Stillness is not an excuse to withdraw from the affairs of the
world. Quite the opposite—it’s a tool to let you do more good for
more people.
Neither the Buddhists nor the Stoics believed in what has come to
be called “original sin”—that we are a fallen and flawed and broken
species. On the contrary, they believe we were born good. To them,
the phrase “Be natural” was the same as “Do the right thing.” For
Aristotle, virtue wasn’t just something contained in the soul—it was
how we lived. It was what we did. He called it eudaimonia: human
flourishing.
A person who makes selfish choices or acts contrary to their
conscience will never be at peace. A person who sits back while
others suffer or struggle will never feel good, or feel that they are
enough, no matter how much they accomplish or how impressive
their reputation may be.
A person who does good regularly will feel good. A person who
contributes to their community will feel like they are a part of one. A
person who puts their body to good use—volunteering, protecting,
serving, standing up for—will not need to treat it like an amusement
park to get some thrills.
Virtue is not an abstract notion. We are not clearing our minds
and separating the essential from the inessential for the purposes of
a parlor trick. Nor are we improving ourselves so that we can get
richer or more powerful.
We are doing it to live better and be better.
Every person we meet and every situation we find ourselves in is
an opportunity to prove that.
It’s the old Boy Scout motto: “Do a Good Turn Daily.”
Some good turns are big, like saving a life or protecting the
environment. But good turns can also be small, Scouts are taught,
like a thoughtful gesture, mowing a neighbor’s lawn, calling 911 when
you see something amiss, holding open a door, making friends with a
new kid at school. It’s the brave who do these things. It’s the people
who do these things who make the world worth living in.
Marcus Aurelius spoke of moving from one unselfish action to
another—“only there,” he said, can we find “delight and stillness.” In
the Bible, Matthew 5:6 says that those who do right will be made full
barry
(Barry)
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