My Short List of the Virtues Necessary for Well-Being and Living the Good Life

In no particular order:

1.       Charity – Being charitable to others is very important because it shows that you care about others and you are not being selfish.  Charity can be shown by giving someone money, or by offering to do something nice for another person.  Giving back to other people makes you feel good and it shows others that you like to help.

2.       Patience – Patience is a very hard virtue to have.  I know that I struggle with this a lot, but over the years I have gotten better.  People like other people who know how to be patient under difficult circumstances whether they are exciting or not.  By having patience, that shows that you are a very mature person.

3.       Respectfulness – We all know the meaning of respect, but some people do not act on it.  If you care about a person, then you should care enough to not talk when they are talking or be appropriate around them.  These are only a few examples of being respectful, but you also need to be respectful to other people’s religions or career choices.  Respect does not just involve people that you know, but also people that you do not know.

4.       Honesty – Honesty is a very important virtue.  By being honest, you will live a happier life because you know that you are doing the right thing by not lying about something.  People admire honesty because in some circumstances it is difficult to tell the truth if you know it could get you in trouble.

5.       Humor – I think that humor is important because everyone likes to laugh.  I can usually make a lot of my friends laugh and I think that is why they like being around me.  I like for people to make me laugh when I am having a bad day, so that is why I try to be humorous with other people.

6.       Thankfulness – As Americans, we need to be thankful for everything that we have.  I know that a lot of people have it much worse than I do, so I need to think about that anytime that I begin to feel selfish.  This is a very important virtue to live by because it makes you look at your life in a better way and appreciate everything that you have.

7.       Forgiveness – This is something that I think a lot of people struggle with.  I know that I have struggled with forgiving people who have hurt me, but I know that eventually I need to because if I do not it will just eat me up inside.  It is not good to hold grudges, so I think that everyone could work on being more forgiving.

8.       Acceptance – This virtue means that we should not judge other people.  We need to accept everyone just the way that they are.  I will admit that this is something that I need to work on as well, but I think everyone had trouble accepting someone at some point in their lives.  You cannot change the person, so what is the point in judging them when you could be getting to know them.

9.       Unselfishness – This virtue also applies to charity, which I mentioned above.  Being unselfish means that you put others before yourself.  Someone who is unselfish gets enjoyment out of helping others because they want to, not because they know it is the right thing to do.

10.   Consideration – In my opinion, consideration refers to other people and their feelings.  A person is considerate when they think about other people’s feelings before they do something. 

I think that the virtue that I struggle with the most is patience.  My mom always tells me that I need to be more patient.  She does not have to tell me this quite as often as she used to, but I do find that I get impatient under certain circumstances.

In order to cultivate this virtue, the next time I feel myself becoming impatient, I am going to think about one of the other virtues that I listed which was thankfulness.  For example, my car has been in the shop for two weeks now getting a list of repairs done.  While they have been working on it, I have been driving my mom’s car while she drives our truck that we usually only use for the dump or for moving things.  I noticed that the longer I had to wait to get my car back, the more impatient I became.  Now that I have finally gotten it back I started to think, why was I getting so impatient over not getting my car back when I should have been thankful that we even had the money to get it repaired?  I also thought; why am I getting impatient when my mom was nice enough to let me drive her car when she could have made me drive the “not so cool” truck?  These are things that I need to think about when I begin to get impatient.  I guess in a way my need to be more patient lead me to thankfulness as well.  I am thankful for all the things that I have, but I need to apply this thankfulness to situations that make me impatient.