How To Make Wise Decisions: The Ancient Philosophy Of Prudence

Why do some people consistently make wise decisions while others keep making the same mistakes?

Why do some people see consequences before everyone else?

Why do some people repeatedly make good judgments about their careers, finances, relationships, and families, while others spend years recovering from avoidable decisions?

And perhaps the most important question of all:

Can you actually become wiser?

The ancient philosophers believed the answer was yes.

In this episode of The Examined Life, Dr. Scott M. Sullivan explores the virtue of prudence, the habit of wise judgment that enables us to see reality clearly, deliberate well, and choose the right course of action when certainty is impossible.

Drawing on the wisdom of Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, and the broader tradition of classical philosophy, you'll discover how the greatest philosophical minds understood practical wisdom, and more importantly, how you can begin cultivating better judgment in your own life.

Because wise decisions change everything.

They help you choose the right career instead of simply the most attractive one.

Build stronger marriages and healthier families.

Avoid costly mistakes before they happen.

Lead others with sound judgment instead of impulse.

Respond thoughtfully instead of emotionally.

Recognize opportunities others overlook.

And gradually build a life shaped by wisdom rather than regret.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why prudence is not the same thing as intelligence

• Why the ancient philosophers called prudence the charioteer of the virtues

• The three ways our judgment fails: rashness, paralysis, and false prudence

• Why experience alone does not make us wiser

• The habits shared by people who consistently exercise good judgment

• Practical lessons from Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, and history's most prudent leaders

• The 3×3 Method: a simple daily practice for making wiser decisions, one day at a time

The purpose of philosophy is not simply to understand the world.

It is to help us navigate it wisely.

To make better decisions.

To become better parents.

Better spouses.

Better leaders.

Better friends.

Better human beings.

Because your life is built one decision at a time.

And better decisions build better lives.

Recommended Reading

• Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics (Book VI)

• Cicero: On Duties (De Officiis)

• Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae (Prudence)

The Examined Life takes the timeless wisdom of the world's greatest philosophers and transforms it into practical tools for living a happier, wiser, stronger, and more flourishing life.

Vita Examinata.

