Three Steps to Prudence
Acting on reality
Wealth managers tell me their biggest problem is to get their clients to make decisions based on reality rather than emotions and fears. This is the crisis of our age. We act on preferences and feelings rather than reality, truth and the will of God. In our fallen state what drives most of our decision making is disordered passions and attachments: Pride, the will to dominate, timidity, vanity, envy, lust, gluttony, greed, a false sense of security and identity, fear, and the opinion of others.
These should not determine our choices and behavior. Therefore, we need the virtue of Prudence which is the art of making good decisions. (CCC 1806) In this meditation I will give you a three-step process to avoid being ruled by misguided emotions and feelings
Think – what is reality and what is the greatest good that I want.
Make a Choice – make an act of the will and choose the good I want and the means to achieve it, even if it goes against your feelings and desires.
Take Action – put into action what you have chosen even if you feel the opposite – fake it until you make it and follow through to the end. These are the three steps to Prudence or Wisdom we will meditate upon today
These are the three steps to Prudence or Wisdom we will meditate upon today.
The art of good decision making
There are three steps prudence that is the art of good decision making: Deliberation, judgment, and execution.
The first step is deliberation. This is where you gather all relevant information about the decision you need to make. Information about the general moral principles Jesus handed down through the Church which are summarized in the Catechism and all relevant information regarding the particular situation. This first step ensures that your actions are in conformity with reality which is truth. Or, to put it another way, your conscience is being well formed.
So the first step to wisdom is to gather all the relevant information. Failure to deliberate adequately is called rashness. This is the failure to think before you act; to leap before you look and that is deadly. If we allow our impulses, desires and passions control us and we don’t take the truth into consideration before we make decisions then our life is disconnected from reality. The sad consequence of this is that we can never reach virtue, the perfection of the human person and the happiness we long for because virtue is what gives us the good, but the good is only accessible in reality. And truth and goodness are intrinsically equivalent. If we’re disconnected from truth we certainly can’t be successful in obtaining goodness. Is your weakness to be rash – to leap before you look?
Making a judgement
The second step to Prudence is making a judgement, that is, deciding on a course of action. This is when you stop vacillating and you say I am going to go this way I am going to do this thing. To do this you must separate the relevant from the irrelevant information, narrow down and eliminate options and make a decision. Temptation is often simply having irrelevant information thrust on your mind. For instance, if you’re cut off in traffic, and you say, “Woah. What do I do? That guy just cut me off.” And you’re trying to collect yourself and gather your thoughts.
One of the thoughts that might occur to you is, “Man, somebody needs to teach that guy a lesson.” That is irrelevant information…that should not factor into your judgement. You must separate that and say, okay I’m just gonna keep driving, because what I want is to reach my destination, not automotive revenge. Part of judgement means getting rid of information that doesn’t matter – it’s not relevant and in fact, it clouds your ability to make a judgement, a decision. There must be continual filtering process as you’re thinking through something, saying, “Here, that point of truth is irrelevant and I have to get enough of those out of the way so I can reach a critical mass of relevant truth, which will enable me to make a judgement. To settle on a course of action” The failure to judge, that is, to make a decision is called negligence. We call this paralysis by analysis. This is where we’re just thinking things over forever and we never reach a decision or take action. Do you ever suffer from paralysis by analysis?
Carrying out the decision you made in judgement
This is where you take action and get it done; where you fulfill what you said you’d do. Where you carry out your judgement. The failure to act or execute is called irresolution or inconstancy. This is the failure to follow through on your decisions all the way to the point of completion. Do you struggle with a lack of follow-through?
Which bad habits do you have?
There are three steps to prudence: deliberate, make a judgment or decision, and then take action and follow through to the end.
Which bad habits do you have? Are you rash, do you leap before you look? Are you indecisive and get paralysis by analysis? Or are you irresolute – you can make a choice, but you struggle to follow through and fulfill your resolutions?
Once you identify your weakness, make the conscious decision to work on that area of prudence, and by practice and grace you will improve, it will get easier and you will grow in prudence or wisdom. But it will take the other virtues as well, justice, courage, temperance, faith, hope and love and that is why we will go forward to be formed in those virtues.