Saturday, June 18, 2011

What I've Been Reading

Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe. Barry Schwatz's TED speech catapulted him to well deserved quasi-celebrity status and this book delivers more than that famous speech. This is probably the only book where one can find the wisdom of a janitor and judge on the same page. 

"We can experience fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and generally any kind of pleasure and pain either too much or too little, and in either case not properly . But to experience all this at the right time, toward the right objects, towards the´right people, for the right reason, and in the right manner - that is the median and the best course, the course that is a mark of virtue." - Aristotle  

2500 years ago, Aristotle summed up particle wisdom in those simple words.  
Practical wisdom deficit in this country makes the economic deficit look minuscule. But yet nothing much can be done collective unless we as individuals perpetually hone the traits of sharing, learning, compassion and being conscientious. All this should be self-evident else... and yes, it's not self-evident to many. 

"The 24 character strengths Seligman identified include things like curiosity, open-mindedness, perspective, kindness and generosity, loyalty, duty, fairness, leadership, self-control, caution, humility, bravery, perseverance, honesty, gratitude, optimism, and zest. He organized these strength into six virtues; courage, humanity and love, justice, temperance, transcendence, and wisdom and knowledge. Aristotle would have recognized many of these strengths as the kind of "excellences" or virtues he considered necessary for eudaomonia, a flourishing or happy life." - Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman


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