Excellence is a Habit

The Buddha once asserted that “to enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.” This idea can also be traced to ancient Greece in the fourth century BC. The Greek philosopher and polymath, Aristotle, had a similar idea that he called eudaimonia. 

Aristotle recognized that through conscientious effort one has the ability to rise above the whims of the subconscious, and practicing virtue is the path to such awakening. Practice is important, because humans are naturally creatures of habit. With enough practice one’s thoughts begin to align with values and thoughts then guide actions. 

Disharmony in life is often the result of one’s mind dwelling in a time that it does not belong, nor does it yet understand. The past and the future are illusions, because neither of them will ever be. Furthermore, our account of the past is highly subjective and our predictions of the future are never accurate. Virtue addresses how we are to act in the present moment; which is all that there really is. How am I to act? virtuously. Being virtuous is a state of mind to achieve as opposed to adopting a “right” or “wrong” stance on actions that are obviously very ambiguous and would require objective knowledge of all variables to accurately predict the consequences of. 

C.S. Lewis once pointed out that “courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” The more that one practices facing fear, the easier it becomes to be courageous; no longer confined by a “comfort zone.” Mahatma Gandhi understood that “the enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.” 

Will Durant eloquently summarized Aristotle’s thoughts, stating that “excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” When our thoughts, actions, and values align we find a state of existence called different things by many different people around the world. Some experience an awakening, some find enlightenment, and others experience eudaimonia. Words do not matter; only recognition of the phenomenon that one experiences.

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