginning, the virtues are the reward of life. If you don't pick good virtues, there can be serious consequencs.
We can look in the world of business, people who have made money illegally or unethically because they value money. The value is money in this case. They wanted to make money, but the virtues were wrong. The virtues were lying and stealing and cheating which is a way to make money, but look where those people have ended up.
The most classic example is Bernie Madoff. For those of you who don't know Bernie Madoff, he made a fortune stealing money from people unethically, illegally, and in a horrible manner. His virtues were awful. He killed himself in prison.
So your virtues are very important. It's the means for you to achieve your values and to achieve your goals. And if you don't have honest, correct ones, if they don't match up with the requirements of the human body, there are serious consequences.
Please leave your comments below. I'd love to hear what you think.