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrScottMSullivan
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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Every bad decision you ever made seemed like a good idea at the time. Think about that for a moment because I think it explains something that most people never noticed. Because you didn't make the wrong decisions because you wanted to choose the wrong thing. You made them because in that moment the wrong path looked like the right one. And isn't that what makes bad decisions so dangerous, right? They don't announce themselves as bad decisions, they disguise themselves as good ones, at least at the time. And that's the problem this episode is about. Because a lot of times the hard question in a man's life is never about should I be good. Everybody kind of knows this already. We should be honest and fair. And nobody really wakes up confused about that. The question that actually wrecks lives is different. We know we should do the right thing. We know that. But the question is, what does the right thing look like here and now in this particular situation? We all know the general moral principles, but here and now, in this spot, given these circumstances, what's the right thing to do? Should I take this job? Should I say the hard thing to my son or just let it go? Should I invest money into this? Or wait? Should I push my guys harder or back off? You see, principles don't answer those questions, right? They don't tell you those kind of details. They give you the general destination. Be honest, be just be courageous. But they don't tell you the particular thing to do here and now. They give you the destination, but they don't give you that pathway here and now. The virtue that finds that pathway is prudence. And I think it might be very underrated, maybe the most underrated virtue in our time, because the word's kind of been messed up. Today, prudence sounds like a synonym for being a sissy or timid or you know, just backing off. Oh, be prudent. Don't do anything. That's not what it meant. The Greeks called it phronesis. The Roman philosophers called it prudentia, comes from the word profidere, to see ahead. And the medieval gave it a title that really is helpful, I think. They called it the auriga virtuum, the charioteer of the other virtues. They saw the other virtues like a horse, the other virtues like horses. And prudence is the man with the reins. Without the charioteer, the horses don't know where to go. Without prudence, the other virtues don't know where to go. Courage without prudence is recklessness. Generosity, giving money away, right? Without prudence can be a waste. Justice without prudence can be a well-meaning man who's doing a lot of damage. You know, in the last episode we talked about, in an earlier episode, we talked about the importance of courage. You know, do you have the courage to do what's right? Well, prudence is do you know what the right thing is? You can't be properly courageous doing the right thing, having the courage to face your fears and doing the right thing if you don't know what the right thing is. So again, prudence guides the other virtues. You need to have a thriving life. And I've been arguing you need these other virtues to have a thriving life, so prudence is the guide for all of them. In that sense, it's it's it's the charioteer is important for where the horses go, where your life is going. You got to have prudence. So that's what we're gonna talk about today, and it's really just the habit of developing practical wisdom. And maybe you don't think you're that wise. That's okay. As I say, with all the virtues, these are learned mental skills. You don't born, you're not born prudent. Prudent is something you can learn, you can develop it. But that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk about what prudence really is. It's not just being smart. We're gonna talk about why prudence matters, why if you want a good and happy life, you have to have prudence. You gotta make wise decisions if you want a happy, if you want a happy life. I'm gonna talk about ways you can mess it up. Three ways you can fail to be prudent. It's always to good look out, it's always good to look out for the errors. You know, we do this in martial arts. I'm gonna teach you a certain joint lock. Don't do this. This will mess the lock up. Do it this way. So the right way and the wrong way. You can kind of compare them. Um, it's always good to look at examples, what prudence looks like in ordinary life. And of course, last but not least, I'm gonna give you a daily method for developing this habit. I'm gonna give you a proven method for becoming wiser, more prudent in your life. This is the Examine Life podcast. It's about making our lives better, not just getting a bunch of head knowledge. This is applied philosophy 101. Yes, we we do want the head knowledge. I want to know what prudence is, but I just don't want to stop there. I want prudence to become me, you know. I want to actualize it in my life, in my mind, not just have the head knowledge. I know what prudence is, but I don't apply it. What good is that? Right? And, you know, the goal here, of course, is to make better decisions because if your decisions become better, the your life becomes better too. The quality of your life is going to be determined largely by the quality of your decisions. The quality of your life is largely determined by the quality of your decisions, and a good life is built one good decision at a time. So let's take that first part. What is prudence? Well, the short answer is the quick elevator pitch definition of prudence is the settled habit of making good decisions. A mental habit of making good decisions. That's the short one. Expand it a little bit more precisely. Okay. It's the habit of seeing your situation clearly, identifying the right goal, and then choosing the best way to get there. Identifying the right, seeing your situation clearly, identifying the right end or goal, and finding the best means to get there. That's prudence. The medieval philosophers had a really good four-word explanation definition, I guess. Prudence is right reason applied to action. Right reason applied to action. Four words. Well, right reason applied to action, sorry, five words. Right? The entire virtue, right reason applied to action. Maybe the shortest definition of prudence ever written, but it's a good one. The prudent person, the man who has wise judgment, can see what his goals are and then discover the best ways to get them. That's a great working definition. It's Aristotle's definition, too. In his great book, uh The Nickelmachean Ethics, he describes phronesis, prudence, that's a true and reason ability to act with regard to what is good for the human being. Not just to know what's good in the abstract, but to act in relation to that. And then he immediately draws a distinction, and I want you to hold on to this for the rest of this episode here. Prudence is not the same thing as intelligence. It's not just being smart. There's different things. Aristotle separates these three things. Number one, there's wisdom, what he calls Sophia, just kind of like knowing high-level truths. Wisdom knowing high-level truths about the universe, so to speak. You know what I mean? Not down to earth, but abstract, high-level. He gives a word for that. Theoretical wisdom or Sophia. And there's what he calls techne, craft, knowing how to make things. Those things aren't prudence. They're different kinds of being smart. You know, but they're not prudence. Prudence, phronesis, is knowing what to do. And these things fall apart all the time. People are good in one and not the other. We all probably know brilliant people whose life is a disaster. Maybe they can explain high-level things, I don't know, you know, like astrophysics or astrophysics or something, right? They're great at that, but they can't even manage their own household. Maybe they can win arguments and debates with their friends over, I don't know, politics or whatever, but their own life is a wreck. Their marriage is a wreck. They might have knowledge, they might have Sophia, but no phronesis, no prudence. And the opposite's true too. Maybe a guy who's maybe not that educated, really. Read slowly, but just somehow every every judgment the guy makes turns out to be a good one. And if you ask him, how'd you know that, man? He really can't tell you. This man has the virtue. So prudence is about knowledge of particulars. That's why it just can't be reduced to general rules. It's taking those general rules and applying them to the here and now. Here's another very good point that Aristotle makes about prudence, about practical wisdom. Young people don't have it. Young people cannot be wise in this way. Why? They don't have enough life experience. They might be very smart. A young person can be a brilliant mathematician, but not a prudent man. Mathematics is abstract. Prudence is about concrete cases, and knowledge of concrete cases comes from having seen a lot of them. Right? The best way for young people to be prudent is for them to follow the advice of their elders. Teenagers should listen to their parents. They can participate in the prudence of older people. That's prudent in that way, right? Um, but yeah, prudence is not about the general rules, right? No rule tells you how to firmly discipline this child, this particular child right here and now in these circumstances with her personality. There's no general rule that will do that. Or whether this employee here deserves one more chance, or whether right now is the time to change careers. You see, prudence it lives in the particulars. Here's another point. This one comes from Aquinas. I think it's a gem.

