Imagine you're standing at a crossroads, with infinite paths before you. Do you know which route aligns best with your core values, purpose, and leads to enduring fulfillment? Craig dives into the concept of Practical Wisdom, an ancient cardinal virtue, also known as 'phronesis', that serves as your guiding compass. In his discussion, he discusses how practical wisdom binds reason and virtues together, helping you make decisions that not only align with your virtues but also put them into action. Craig unravels how it goes beyond mere knowledge or intelligence, enabling you to see the bigger picture and understand how to take actions that resonate with your core values and contribute to the greater good.
In this enlightening conversation, Craig uses everyday life scenarios to demonstrate how practical wisdom can be applied to navigate life's tricky choices and avoid pitfalls. He wraps up the episode by exploring the journey of developing practical wisdom through self-knowledge, self-awareness, and critical reflection. Discover how practical wisdom can indeed make your road to excellence less rocky, guiding your decision-making, relationship building, professional life, lifestyle choices, and even how you treat the environment. Tune in and learn how to put your wisdom into practice to not just live an excellent life, but to become an excellent person.
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Live Well and Flourish website: https://www.livewellandflourish.com/
The theme music for Live Well and Flourish was written by Hazel Crossler, hazel.crossler@gmail.com.
Production assistant - Paul Robert
Craig 00:00
Welcome to Live Well & Flourish. I'm your host, Craig Van Slyke.
Picture yourself standing at a crossroads in your journey to living an excellent life. Before you lie infinite paths, each one leading off beyond the horizon. Which path should you choose? How do you decide which path is going to make sure that your journey resonates with your values and purpose, leading to enduring fulfillment? The proverbial compass that guides you through the maze of life isn’t some life hack or flavor-of-the-day “secret”, but an ancient, timeless concept: practical wisdom.
Practical wisdom is the key to unlocking an excellent life. According to Aristotle, living an excellent life means living a life of reason and virtue. Practical wisdom is not only the glue that binds reason and virtue, it also puts reason and virtue into action. Practical wisdom not only guides you in deciding what virtues to pursue, it also lets you make decisions that align with those virtues. Let’s dig into this a bit.
Craig 01:07
Aristotle called practical wisdom “phronesis” (after all, he didn't speak English) and he considered phronesis to be among the cardinal virtues, the foundational virtues from which all other virtues flow. To him, all virtues originate with practical wisdom, temperance, justice, and courage. But practical wisdom is not just A cardinal virtue, it’s THE cardinal virtue. Without practical wisdom, the other virtues are just ideas, not action.
The idea of practical wisdom goes beyond knowledge or intelligence; it’s what helps you figure out what’s really important, to see the big picture. Practical wisdom is the ability to understand how to take actions that align with your core values and the greater good. Another way to think about this is to break practical wisdom down in to its component words. I'll start with wisdom. Wisdom is the application of knowledge for the greater good. Practical, well, that just means not just exploring wisdom theoretically; it means putting wisdom into practice.
Craig 02:17
Let’s look at an example. Suppose you’re in a meeting and you start to get frustrated by one of your colleague’s seemingly unending questions (yeah, we've all been there). You face a choice. You can let your frustration come to the surface and yell at your colleague to stop asking stupid questions so the meeting can move on. Or, you can calmly suggest some alternative, maybe tabling the item so that the colleague’s questions can be answered in a more appropriate venue (and so the meeting can move on). Because you’ve developed your practical wisdom, you realize that getting angry is contrary to the important virtues of kindness and temperance, so you decide to temper your anger and handle the situation calmly.
You can probably think of lots of similar examples. Maybe your child spilled some milk after you told them to be careful, or, as happened with us recently, your puppy had a rather spectacular accident on the carpet (thank god for carpet steamers). We face dozens of little choices every day; many, probably most of them involve choices about acting with or against our virtues. Your practical wisdom is what lets you make the right choices. Practical wisdom lets you live your virtues. Without practical wisdom to put virtue into practice, virtue is just a lot of hot air, or, as the saying goes, sound and fury signifying nothing.
Craig 03:45
Each one of these choices determines how rocky your road to excellence will be. I think of a life of excellence as being kind of a twisty path filled with lots of detours and missteps. Developing your practical wisdom lets you suffer fewer of the detours and missteps by keeping you on the path of virtue. Practical wisdom also lets you critically examine what led to your missteps, helping you avoid similar errors in the future.
The opportunities to apply practical wisdom are endless, literally, at least until your life on this Earth is over. You can apply practical wisdom to your relationships, your professional life, your lifestyle choices, or how you spend your time, communicate, treat the environment … every aspect of your life is touched by practical wisdom. Practical wisdom even helped guide my decision to record this episode. It really is THE cardinal virtue.
Craig 04:40
Here’s the thing though; we aren’t born with practical wisdom. You gain practical wisdom through your life experiences. Every waking moment offers opportunities to develop your practical wisdom. I went into how to develop practical wisdom in some detail in episode 54, which you can find at livewellandflourish.com/54. For now, I’ll just say that developing practical wisdom requires a combination of self-knowledge, self-awareness, and critical reflection. I think of practical wisdom as being an incredibly valuable resource that can pay huge returns. So, it's wise to invest in your practical wisdom.
I’m going to close with this thought. The single best thing you can do to live an excellent life is to develop your practical wisdom. The journey to excellence is filled with confusing crossroads and treacherous detours. Practical wisdom can keep you on the right path. Consciously and continuously put your wisdom into practice and you’ll not only live an excellent life, you’ll be an excellent person. Lord knows the world needs more of those.
Until next time, stay wise my friends.