the good life

She had to deal with being criticized, condemned, kicked out of places, bothered, and pretty much shunned, but she did not let this stop her from upholding her duty to her father. She knew she had something she needed to do, and even though no one was there to assist her, she found a way to make it work all by herself.

Self: Responsibility: Integrity

When I think of integrity, I think mostly about morals. I believe that having integrity means having the right philosophies and morals that lead to the best life possible. Integrity is something that is built throughout life; we cannot possibly possess all of our moral values at a young age simply because we have not experienced all that life has to offer. Our views will change and our morals will too, but it is important that no matter what our morals and opinions are, they always need to point us in the direction of the Good Life.

I share one of my views on integrity with Lady Philosophy from The Consolation of Philosophy. She says that as long as we follow our philosophies and morals, everything will turn out alright. I agree—as long as we have the right morals in the first place. Without mental maturity, it is quite difficult to pick out the right moral views. I feel as if in this section of my life, I have been pretty successful. There is always room for improvement, of course, but I believe that I have established a fairly well-rounded bundle of morals and philosophies that I will continue to build on until the day I die—as everyone should. But, in order to live the good life, we must not simply possess the right moral values—we must abide by them in everything that we do. This is the tough part because it is not always easy to do the right thing when it may not be the easiest...

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...ave is not human, we will never fundamentally be equal to that being, but we are able to get pretty close. In order to approach the top of the cave, we have to make choices that are morally right. At any given point in our lives we operate from a set of assumptions about what is real. The assumptions are based on what we have been told and what we extrapolate to be real. We must ask ourselves “What is true in the world?” It is easy for us to believe that we know the truth, but we must gain enough wisdom to understand that we are unable to completely understand the divine. One of the easiest ways for us to be thoughtful is by contemplating virtues and philosophies. The most important virtue we possess is an intellectual humility—the willingness to say we possess some knowledge and we know what we believe to be true, but we recognize we have frailties and weaknesses.