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Thomas Aquinas says that prudence kind of unfolds in three acts. Prudence occurs in three successive acts. And the prudent man has to complete all three. Act one is counsel, concilium, investigating, gathering information, finding out what you don't know. The prudent man does that first. Then the second thing the prudent man does is make a judgment. After you've done the investigation, okay, which one of these is the best one? Make that judgment. Which course is the best, you know, path or action? Counsel, judgment. And the third act, Aquinas says, is command. Pray cheptum. Acting on that. Do it. Do it. Actually apply that path. Apply that action. Move. And then Aquinas says, the thing that kind of explains everything, that the commanding part is the main part. You've got to have the others, but if you don't, that doesn't even come to fruition if you don't take the action. So it's not just deliberating, it's not just judging which path is the best, best one, it's the command to do it. And you think about how many people smart people don't take that third step. I'm one of these people, straight up honest. I overthink things, right? I'm one of these people. So this is my problem. And a lot of people's problem who maybe think too much. You know, we gather more information, we read another book, listen to another podcast, ask one more friend, wait another month, think about it some more. They mistake endless deliberation for wisdom. Aquinas says it isn't. Prudence reaches its completion only when reason finally says, now, act. Because the man who researches beautifully and weighs carefully all the different options and then just sits there, he's not prudent at all. It's an act of prudence that never, an act of prudence that never results in action is never an act of prudence. I mean, there comes a point when the thinking's got to stop and the acting's got to start, right? So those those three acts of Aquinas is like deliberate, make a judgment, and then boom, act, do something. The prudent man acts. So, our definition: prudence is the settled habit of seeing reality clearly, judging wisely, and then commanding yourself to act. It's not just knowing what's right, it's doing it. Now let's ask a rather silly question. Why prudence matters? Why you need to care about being more prudent. But that's how I'm going to answer it. State the obvious. Um, the reason why you need to care about prudence is because every important outcome in your life is preceded by a decision. Every important decision you, every outcome in your life was preceded by a decision. And the quality of your life is to a remarkable degree the accumulated results of the decisions you made. Better decisions, better life, worse decisions, worse life. Your marriage is built decision by decision. Your career is built decision by decision, your finances, your friendships, your character, and even your happiness. This is why the philosophers place such an extraordinary importance on prudence. This is the charioteer, the man holding the reins of your little chariot. The auriga virtuum of the medieval. Every other virtue faces the same problem. It tells you what to aim at, but not how much, when, or towards where. Courage says, Stay firm. But is this the moment to stand firm or should I withdraw? Prudence decides. Justice says, give people what you owe them. Okay, but what do I exactly in this situation with all these variables? What do I owe this person here in this situation? Prudence decides. Temperance says, govern your appetites. Okay. But can I have an extra drink tonight? Prudence decides. That's why prudence is the charioteer of the other virtues. It's the guy holding the reins of the other horses in the chariot. And you can't get more important than that. What's more important than this? Your life is the sum of your judgments. Name one thing more important than that. Making better judgments. Can't think of anything, can you? It's not your intentions. It's what you actually decide to do. No one's ever been sunk by their intentions. Right? People are sunk by bad choices. Usually not one catastrophic one. That can't happen. But it's not usually like that. It's usually a series of smaller bad ones over time. One bad investment, one marriage entered into too quickly, one avoided conversation, one dishonest compromise. Maybe none of those are decisive, but they add up. And together they become a life. You see, your future is built one judgment at a time. In most cases, a good life is rarely ruined by one catastrophic decision. It's usually shaped by thousands of ordinary ones. And prudence is the only virtue where experience helps, where being older helps. One of the benefits of being older is hopefully is you're more prudent. You can have the other virtues. You can be young and brave, you can be young and honest, you can be young and just. Like I said before, Aristotle says you can't be young and prudent. Straight up, he says it. Virtue comes from experience. Getting older is a good thing here. Which can cut both ways, by the