The prerequisite for Applied Moral Wisdom is a well-formed conscience that characterizes the maturity of adulthood. The Principles of Right Action guide the application of Moral Wisdom. Conscience is never perfect. We all error and previous learning and other influences can hinder the development of an informed conscience. Fear commonly impedes the development of conscience.

Since Consistency of Thought and Action in Applied Moral Wisdom is a good thing, why are so many people inconsistent? They are not. A great number of people ARE consistent in Thought and Action. Unfortunately, they consistently make the poor decision to do the wrong actions. Life is like a box of Syllogisms. Without them, you will never know what kind of relationships you will form. Consistency in thought and action is essential to applying moral wisdom consistently.

Conscience exists along a continuum from infantile to enlightened. Very few people live at the extremes of the Continuum. Enough do, however, to make all the difference in the world, for good or bad. What’s in your Conscience?  Earlier, we discussed the Cardinal Virtues. These are the hinges that open the way to the other virtues. Now we are concerned with the three ethical schools of Applied Moral Wisdom. Think about Ethics as your hammer designed to facilitate the use of Applied Moral Wisdom.

Maturity is not a matter age. It is a matter of enjoying an informed conscience through the living of a virtuous life.  Rather than living as a spiritual person, a person of gentleness, we become more interested in living up to the standards of a competitive world in which only winners are valued as successful.  “Life is short.” I’ve heard this most of my life. Now I am old enough to know that it is true. Now I wonder where the years went. “When all is said and done”, I see that building character is the authentic legacy of every human life. 

The sentiment “Forever Forward” is a call to move forward, to grow, to forever develop oneself for relationship. It is a sentiment ignited by the deep desire to love and be loved, to connect with other human beings, to connect and be respectfully acknowledged.

We cannot move forward in growth if we fail to live a virtuous life. “Forever Forward” is life’s injunction to “Cultivate the virtues”. By doing so, we build our characters.

Think about how we live, how we move, how we learn, how we reflect, how we enjoy relationships, how we eat, drink and celebrate. Everything has an order to it.

There is an order to existence on earth. Life, living, and death all follow one from the other. For human beings, Moral Wisdom makes this work well. Applied Moral Wisdom enables human beings to live a life of moral order.

Gentleness requires constant attention. For the deeply spiritual person, gentleness is the guiding attitude. Deeply spiritual people see all creatures as suffused by a Cosmologically Divine Love. For the deeply spiritual person, therefore, every person evokes a gentleness formed in love. Authentic Gentleness cannot be experienced any other way except through Love.

If you wish to enjoy the fruits of personal development, you must take action that you understand, learn to tame your restlessness, nurture an appetite for solitude, contemplate the mystery of your existence, and seek silence to foster self-renewal whenever you can so you can lover more and hate less.

The love of noise and excitement in modern civilization is due in part to the fact that people are unhappy on the inside. Noise exteriorized them, distracts them, and makes them forget their worries for the moment. There is an unmistakable connection between an empty life and a hectic pace. ─ Fulton Sheen

Since Consistency of Thought and Action in Applied Moral Wisdom is a good thing, why are so many people inconsistent? They are not. A great number of people ARE consistent in Thought and Action. Unfortunately, they consistently make the poor decision to do the wrong actions. Life is like a box of Syllogisms. Without them, you will never know what kind of relationships you will form. Consistency in thought and action is essential to applying moral wisdom consistently. Today, reality is not clear as people assert new neo-syllogisms that expand the nature and reality of lived experience. Thus, we now see syllogisms such that A can be A and not A at the same time. Hence a new morality emerges in which reality is only an epiphenomenon of itself. Now by assertion, rather than logical discourse, reality is not what reality is. It is up to the daily observer 

When I speak about the Spirituality of Executives, I am speaking about the intrinsic qualities that illuminate Moral Wisdom. These qualities include the Cardinal Virtues and the derivative values such as respect, gratitude, fairness, integrity, decency, honesty, kindness, generosity, love, and gentleness. The more people can order their lives to express these spiritual attributes, the more people can live a more fulfilling and rewarding life. Gaining gentleness requires spiritual depth. We must respect others even more than we respect ourselves, to know their limits, and then love them even more.