How can a man lead a happy life? There have been literally thousands of books written about this extremely complicated topic. However, there are some fundamental ideas that are useful to be aware of without attempting to limit the vast array of endeavors that can be undertaken.
Extrinsic goods:
Money, power, status, safety, comfort, and independence are examples of extrinsic goods (“freedom from”). They’re useful for fixing issues, but they won’t make you happy or make you feel fulfilled on their own. As we shall see, money can’t buy any of the inherent goods that make life worth living.
Intrinsic goods:
A person’s happiness can be measured in part by the satisfaction they feel from intrinsic goods. As with other aspects of basic human well-being, there are numerous ways and degrees to participate in this one.The phrase “intelligent control over one’s life” can mean a variety of things depending on context. In reality, intrinsic goods are not objects we acquire but rather components of our satisfaction; in fact, they provide a condensed account of the many ways in which we can find happiness as human beings. As we see it, the most important aspects of intrinsic goods are: everything from mental capacity to spirituality to physical fitness to communication with the divine to fear of public speaking.
The “formula” of fulfillment and happiness:
It’s not possible to boil down happiness to a simple formula; instead, it’s more akin to a philosophy (more exactly, two principles). Humans will never find happiness so long as they focus solely on themselves. Obtaining intrinsic benefits is the only rational reason to pursue extrinsic ones. To be a successful manager, one must master the art of inspiring others to cooperate in ways that benefit the company’s clients, workers, and investors. You can’t be an effective manager of people and resources if you’re simply concerned with your own financial and professional gain.
Man’s Development: The Virtues
The four main virtues are:
- Choices impact a man’s ideals and emotions. These acquired ideals and emotional predispositions were virtues if they assisted him in fulfilling them, and vices if they hampered him.
- Courage, chastity, practical wisdom, compassion, magnanimity, self-control, and generosity are virtues; timidity, unchastity, stupidity, gluttony, insincerity, intoxication, and egoism are vices.
Four virtues are prioritized because they affect men’s strategic lives:
- Prudence, or practical wisdom, is the ingrained capacity to make the right decisions, avoiding defects such as rashness, indecision, and superficiality.
- Justice is the consistent willingness to give everyone their due. It’s not just about honoring commitments and maintaining legal rights; it’s about always being sensitive to others’ fair entitlements and making sure they’re honored, even when one can take advantage and advance one’s own interests.
- Fortitude is the ability to resist fear, suffering, danger, and paradoxes and continue overcoming project barriers.
- Temperance or self-control is the ability to control our natural need for pleasure in eating, drinking, resting, anger, comfort, and sexuality.
Acquiring and developing virtues
It is always possible to change one’s emotional states for the better through hard work and determination. It is more vital to have the proper values than the right feelings if you want to make the right choices in your behavior. No one is born with everything already in place. There is no such thing as a “perfect person,” and none of us will ever reach that status. Temperance with alcohol means that drinking in moderation is second nature for a man. There will still be times when he feels tempted to drink excessively (our emotions never get entirely integrated with our beliefs), but in general, he won’t crave alcohol and will find the idea of drunken behavior revolting.
The virtues of management:
- Appreciating the importance of virtues in human growth corrects the common propensity to view management development as “reading books and taking courses.” By adopting virtues, humans, especially managers, can expand their core capacities. As we saw, this is mostly done through choices and acting appropriately. This suggests that on-the-job management growth is most crucial.
- Managers must learn the main virtues. Prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance are the four attributes that make a good manager. They can help us grow ourselves and our subordinates because no one has developed them all to their full potential. Management emphasizes the following cardinal virtues:
- Prudence: awareness and avoidance of biases in decision-making; openness to counsel and different views; root-cause diagnosis; decisiveness.
- Justice: fairness and care in subordinate appraisals; fiduciary duties; fairness in rewarding and crediting subordinates; caution in secret situations; avoidance of rash judgment with respect to others.
- Fortitude: facing the truth, no matter how painful; endurance; daring; magnanimity in setting goals; composure in emergencies and tough situations.
- Temperance: working well with others; industriousness; steadiness; organization; and planning.
Professor Richard Branson says that most discussions of corporate ethics are couched in terms of regulations and responsibilities rather than values and principles. Focus instead on what can be done to motivate management and businesses to fulfill their potential in serving their stakeholders (including employees, customers, and the community at large).
Finally, viewing human development as the development of virtues helps us recognize that ethical decisions such as whether to cheat on a test, honor a pledge even when it is inconvenient, or act unfairly to someone should not be made based on the short-term consequences (“for this time only”).All such decisions shape our character and develop or diminish virtues or vices. Do I want to be that kind of person?