way. Because you can just get older and not become prudent. That's really bad. Now you're just older, not any wiser. Right? The virtue of prudence is built by living. But only if you ex if you examine and learn from your experiences. Experience only becomes prudence if you examine it and learn from it. If you're living unthoughtfully in the same error for 30 years, it's not really 30. You might call it 30 years of experience, but you haven't learned anything. Experience by itself isn't the teacher. Reflected experiences. This is the examined life. See, life gives everybody has experiences. Not everybody's wise. Everybody gets older, but not all old people are wise. Prudent people are the ones who have learned from their experiences. They take the experiences and turn them into wisdom. I'll come back to this point later. Let me talk about three ways you can mess it up. Prudence can fail in a few ways. And once you understand these ways, it'll help you to not make these mistakes. If I'm teaching you a martial arts technique, here's the right way to do it. Don't make these common mistakes. Here's how you throw a jab, you punch it straight, you know, flat fist, and keep your chin up by your keep your shoulder up by your chin. Don't drop your rear hand because you can eat a left hook over here. Here's how you be prudent, do this and this and this. This, don't do this error because life will give you a left hook too. Every failure of prudence is ultimately a failure to relate thought to action properly. Sometimes we act too soon, sometimes we think too long, sometimes we act for the wrong thing. Those are the three ways. Let's take that first one. Acting too soon. Rashness. You don't think enough. You skip the counsel, you skip the judgment, and boom, you just go. Impulsive. Acting without thinking, impulsiveness, carelessness, short-sightedness, not planning out for the future. Aquitus calls the head of this family of mistakes precipitation. It's like a man who falls off a cliff. Just go act. He steps off. Versus a man who carefully walks down the cliff. Okay, this looks like a better path. Test this rock. Okay, this rock is stable. One man carefully works his way down the cliff. The other guy just jumps off. They both got to the bottom. They both acted. One guy is there safely, one guy's all broken up. Rash. An adult life, it takes a variety of forms. The business decision made based on just a quick little good mood got excited. An email sent in 10 seconds because you're mad or a text. Oh yeah. Not thinking. Rash. You know? Confrontations launched because your anger is fired up and you're, I'm just gonna, you know, just impulsive. Impulsive purchases. Impulsive resignations. I quit. Impulsive promises. All these things are made in a state. Maybe they felt like clarity, maybe they felt good, maybe they felt like you're taking the right action. But they're imprudent. Because you acted when you're, in this case, in these cases, like you acted when you were emotionally excited. You didn't take the time to do what Aquinas said, that first part, the reflection. Rashness, it doesn't feel like carelessness from the inside. You kind of feel like you're being decisive. Oh, I acted. But because our con because the consequences of our decisions last a whole lot longer than the emotions that produce them, a few rash decisions can alter the course of your entire life. So don't make this mistake. Don't mistake mere action for prudence. Don't do the third step without the first two. Ask yourself, have I slowed down enough to know what I don't know? That's the first error of prudence, is acting too soon impulsively. The second error goes the other direction. Paralysis. You think too much. You know, you do the counsel and the judgment, you do all the thinking, but you never get to acting. This one doesn't get as much criticism, which is why it survives in so many people. It looks like you're being responsible. Looks like you're being humble. I'm gathering information, I'm learning. Constant learning mode. Want to be sure? Ah, wait for the right moment. Wait for the stars to align. Paralysis by overanalysis, sometimes we say. This person's not being careful, they're hiding. Sometimes people deliberate because they don't want to be wrong. As long as I'm still thinking, I can't make a wrong decision. Aquinas says this person fails at the main act of prudence, taking action, all that beautiful research and counsel, and it produces nothing. Prudence exists, Aquinas says, for the sake of action. You got to do something with all that homework. And you should know this: that not deciding is a decision. The job you didn't take, you decided to decline. The conversation you didn't have, you chose silence. The opportunity you studied about for six months and spent a lot of money buying courses and books and stuff, you did your homework, but you chose to pass on. You know, and the man who refuses to decide still gets an outcome. You still get a result. You just get whatever the default is without acting. Scared to act. Yes, some lives are destroyed by reckless