Cultivating virtue
Virtue does not magically appear in a person. Virtue is
excellence intentionally cultivated through developing a particular habit or
set of habits, e.g., integrity, truth telling, or courage.
Former Navy Seal and bestselling author Eric Greitens in Resilience:
Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life (Buena Vista, VA: Mariner Books,
2016) identifies five variables that go into training of any kind: frequency,
intensity, duration, recovery, and reflection. Athletes, musicians, and others
who have developed an excellence will appreciate the importance of each of the
five variables:
Frequency is important because we
learn through repetition. Our bodies and minds and spirits need to adapt
between each practice.
Intensity is important because we
grow only when we push ourselves beyond the boundaries of our past experiences.
Duration is important because we
need to train as long as necessary for our bodies, minds, and spirits to adapt
to our work.
Recovery is important because our
bodies, minds, and spirits need time to adapt to what we have learned. When we
sleep after exercise, we can grow stronger. When we sleep after studying, we
can grow smarter. Even monks take breaks from prayer so that their spirits can
grow.
Finally, reflection is important
because we have to consider our performance against the standards we have set,
adjust ourselves, and integrate what we've learned into our lives. Our times of
practice will become isolated islands unless we reflect. Reflection is the
bridge between what we practice and the way we live our lives.
Spiritual excellence – a depth of personal spirituality that
leads to a growing self-awareness and awareness of the transcendent – entails
training built around these five variables. The same is true of moral
excellence.
Are you in training to become spiritually and morally
excellent? If you were to sketch out, adopt, and then regularly practice a
spiritual or moral discipline designed to lead to excellence, what would each
of the five elements of that training program involve?
Each person has the potential to become a great soul, a
person of estimable excellence. The only reason that we remain immature
spiritually and morally because we do not train.
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