Category: prudence
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Prudent Career Advice from Ancient Greece
A quick scan of Amazon’s best seller list in the career development section reveals some well known titles. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity What Color is Your Parachute? How to Win Friends and Influence People All of these books offer solid advice, and a man…
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Star Wars Virtue
I write this post as hurricane Irene is bearing down on the east coast. Though so far it has been something of a let down. While I certainly don’t want mass damage, so far there has been little more than a steady rain. Oh well. [Note- not five minutes after completing the first draft of…
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The Virtues of Our Ancestors
I have incredibly deep roots in the northeast. Most of my family, on both maternal and paternal sides, came down from Canada into New York, Vermont and Massachusetts in the early to mid 1800’s. And as far as I can figure they were in Canada for a good 150-200 years before that. Recently, I visited…
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A Failure of Political Skill
Democracy may not be perfect, but it is the best form of government man has come up with to manage a free market, capitalist society. However, in order for a democracy to work its many factions need to have the requisite political skill to compromise in order to get things done. In the U.S. this…
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Self Improvement & The 5 Foot Shelf
I am going to take a break from my ongoing series on George Washington on Leadership in the Workplace to share something that I just recently came across. Now this may not be new to you- after all my quest to live and learn about the classical virtues is still in its infancy. However, even…
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What This Blog Is Not
A plethora of sites inhabit the blogoshpere that purport to teach you how to make the most of your life. They use terms like risk-taking, unconventional life and doing the impossible to motivate you to do more and live better. To steal a quote made famous by the US Army, they try to enable you…
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The Value of a College Education
A classical education is defined as one that focuses on the seven liberal arts. According to Andrew Kern over at The Circe Institute, “[c]lassical education is the only hope for democracy. It is the only form of education that can make people fit to rule themselves.” While I tend to agree with Mr. Kern, I…
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The Importance of Self-Control
I am a teacher. I understand the value of learning the “3 R’s”. I believe all sorts of schooling scenarios can work: public school, private school, home school or even guided independent study. A lot depends on the teacher and the type of student(s) involved. However, I also know that there are things even more…
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Living & Finding Meaning in Work
One thing I really enjoy is the reading of older self help books. By older I mean ones written between 1850 and 1920. The advice they give is often more clearly grounded in tangible acts of virtue than much of the modern,feel-good platitudinous works. The best resource for these treasures is Google Books. My latest…
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Plato and Our Current Culture
We like in a culture that feeds on itself. We build people and organizations up simply to tear them back down. Little attention do we devote to our own moral development. without each doing his part the whole of society can not improve. Does this sound like the current state of affairs in the modern…
Steve P Brady 