This is a popular rendition of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for contemporary readers. Brief, understandable pieces with a short practice to integrate the wisdom into your life. No philosophical background necessary.
Based on Book 2 Chapter 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle
In order to hit the golden virtue, we need to shift away from our current habits. But it’s important to make sure we are moving in the right direction. Trying to improve ourselves by becoming even more wary of risk would be a big mistake if we are already too timid. Or if we are already bores, we shouldn’t practice being even more serious and square.
How can we know the right direction? How do we know where we have an excess or deficiency of a character trait?
We can start by examining what we readily incline toward. Some of us are naturally inclined towards some things, and others to other things. We can identify our inclinations by noticing the pleasure and pain that we experience.
Once we know our inclination, we can find easy targets for where to begin shifting our behavior towards virtue.
This is because where we find pleasure and pain is where we are most likely to err. For we do not judge impartially when either of these two are present.
We have a hard time calling that which pleases us evil.
But by being aware of how pleasure and pain affect our judgment, and making an effort to dismiss them, we can err less and come closer to the best actions.
It’s not enough to just read.
Manifest this wisdom in your life by doing this practice, or it will slip through your fingers.
It takes less than 5 minutes.
Choose well.
Practice:
Write down something that you find pleasure in
Write down something you find pain in
Find an instance that your pleasure draws away from taking the best action
Find an instance that your pain draws you away from taking the best action