Virtues Must Be Practiced
Please note that we are NOT the original writers of this blog post. All credit goes to the original writers. Find the original post as published at this link: http://yourwarriorsedge.com/warrior-wisdom/virtues-must-practiced/
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be.
The point of many of my articles, quotes and more passages, together with the teachings of many good martial art teachers who really do assist with the character development of their pupils, is to show perfect virtues so that we can have some sort of description of what perfect virtues are. Seeing the ideal allows us to analyze our personal condition during its current state in comparison with the ideal. Probably not. Many people falter at times from the ideal we we strive toward. But rather than be frustrated and believe we are woefully lacking in virtues, we continue to strive toward such ideals, thus improving and growing personality along the journey.
Some may question the worth of my quotes about virtues, or even the more posts about them. One could say the same about the several books that have been written over the ideal of a virtuous person, and the ages on what virtues are. What’s the point in writing about virtues, particularly”warrior virtues” that I often write and talk about? And when I talk about”warrior virtues,” I’m talking about the character traits shared among many who have practiced the arts of warfare throughout history, and more recently those who exercise some type of martial art which also contains a virtuous component, thus resulting in advertisements claiming that studying martial arts will help with character development.
The key, as French philosopher Comte-Sponville reminds us is that,”thinking about the virtues won’t make us virtuous,” so we must not just read the quotations and ideals, but as martial artists, keep the warrior virtues in mind as we go through our daily lives. In the end, we strive to be virtuous people in society, not just the training hall. We have to practice being virtuous, because like strength, or our art methods, virtues develop through practice. So practice!
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We must not only read the quotations, articles, and books about virtues and personality development, sharing them because we liked the picture or perfect (and I really do hope you share my articles and articles), but we must also examine the ideas of great thinkers (such as Marcus Aurelius at the beginning of this post), both historic and present, and gauge our own actions against the standards presented. Assessing philosophical ideas provides a direction, and allows us to believe in our capacity to lead more virtuous lives and create the character we desire.