On Virtue and Mattering

My final thoughts of 2023 are not a reflection on the year that was, for that is done, but a desire and focus for 2024.

"The human being is born with an inclination toward virtue."

The words of Musonius Rufus. See p. 324, The Daily Stoic.

We are born good. The world turns us otherwise. Externalities have corrupted our internal nature.

But we are not defenseless. We have free will. We can choose good over the other.

This, as I understand it, is to be virtuous.

"That which isn't good for the hive, isn't good for the bee."

The words of Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. See p. 297, The Daily Stoic.

We do not stand alone. We are of something greater than us and that something is intertwined.

As Ryan Holiday notes, Aurelius took this thought further by stating the inverse, "That which doesn't harm the community can't harm the individual."

We live in a time of immense individualistic focus. How's your personal brand doing?

We have detached ourselves from the greater whole and it is having profound effects on our individual and collective mental and physical health. And, as someone that lives is a small rural community, it has eroded the economic and community capital that used to sustain small towns and support flourishing lives.

We will individually prosper when we make good and wise actions for the whole.

"To matter, people must feel valued — heard, appreciated and cared for — and they must feel like they add value in ways that make them feel capable, important and trusted."

The words of Prilleltensky Isaac, University of Miami professor and co-author of “How People Matter.”

It's difficult to think of the whole when it feels like the whole does not think of us.

2024 needs to be the year when each of us helps the rest of know that they matter.

We are also living in a time of deep despair, or what David Brooks calls a "social and emotional breakdown."

Overdose deaths are up. Rates of addiction, depression, and suicide are up. And those that say they have no close personal friends has quadrupled.

We do not feel like we matter.

And it is all our fault; yours and mine.

People do not feel like they matter, like they are part of something bigger. So, people are turning deeper inward, or even worse, they are finding mattering in groups at the extremes of society.

I love the way Dr. Gordon Flett, a professor at York University puts it: mattering comes down to the feeling that when you walk into a room, someone notices you.

You are noticed because of your worth to the whole.

From the New York Times on mattering:

Research suggests that people who feel like they matter experience more self-compassion, relationship satisfaction, and greater belief in their capacity to achieve their goals, while lack of mattering is associated with burnout, self-criticism, anxiety, depression, aggression and increased risk of suicide.

My quest for 2024 is to be more virtuous and to help people see that they matter.