Car # 7 virtues My wish is that we (everyone)learn how to greater honor the virtues in ourselves and others. Some years ago at a speaking engagement the person introducing me said, “Marie is the one person I know who has something nice to say about everyone, whether they deserve it or not”. It really threw me off because I had never thought of myself in those terms.[ My life philosophy had always been…Maintain high hopes and low expectations for my fellow humans.] In retrospect I understand how people might describe me that way. It’s always been fairly easy for me to see the good at the core of a person. Their virtues and virtue potential. One way we can feed each other’s virtues and help them to grow, is simply by speaking the language of virtues. It’s something I’ve been working on for years and still have much to learn. It is often, in the heat of the moment, not an easy thing to do. An example might be: A child draws a picture on the wall in crayon. One way to discipline them might be to scold them, take away their crayons and send them to their room. Or we might add to the discipline some language that speaks to the child’s virtues (creativity, enthusiasm, purposefulness.)and in that way not squash the good while disciplining the negative behavior. WARNING: I have some notoriety for giving completely strange and often poor examples at times] Another example honoring someone’s virtues might be: A building is on fire. A child is crying out that their pet mouse is still inside. In spite of the fact that the fire is rapidly consuming the building, a bystander runs in to save the pet. When the bystander returns a bit crispy around the edges, a person might be inclined to say to him. “Are you insane?” “That buildings about to fall in…you could have been killed … and for what…a mouse ?!” Or we might say “That was a very kind and courageous thing to do. I respect that you had the confidence and faith that you could do it. However, that was a highly unstable situation and you could have been killed.” (in both instances he learns that he put himself in great danger. In one of them he leaves the scene feeling much better about himself and much more likely to do a kindness in the future. I am learning some interesting things about myself Imagineering this train. I would find it much easier to see someone running in to save a pet dog than a pet mouse. Who am I to place value a person’s pet? NOTE: Quite a few years ago I was approached with an invitation to become a facilitator of what was then still a fairly new project. I opted not to at the time. I had a chance to catch up with people from the project and what they have been doing, at a conference this fall. Although my train does not endorse any outside entities if anyone is interested in information on virtues a wonderful resource is virtuesproject/
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 20:03:27 +0000
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