It’s not just about knowing a lot, but cultivating the values that you want to see around you.
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Practical training is important in life because, along with specific skill, it allows us to get better at our specific profession. But what gives true meaning to what we do is education in values and a good heart.
This kind of education provides us with a more human vision of life. The way we live and interact in the world is the evidence of our beliefs and values. Without an integral education of the whole person — even if you have a high-level academic degree — false beliefs and prejudices can prevent us from living in tune with reality.
In our day-to-day living, even if nothing appears to change around us, if we change, everything changes. Changes within us lead us to see new possibilities and, in some real ways, to effect a change in the environment around us.
True, integral human formation begins with and is based on love. It’s not simply a matter of intelligence or knowing a lot. It has to do with being a great person, without losing a constructive critical sense and discernment, but of giving priority to our values in life. This is where the true meaning of life begins.
Enthusiasm can be contagious, and so can a negative outlook. Nobility is contagious, and so is cynicism. If we want a world permeated by values, we must cultivate them – there is no other way. The best place to start? Ourselves. The followng qualities elevate our lives and guarantee a life full of meaning that will contagiously spread to the people around us:
1. Self-confidence
To the degree to which we learn to trust ourselves, we will learn to trust others.
2. Hope
We can hope because we have faith and are fed by a spiritual perspective that stimulates all we are and do.
3. Love
Love gives us the ability to transform our pain and suffering into the will to live, to make progress, and to love more. A life stimulated by love is a sign of an ongoing and intentional embrace of happiness.
4. Will to learn
We can learn a lot from mistakes if we face them with a positive attitude and healthy realism. The important thing is to reflect on our errors and come to concrete, take-home conclusions that help us improve in every aspect of life.
5. Positive attitude
If we begin the day by rising each morning with a positive attitude we will communicate this outlook to others. Our attitudes don’t always change problems because reality exists independently of our perceptions, but what we can change is the perspective with which we face them.
6. Vision of the future
When we exercise personal effort and determination, we each have a unique opportunity to change things, to improve, and to become stronger. Let us pursue the future we desire and not content ourselves with the outcomes and the life others might impose on us. Life is a gift which is greater than all obstacles in our way.
7. Integrity
It’s fundamental that we “walk the walk” and not simply “talk the talk” so as to preach by our example and by keeping our word. Only words accompanied by deeds have real weight.
Read more:
5 Daily attitudes that are key to finding happiness