decisions, but other ones are quietly diminished by decisions that are never made at all. So if you have a problem with this, I'm raising my hand right now. I'm an overthinker. Then ask and be on the lookout for it. Don't mistake overthinking for prudence. Ask yourself, am I still thinking because I really need more information or am I afraid to make a decision? You know. So the first way you can mess up prudence is acting rashly. The second way you can mess up prudence is paralysis. Third way is you aim for the wrong thing. You don't aim for the true good. You aim for some kind of selfish, even bad goal. This is kind of a counterfeit of prudence. It looks like prudence, but it isn't. You're good at hitting goals, but it's just not for the good. You know how to work out to get what you want. And if that aim were noble, then yeah, it's prudence. But if it's not, if it's base, the philosophers call it cunning or cleverness. Aquinas calls this a false prudence. It's a vice. In Latin, astudia, craftiness. You're crafty, you're shrewd, you know how to get ahead at work. You're really good at getting selfish ends. Prudent in a selfish way is a false prudence, it's a vice. Being clever is a tool to get a goal. Being prudent is a tool to getting to the good. So be on the lookout for that one. Are you are you aiming at good goals? Am I becoming better at just what I want? Or am I becoming better at getting what is truly good? So remember these ways, these three different ways to fail in prudence. Because every one of us has an inclination to one of them. We have a preferred way of failing. Some people wait too long, some people go too, well, to put them in order, some people act too quickly, they're impulsive. Others wait too long, they overthink it. Others are really good at getting the wrong things. And if you want to live an examined life, a reflective life, ask yourself, which one am I? Which one of these ways to mess up prudence am I inclined to? Be on the lookout for your own defects when you're trying to live an examined life. That's what prudent is prudence is. That's why it's important. It's how to mess it up. Let's talk about what it looks like in real life. How do you recognize a prudent man? Usually they usually don't they're not the loudest man in the room. Not usually, not usually the quickest one to speak. They ask more questions, they listen more carefully, they notice details other people overlook. They're not impulsive. They simply have a remarkable habit of making good decisions year after year. And people start calling him wise. Because the prudent man has developed habits of judgment that most people never consciously cultivate. Let me say that again. The prudent man has developed habits of judgment that most people never consciously cultivate. I said this in the beginning. Prudence, like all the virtues, is a learnable skill. You can consciously cultivate this habit. Most people haven't done so. Most old people are not wise. They just got older. They didn't live a life of reflection and learn from much experience to various degrees. There's more great insight from Aquinas on this. He helps us understand the habit of prudence by breaking it down, analyzing it, taking prudence and breaking it down into smaller habits. The first habit he says is memory. The prudent man remembers how things actually happened. He learns from his experience, right? How things actually happened. He learns from his experiences and not just, you know, endlessly repeats them. Memory. The second habit is understanding. The prudent man tries to understand the situation in front of him exactly as it is, accurately, before he tries to solve it. What exactly is the situation? What exactly is the problem? Understanding first before solution later. The third habit, Aquinas says, is foresight. In Latin, providencia. The habit of looking ahead. This is the heart of prudence, I think. The prudent man is always asking, okay, where is this road going to lead? Look, the prudent man looks beyond today's pleasure, beyond today's convenience, beyond today's discomfort to know tomorrow's consequences. The fourth habit, Aquinas says, is circumspection. Circumspectio. Looking around, paying attention to circumstances. Yes, moral principles stay constant. Situations are messy, complex. Prudence requires us to look around, see the details that determine how we're supposed to apply those general principles to this particular action here and now. The fifth habit, Aquinas says, is caution. Not being timid, not fear, just recognizing any unnecessary dangers. And there's one more, there's another one that's important, another habit under prudence. We're breaking prudence down to smaller habits. Aquinas says, is teachability. Docilitas. The willingness to learn from those who know more than you do. This is the vice of teenagers. They know it all. See, this is where prudence depends upon humility. That guy knows more than I do. I better listen. Teachability, docilitas in Latin. And this is the best way to get a whole lot of experiences that you can't possibly get, right? One human