When it comes to practicing prudence, we must begin by understanding what it is and its significance to our development in becoming virtuous individuals. To become a virtuous person, we must seek to be good and do good, and prudence is the virtue that is essential for the proper formation of our conscience. Prudence is considered the “Mother Virtue,” for it bleeds into all the other virtues. It is the virtue by which we seek to recognize what is our moral duty, God’s will, and the good means to accomplish it. A truly prudent person not only seeks what is good but does what is good. In order for us to be just and live a life of charity, we need to practice being prudent.
Prudence is when a person gathers information to assess a situation. The individual weighs the potential outcomes, either favorable or unfavorable, and makes a decision to act upon. Prudence allows one to consider the matter at hand carefully before making any decision and in keeping with the right standards, what is true and good. The virtue of prudence requires both intellect and action; where we can understand a situation fully and be guided by our own will and reasoning to chose a course of action. Ultimately, in developing this virtue we are better able to see clearly what we are striving to achieve and the best way we can achieve that goal.
A very common problem that we see with prudence in today’s day is how this virtue gets warped into focusing on achieving selfishness means and seeking to serve one’s own disposition. This more often than not becomes a psychological mentality that most people don’t realize at the moment that they are doing. Rather, it becomes a bad habit that we try to justify as being prudent when in reality it is the complete opposite.
How can a person be prudent when they make a decision to believe a certain way or act a certain way, merely based on their opinion alone, or on how they prefer things to be with no regard or consideration for the truth? Where are the reasoning and facts? Where is the knowledge and the truth? Where is the open-mindedness?
In order to develop the virtue of prudence, we first must gather the necessary information about the situation we are analyzing in order to distinguish between fact and opinion. But, that is much easier said than done in today’s world where many are guided in their judgment by a distorted perception of reality or a lack of understanding of the truth. Often times imprudence leads us down a rabbit hole. Imprudence consists of precipitance, thoughtlessness, and inconsistency. In other words, it is when we do not take the time or have an open mind to assess a situation for what it truly is and make a decision that is best suited in our favor. Here we are allowing ourselves to be lead by our passions and our preferences, not by what is right or by the truth. We easily create this illusion of what we believe things should be without regard for reality, open-mindedness to other possibilities, and even seeking the true meaning behind something. By allowing imprudence to guide our judgment we become close-minded, lazy, selfish, impractical, negligent, and unrealistic.
In order for a person to be prudent, they must have the right motives, which is the desire to make a decision that is consistent with the action they take to achieve a goal. Furthermore, that goal they seek to achieve should be one that aligns with what is right and what is God’s will. By fully understanding what prudence is and its importance to developing our conscience we can begin to learn how we can develop prudence in our daily lives.
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