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“We need to set our affections on some good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing.” – Seneca the Younger

Who inspires you? Who morally do you respect and admire?

These are important questions because when we have a benchmark against which to measure ourselves, we are more likely to achieve success than if we have no points of reference.

Whatever you do, don’t measure yourself against a bent ruler.

The people whose character we should try to imitate are people who embody virtues.

For example, Christians aim to be Christ-like and measure themselves up against Jesus Christ.

The Stoics aim to embody good character and good deeds through practising virtues such as self-control, courage, justice and honesty.

Prominent Stoics were Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus.

Benjamin Franklin also aimed to live a virtuous life ( so he can be a good role model for benchmarking one’s character against).

Also, in Christianity, the saints are good examples of good character. 

You may have people in your life that you admire and aim to model certain character traits in yourself.

When you admire a character trait in someone else, aim to cultivate that in yourself.

For example, if you’re jealous of someone’s erudition, temperance, etc., that’s a clear sign that you should cultivate those traits in your character.

Alternatively, when we dislike something about someone’s character, we also dislike that in ourselves.

The aim is to model our behaviours from people who embody virtue.

And if they can embody virtue, we can learn from them to live virtuous, worthwhile, effective lives.

The ultimate goal is to live a saintly or virtuous life; all other achievements are byproducts of this.

To live an immorally wicked life with no sense of virtue leads to a life full of pain.

There are plenty of examples out there of this. You don’t have to look far.

The key to human flourishing is living a virtuous life.

Do you want to flourish? 

The singer Bob Dylan wrote a song called You’ve Got to Serve Somebody.

Bob is a Christian, and he chose to serve god.

When you serve God honestly, you aim to live your life by following virtues rather than vices. (Look up the seven heavenly virtues and the seven deadly sins.)

So by following god, you essentially serve virtues and aim to limit vices.

If you have no sense of who you’re serving, you’re probably serving the wrong things.

P.S. You don’t have to be religious to live a virtuous life.

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