lifetime, you can live all your human lifetime doesn't have enough experience. You're better off learning from the experiences of others too, not just your own. Because you're going to die having personally only encountered a tiny fraction of all the situations that life can present to you. The prudent man knows this. So he borrows from the experience of others, not just himself. He just doesn't learn from his own experience. He learns from others. He studies history. He reads great books, great philosophical books from the past. He listens to good philosophical podcasts. Listens to wise mentors, asks thoughtful questions, learns from the stake of others, so he doesn't have to make those. See, the unteachable man can't be prudent. Not probably won't, can't be prudent. Because he's cut himself off from most of the education that life has to offer. One more point that needs worth noticing that prudence and temperance kind of need each other. We often imagine that our thinking kind of governs our desires. More often, sometimes our desires govern our thinking. We decide what we want, and then we begin inventing reasons to justify it. That's why self-control is so important. Temperance, another virtue, self-control. Prudence needs self-control. If your passions are out of control, your reasons are going to be screwed up. You're going to lose the ability to judge correctly. You can't temper your anger. Flares up on you like a fire. You can't temper it. Well, that's going to affect your prudence. Yeah, well, he didn't, you know. I don't know. You think you're doing a prudent decision. Anger controls the prudence, not vice versa. Alright, so that's what prudence is. That's why you should care. That's how to mess it up. Now people ask, okay, all that sounds good, but I'm I don't feel so wise. I've made a ton of bad decisions in my life. I am not very prudent. I just don't have it, Scott. I'm screwed. How do I actually become a more prudent person? Like I've always said, this is a learnable skill, like all virtues. This is a great question because, again, this is applied philosophy 101. It's not just for head knowledge. Philosophy is more than just understanding things. In this sense, it was meant to be practiced. Aristotle did not write the Nicomachan Ethics so we could just think about virtue and admire it. He wrote it so we could become it. Stoics just didn't develop philosophy to win arguments. They developed it to make their lives better. Aquinas just didn't, he has whole Aquinas has a whole treatise on the virtues. He doesn't write this just to understand and explain. He wants us to cultivate them. So it's not just to give your mind, fill your mind with ideas, it's to form your soul. To do, to put in action. We learn about prudence so we can become prudent. There's a method I teach that works. You know, it's just taking a lot of the ancient philosophical teaching and putting it in kind of an easy formula that you and I can use in our day-to-day lives. I call it the three by three method. Three disciplines you do every day. This is very simple to remember, it's easy to implement, doesn't take long, it's powerful enough to change your life. Not overnight, but it's going to change your life. Do this every day. Pick a virtue you're working on. I talked about courage, I've talked about humility, I'm talking about prudence now. Pick one and work on it for a month. A 30-day challenge. Do this every day for 30 days on one virtue. Or however long you need, three months, 90 days, whatever. And then change it up. One virtue at a time. For a month, three months. Switch it. Work on courage for a month. Humility for a month. Switch it up. Man, over time, dang, man. You know, you're gonna change your mind. Physically, even. What all that neuroscience tells us nowadays, right? But here's the three by three method. First discipline in the morning, prepare. Prepare your morning. Prepare every morning, prepare your mind. This is the premeditatio of the stoics. Thinking in advance, mental rehearsal. This is what I'm gonna be like today. Before all the confusion and the text start coming in, the pressures of the day, remind yourself of the person you want to be and say it out loud. For prudence, today I'm going to think before I act. I'm going to seek truth. I'm going to ask questions. I'm going to seek out wise counsel. I'm going to do my homework. I'm going to remain humble and teachable. I'm going to think about the long-term consequences of my decisions. Today I'm going to practice prudence. You tell yourself these things, this positive self-talk. Say it to yourself out loud every morning. I do this. I literally do what I'm telling you. I sit over, I got a chair right over here. I call it my thinking chair. I sit in that chair every morning, and I've got a virtue I'm working on. And I just tell myself, I got a little bit longer version, but you know, write a longer one about I'm going to be like this, man. I want to work on this mental skill today. I'm going to be courageous today. I'm going to be prudent today. And in all the different forms that