How to Be Perfect

We can all probably identify some starter kit we had as kids. From a very early age I was an extreme rule follower—or maybe let’s say I was “inclined toward the virtue of dutifulness,” so I don’t sound like such a suck-up.

The more we try to learn and understand the lives being led by other people—the more we search for a golden mean of empathy—the less we will find it permissible to treat them with cruelty.

if we don’t practice mildness, learn how to fine-tune it, and regularly check in with ourselves about whether what we are doing is appropriately mild, we might someday end up drooling while other kids get bullied or punching our friends in the face.

The best thing about Aristotle’s “constant learning, constant trying, constant searching” is what results from it: a mature yet still pliable person, brimming with experiences both old and new, who doesn’t rely solely on familiar routines or dated information about how the world works.

habituation, the practice of working at our virtues, is really the whole shebang here. And the great thing about Aristotle’s sales pitch is that he says habituation can work for any virtue—even ones we seemingly weren’t born with aptitudes for, ones where our starter kits are old, rusted toolboxes that are missing all their screwdrivers.

we have to practice generosity, temperance, courageousness, and all the other virtues, just like annoying Rob practiced his annoying bagpipes. Aristotle’s plan requires constant study, maintenance, and vigilance. We may have been born with those starter kits, but if we don’t develop them through habituation—if we just kick back and rely on them as

What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Is there something we could do that’s better? Why is it better?

If we really work at finding the means of our virtues—learning their ins and outs, their vicissitudes and pitfalls, their pros and cons—we become flexible, inquisitive, adaptable, and better people.

flourishing, you see, doesn’t just require us to identify and then acquire all of these virtues—it requires that we have every one in the exact right amount.