Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday

English but is roughly understood as a person who emanates
integrity, honor, and self-control.
If the concept of “virtue” seems a bit stuffy to you, consider the
evidence that a virtuous life is worthwhile for its own sake. No one
has less serenity than the person who does not know what is right or
wrong. No one is more exhausted than the person who, because they
lack a moral code, must belabor every decision and consider every
temptation. No one feels worse about themselves than the cheater or
the liar, even if—often especially if—they are showered with rewards
for their cheating and lying. Life is meaningless to the person who
decides their choices have no meaning.
Meanwhile, the person who knows what they value? Who has a
strong sense of decency and principle and behaves accordingly? Who
possesses easy moral self-command, who leans comfortably upon
this goodness, day in and day out? This person has found stillness.
A sort of soul power they can draw on when they face challenges,
stress, even scary situations.
Look at the response of Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh to an
angry protester during a campaign stop. When the agitated woman
came up and started shouting at him about Islam (despite the fact
that he is Sikh), he replied with two of his own epithets for the self:
“Love and courage.” Soon, the crowd began to chant along with him:
“Love and courage. Love and courage. Love and courage.”
He could’ve stood there and yelled back. He could have run away.
It could have made him cruel and mean, in the moment or forever
after. He may well have been prodded in those directions. But
instead he remained cool, and those two words helped him recenter
in the midst of what not only was a career-on-the-line situation, but
probably felt like a life-threatening one.
Different situations naturally call for different virtues and
different epithets for the self. When we’re going into a tough
assignment, we can say to ourselves over and over again, “Strength
and courage.” Before a tough conversation with a significant other:
“Patience and kindness.” In times of corruption and evil: “Goodness
and honesty.”
The gift of free will is that in this life we can choose to be good or
we can choose to be bad. We can choose what standards to hold