Nobility is not about being better than anyone else...

Nobility is not about being better than anyone else. It's about striving to be better than you used to be...

Why do people stop trying to be better? Or good even, and when? Does it happen the first time we tell a lie and get away with it, or the first time we steal? Maybe it is after we first get caught and get off, that we realize we have the ability to lie and steal with impunity. It could simply be that one day when we're young, and have still been making the daily effort to live an honorable life, we decide after witnessing countless lies and endless theft around us, to give up the honorable life. After all, why should we be the only "saps" that aren't getting ahead? Yup, one day we simply decide give up on honor...

We know this isn't right on some level, but we decide in our greed that we deserve more than honor is providing. We say, "Everyone else is doing it," and we call those still maintaining their honor "squares," or "losers." We do feel badly about our "fall from grace," we do think of ourselves as sinners, but we rationalize that "greasing palms" is what makes the world go around. We didn't invent this. We need to, "Go along to get along."

This simply isn't true...

In the movie "Rob Roy," Liam Neeson's character, Robert Macgregor, is asked by one of his young sons what honor is. He answers, "It is a gift a man gives to himself, and one that no man can take away." This one line sums it up. In a world filled with treachery, and so filled with deceit that it sometimes feel like the Earth itself is moving underfoot, nothing can keep you from acting honorably, except you, except yourself.

Within the concept of Normative Ethics, which establishes a baseline for what is considered a normal moral character, lies Virtue Ethics, defined as: "The individual should choose for his/her own personal inward behavior (character) rather than the individual relying solely on the external laws and customs of the person's culture" (Gowdy). However, from our external laws and customs we learn OUR sense of the word Virtue. In today's world, that sense almost entirely means a duty towards others, to our country, to our familes, to our cultural demands. But, to the Ancient Greeks, Virtue was something else, it was an ideal, not to be followed, as in a set of fixed cultural norms, but as a duty to oneself. "Good" was not rigid, not set in stone, but something to strive for, an ideal that couldn't be reached, but an immortal truth that made you greater simply through the striving...

Nobility is about striving to be better than you used to be... Dogs are truly noble. It's why we love them. They never fail in their nobility. WE don't have to either. BEing noble does not mean being perfect. It means never faltering in our personal ideals. It means holding ourselves to a higher standard, always trying to improve. Nobility is reaching for an unreachable goal, knowing that our effort alone makes us better...

Today, don't follow the crowd. Look into the eyes of each spirit you come across and strive to give them the best of yourself. BE the person you would love to meet. BE the person you would love to have next to you in life...

Duffy