"Lean your ladder on the right wall"

I still remember how I felt when I heard for the first time the words of Thomas Merton about climbing a ladder leaning on the wrong wall; I suffer from vertigo and I imagined myself being on one of the top rungs of a ladder, dizzy, super proud I made it to the top, and realizing only now that I have worked so hard to reach a place I do not want to be! What a waste of time and energy!

When we seek to achieve a goal that is not aligned with our values and aspirations, that's what we do: we climb the wrong ladder and it takes us in the wrong direction.

So, before setting our goals, we need to make sure that our goals and intermediate milestones will lead us to where we really want to go and help us become who we really want to become. 

Eudaemonia is a concept developed by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. He believed that the soul is concerned with growth and nourishment (see Treatise on The Soul) and that developing virtuous character traits, that he called core virtues or virtue ethics, is the way to achieve a fulfilling and happy life. 

Eudaemonia is the ultimate goal of human life, the highest good, not just a momentary state of well-being, but rather, a lasting state of happiness. Aristotle believed it was achieved through:

• becoming a good person, rather than choosing the right because of rules or a sense of duty (deontology), or because of the fear of the consequences of one's choices (consequentialism).
• the development of virtues such as courage, generosity, justice, reason, prudence, phronesis (practical wisdom), and balance (the Golden Mean). 

Phronesis is not just wisdom (Greek sophia) and it is not just about knowing what's right, it's about genuinely applying one's knowledge to lead a good and virtuous life, making sound judgements, and understanding the context of a situation to be able to act accordingly. I believe phronesis is a framework to help us practice and develop emotional intelligence which includes self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, empathy, and which is driven by intrinsic motivation. 

The Golden Mean, a concept that I talked about in my last blog post, is a way of living in a temperate manner, it is the search of a right middle, the mean between 2 extremes. It is finding the right amount of a virtue just as Goldilocks found the right porridge, not too hot, not too cold). According to Aristotle (Humphreys, 2019), the golden mean is to find the right amount between:

• cowardice (too little of courage) and rashness (too much of it)
  
• sarcasm (too little sincerity) and boastfulness (too much of it)
• insensibility (too little self-control) and intemperance (too much of it)

Positive Psychology (Niemiec, 2013) explains this principle as applying "the right combination of character strengths to the right degree and in the right situation."

Eating healthy, being prudent, or appreciating beauty and excellence is great, but how does too much (or too little) of that look like?

When you start to hunt added sugar, high fructose corn syrup, hormones, antibiotics, fertilizers, or pesticides in your food, believe me, you just become obsessed and you spend a fortune! You don't want to eat out or at your friends' house anymore because you know what they will put in your plate!

Being overly prudent, you may become too careful, too cautious, too stressed about hurting yourself or spending too much money. You may become paralyzed by fear, lack spontaneity, and miss opportunities to learn and grow.  

Appreciating excellence encourages you to improve, to do your very best, and to surround yourself only with beauty. Too much of it and you may become focused on details, flaws and imperfections. You may develop OCD-like urges and become so perfectionist that life becomes impossible for your loved ones. 

On the other extreme, too little of eating healthy, being prudent, and appreciating beauty and excellence, and you'd be eating junk food all the time, being reckless, and living like a pig...

You get the picture!

And, just for the record, if both eudaemonia and perfectionism seek excellence, eudaemonia is not perfectionism; perfectionism constantly seeks to meet impossibly high standards, and is driven by fear of judgement and fear of failure. It seeks external validation, and often involves intoxicating self-criticism, rumination over past events (especially the negative ones in which you failed to reach your unrealistic expectations), and debilitating inflexibility. On the other hand, eudaemonia seeks to live a fulfilled life with meaning and growth (self-actualization) and the greater good.  

References

Humphreys, Justin (2009). "Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Niemiec, R. M. (2013). Mindfulness and character strengths. Boston, MA: Hogrefe Publishing.