that can take. I'm going to be that. Mental training in advance, mental rehearsal. And then, step two, throughout the day, go practice it. Go do what you said. Go practice. In this case, every day, make three acts of prudence. This is the most important lesson that comes from the Nickel McKeon ethics. We become prudent by doing prudent actions. So you're going to make three deliberate judgments today. Three prudent judgments today before the day is over. They don't have to be life-changing. You don't get those that often. Practice wise judgment today. You're going to make a gazillion decisions today. Slow down. Do I have enough information? Who knows more than I do? Where's this going to lead? Then act prudently. Act. Don't just think about it. Not just endless deliberation. Good deliberation, followed by action. Like what? Well, I don't know. Maybe you decide to sleep on an important decision instead of acting emotionally. You call someone wiser before you make a commitment. Slow down. Read and educate yourself before you make that big financial decision, before you buy that house. Maybe you write down the reasons before you make an important choice. Maybe you, maybe you got to walk away from this person or this conversation before your anger gets out of control. That'd be prudent. Maybe you think about the five-year consequences of your decisions. Where is this going to lead me in five years? Maybe you admit you don't know enough yet and you're going to do some more homework. Or maybe you have to think, man, I've been overthinking this. I got to act now. These are all acts of prudence you can do today. And I don't really care which three you choose. What matters is you do it three times every day. You deliberately practice good judgment. Prudent acts builds prudent habits. Prudent habits builds prudent character. Prudent character leads to the kind of life a prudent man gets. Replay the movie of your day. Hey, I said I was gonna, I said this morning I was gonna be prudent. And then I said I was gonna do three acts of prudence. Did I do them? What were they? Name them, number them. Bum, bum, bum. And then say, okay, well, maybe I did those, maybe I didn't. Okay. Um, where did I screw up? Oh shoot. Man, I I I got mad at this guy and the and and and the and and the Wendy's, and I was gonna get in a fight. Imprudent. Okay, so go see where you messed up. Right? Go examine your day. Where did you practice prudence? Where did I fail to act prudently? And then then again, how can I make better decisions tomorrow? You see? This is the system. Three by three. Every morning, prepare your mind, then go out and practice it. Practice the wise judgments, then every evening you hold yourself accountable. Three disciplines, three judgments, three daily questions. Prepare, practice, examine. Day after day, week after week. This is how the ancient philosophers thought wisdom is formed. It's not just through reading philosophy books, it's not just listening to cool, amazing uh philosophy podcasts. No, it's done through action. In this case, repeated judgments until they become habits, until they become a part of your character. You get the reps in. You get the reps in until the mental habit is just kind of there. Second nature. The good judgment becomes second nature. Do this every day. I promise you, there's nothing more important or better you can better things you can do for yourself to make your life better, to give you more peace of mind than to become a virtuous person. Because five years from now, you can be one of two people. The five years is gonna go by if you don't die. I could be the man who practiced virtue and I got I became more prudent, more courageous, more whatever. I could be the man who did that or the man who didn't. Which guy you want to be? It's gonna go by whether you do it or not. It doesn't take that long. Which guy's gonna have more wisdom? Which guy's gonna have more peace of mind? Which guy's gonna have a better life because he makes better judgments? The answer is obvious. So do it. Prepare your mind, practice the three daily acts of prudence every day. Examine your day at night and do it again and again because one day you're gonna discover something that's pretty remarkable. That's gonna be a natural part of you. You're gonna be a wise person now, a prudent man. You've become a prudent man because of your training. So let's just end this today. Okay, let's wrap this up. Let's go back to where we began. Every bad decision you've ever made in your life happened because you thought it was good. Most people know already that they need to do what's right. The challenge is seeing what's right here and now, and that virtue, my friends, is prudence to see reality like it is, and then to judge wisely. And then to act, not impulsively, not fearfully, not endlessly, but wisely. The man who consistently makes good decisions because he has trained himself to think well before he acts. And remember, your life is to a very large degree the accumulated result of your decisions over time. This has been the examined life. Vita examinata.