Posts from — May 2019

The ancient Greeks regarded the Good, along with Truth and Beauty, as attributes of the divine. Like three facets of a diamond, these qualities belonged to each other, a philosophical view that led to the development of the “virtue ethics” of Socrates and later, the Stoics, and to the Greek ideal of phronesis—a term that denoted living one’s life with the sort of practical wisdom that imbues it with the beauty we might associate with a work of art. To this day, the values of goodness and truth inhere in our sense of what it means to live well, and even those who seem tone deaf to the virtues espoused by the Greeks such as humility, courage, temperance, social responsibility, and so on—most notably those in positions of political power and influence—do so under cover of lies and dissembling, thus confessing that at some level, even they are aware that it is prudent to at least give the appearance of living up to the requirements of the true and the good. The truth, however, is not so easily cast aside, for hubris, lies, and hypocrisy have a bad smell that cannot be concealed for long. This is the lesson brought home by the classic Greek tragedies. Those who foolishly exaggerate the power of their will and flout what is true and good and beautiful unwittingly create a culture of ugliness that eventually turns on and destroys itself.

For many of us, good never seems to be good enough. The saying, “I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet,” reminds us to be grateful for the good that is ours. Without a measure of such gratitude, we may find ourselves chasing happiness, believing it to be ever somewhere else, and squander our days missing the sometimes transforming truth that there already is much in our lives that is good and beautiful. Remembering to appreciate the good that life has brought to us is indispensable to living well, a gem of wisdom that led the 13th century mystic Meister Ekhart to declare, “If your only prayer were ‘thank you,’ it would be sufficient.” Along these lines, Voltaire offers this cautionary observation: “Better is the enemy of good.”

Of course, good is also the enemy of better. This has to do with the downside of comfort zones, becoming complacent, settling for the merely acceptable, and so on. Life evolves. It seeks to become more, express more, find new forms, and if it were not for this ontological restlessness that drives and prods and reaches for the stars, we might all be blue green algae swimming about in a stagnant primordial pool. “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for,” Browning reminds us. So, there is a balance between gratitude and striving, between the truthful acknowledgment of all we have accomplished and the gravitational pull of our dreams. Phronesis discerns and lives this balance, so that we never allow our contentment to make us complacent, nor our desire for more to make us victims of ingratitude.

I often work with clients who haven’t yet arrived at this discernment. Struggling with a decision to move to a new city, quit a job, end a relationship, or make some other big change, they bring to the session a list of reasons that make their current situation wrong—as though one has to condemn where one is standing in order to move to higher ground. It hasn’t occurred to them that they can appreciate where they are, be grateful for what it has brought them and taught them, see its value in the longer arc of the story of their life, and either make the change or not from a place of willingness and nonresistance. It is possible to move to a new city or job without hating the old one, to leave behind a situation that one has outgrown with a sense of appreciation for how it served. Good and better don’t have to be enemies.

As with so many aspects of phronesis, this comes down to a matter of moving with the currents of experience rather than against them—in this case, with both our present situation and the natural tension that calls us to be, achieve, and realize more. The living present doesn’t stand still; it moves on, urging us to follow, to strive naturally, not chasing anything but simply allowing, following, and trusting the inner imperative to evolve—in these choices, good and better converge, rekindling the enthusiasm of youth and illuminating the path of human flourishing.