What are Moral Virtues?

To figure out why patience is a virtue we need to figure out what a virtue is.

A virtue is an excellence. It's a part of something that makes that thing better. For instance, a sharp blade is the virtue of a knife. It helps the knife do its job well. 

Moral virtues are excellencies of people. They're parts of people's character that helps them live well. Usual suspects for moral virtues are courage, temperance (moderation), and wisdom.

Patience is a moral virtue. It helps you avoid things that take you away from a flourishing and happy life. But how does patience lead you toward happiness?

Here's where a quote from philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre's helps. I made a picture of his quote to share with you. For more pictures like this follow us on Instagram.

Waiting Attentively Without Complaint

As the quote says, patience is the virtue of waiting attentively without complaint. Why does waiting attentively lead you toward flourishing in life?

Imagine you're a domino. You've been lined-up in one of those all-so-satisfying lines of dominoes. If setup properly, tipping the first domino causes the rest to fall in a chain reaction. You're awaiting your turn to fall. To properly play your part you need to wait until the domino before you falls. Otherwise, you'll break the chain. You'll prevent the harmony of the whole run of dominoes gracefully falling.

What's the analogy? The chain of dominoes is the social-causal chain. We are social animals. We must wait on people and systems to do their part. Then it's our turn to move. Unlike the domino, we must wait attentively to spot when it's our turn. Playing our part requires attention and discernment. Patience involves waiting until it's our turn to act.

Happiness emerges when we give our gifts and talents to move forward the wave of social-causal forces. We become part of something bigger than our individual self. We partake in the beauty of the whole sequence that flows through us. There's joy in playing this part well.

When we get impatient it's as if we throw down our domino (our self) before the time is right...before it's our turn in the sequence. We break the chain. We separate ourselves from the beauty of what could have been had we paid attention and acted when the moment was right.

Waiting Attentively Without Complaint

There's one last part to MacIntyre's quote...waiting attentively without complaint.

This one's tough. Keeping with the domino analogy, it's one thing to wait until the moment is right and channel the causal chain through your person. But it's another thing to sit there and not complain when it seems like the first domino has never been pushed over.

Waiting is hard. It's hard to not start complaining. My wife and I have been waiting to become parents for quite some time. It's been hard to not complain or feel like things should happen faster...on our terms...in our time. But life has its own pace.

When we complain we make ourselves miserable while waiting to receive our portion in life.

When it's our turn to move, if we've been complaining we may not have the best mindset to best play our part. Instead of gripping the opportunity, shaping it like clay on a potter's wheel, firing it in an oven, and shipping it off, we complain about the lump of clay we received.

Instead of working with what we've got, the habit of complaining bleeds over. It impacts our work once it's time to act. It leads to inaction. After all, it's easier to keep complaining than to take action.

This leads away from happiness because we don't get joy out of playing our part in life. And we don't get satisfaction from contributing to the wave of energy flowing through our activity in a social context.