The Most Important Virtue

What’s the most important virtue? Is it charity? Kindness? Tolerance? Faith? Perhaps. But here is a way to look at the question that personalizes the answer and tailor fits it to you: The most important virtue is the missing trait needed to counter the worst character flaw you have. What is the most egregious flaw? The one that is hurting others the most.

Are you a lying cheat? Honesty or perhaps integrity is the trait most in need of your immediate attention. Is your anger problem destroying relationships left and right? Patience is the virtue with your name on it! Maybe you find yourself without hope or prospect in life. And perhaps you find yourself most often wishing for better opportunities and better things in life while reclined in comfortable repose before the boobtube, bag of chips in one hand, remote in the other. May I suggest, then, that just maybe a good dose of get-up-and-go might be the best moral medicine for such an ailment?

The point here is, I suppose, that Mother Teresa hardly needed retraining on love or charity. She had it in spades. Gandhi hardly needed to work on his humility or selflessness. So with each of us. We all have our unique moral flaws. It’s part of the human condition.

But there is no cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all answer to the moral question either. What is most important for me to work on may be entirely different for you because, well, I’m me and you’re you. Duh! The people in my life may be most hurt by one or one set of character flaws totally different from the one(s) plaguing your family members and friends.

In the end, the issue seems to be what we are doing with those flaws. Do we keep them tucked away in a back pocket, hidden from plain view, but available for easy use when desired? Or have we entered them as permanent features on grand To-Do-Eventually lists?

Well, today is a good day to remove from back pockets old dusty lapses in character and erase from permanent To-do lists those flaws that seem to keep popping up and hurting those we love. Write in pencil because it won't stay long this time!

So go look in the mirror ... today ... right now ... and take an accounting. Set a goal or two. Notice what you do and how you do it in relation to the flaw of concern. Then begin to make strides toward mastering the trait most needed as a check on that weakness, one character flaw at a time … one bite at a time … beginning with that one that is most keeping you from being the person you most want ... and ought ... to be.

Back to Heart & Soul

Five Unexpected Steps to Better Health

"So many things to do and not enough time to do them all!" goes the familiar lament. And yet our physical health is vital to having the energy and stamina to eventually do all the things we feel are most critical. Besides, having an extra 10 years of healthy life can improve the odds tremendously in accomplishing such things that call for our regular attention. So how do we add yet another activity, another time-consuming To-Do item on our already too-long list of things screaming for our attention? Some answers may lie in some of the following unexpected health-promoting activities.

CALL ME A DOCTOR, PLEASE! The Case for Therapy

When my two-year old son came sprinting around my open car door faster than his little legs could carry him, he stumbled forward and face-planted into the running board of my 4Runner. His forehead split open on impact. Blood trickled down his eyebrow as his screams of horror pierced the stratosphere and neighborhood wondows rattled.

C.S. Lewis and the Living House

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what He is doing.

Five Must-have Character Traits

What kind of person are you? Can it be rightly said that you are a person of integrity? Are you an honest person or a liar? Are you forthcoming, or deceiptful? Are you diligent or lazy? Humble or proud? Wise or foolish? Selfless or selfish?

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

Most things require baby steps to see large things accomplished. Just like the joke asks: How do you eat an elephant?

Punch-line: One bite at a time.

That's how the light bulb was created, the plane invented, the atom split -- one step, one experiment, one more try at a time.

Games are won one hit, one out, one run at a time. Great pieces of art are painted one brush stroke at a time and soaring scores of music are written just one note, one stanza, one movement at a time.

And that's how lives and character is built and reshaped and reinforced: One day, one triumph, one goal, one step at a time.

Keep that in mind as you find yourself struggling your way through life! Even life itself can only be lived, but one moment at a time.

In 10 years, you will be 10 years older. But will you be wiser, smarter, richer, better, thinner, healthier? Take the next step. Just one. You don't need to worry about achieving anything. You are merely stepping forward. So step!

Set a goal. Work to acheive it. Let nothing stand in your way that shouldn't. You will likely make strides toward acheiving it. Then, when satisfied, choose another trait and work on that. Then find yet another.

A Case for New Year Resolutions

I’m going to lose 15 pounds this year! I’m going to read 15 books this year! I’m going to stop smoking or start running or stop eating donuts or start eating whole wheat bran muffins! I’m going to stop yelling so much at the kids (or my spouse, or the neighbor, or my mom, or the dog)! I’m going to get a job or quit my job or advance within my job or go back to school so I can get my dream job or turn my current hobby into a job! I’m going to stop this or start that or change these or develop those!