Politics, class, race and ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual identity, and now, vaccination status.
While most of our society spends their time arguing with, judging, labeling, and dividing one another over such aforementioned issues, I’d just like to know one thing:
Are you the type of person that returns the shopping cart, or not?
In the course of my life, and especially since March of 2020, I’ve learned to start caring less about opinions and more about how people live their day-to-day lives in relation to those they interact with in their local communities.
And it’s a bizarre thing, because as I’ve been pulled more in this direction by my studies and life experiences, it seems like the society around me is moving in exactly the opposite direction.
A large part of the reason why I believe this is happening is due to the fact that throughout the years, we’ve gradually ceased to be a society that promotes individual virtue, and instead become one that champions collective “values.”
You may ask yourself what the difference is.
Well, values are easy; anyone can have “values,” because values involve nothing more than mere opinions and social signaling.
Virtue, on the other hand, is much harder to cultivate, and requires years of habit formation and mental fortitude over the basest human instincts.
Values include subjective, vague banalities like “diversity,” “inclusion,” “openness,” and “equity.”
Virtue includes objective, specific individual traits like Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance.
Values are popular, cheap to procure, and ephemeral.
Virtue is indifferent to popular opinion, costly to develop, and eternal.
Deriving your sense of self-worth and moral superiority based on your political beliefs or group identity, and then judging others because they have a different opinion or background than your own is extremely easy—and therefore quite common.
It’s also quite ironic, in our day and age, because in an advanced consumption economy like that of the United States, most people today, outside of working hours—and with the exception of those serving in the armed forces—live their lives quite similarly, the few differences lying solely in the talking points they parrot and the boxes they check each election cycle.
Most of us, however, never take the painstaking steps toward actually embodying specific ideals.
Instead, we spout value-oriented rhetoric online, mostly to those with whom we already agree; we signal our political beliefs through the brands we support, which involves zero sacrifice on our part considering the plethora of choices we have for just about any item or service; and then we go about our lives in the exact same fashion as those we claim to be our moral inferiors.
If we took the time to get off of our devices and look around us, however, we wouldn’t see Republicans or Democrats, racists, toxic males, or radical activists—just a society of self-absorbed individuals with more important places to be and no time left in their day for the “little things.”
Unfortunately for us, these “little things” add up.
And in the course of an average human life, the “little things” not only define us as individuals but also mold the ethos of the collective.
This sad overall trend toward values and away from virtue is a major reason why tolerance, respect, humility, and common courtesy have fallen by the wayside in our culture.
Because when values supplant virtue, group identities trump individual character and words outweigh actions.
And in this type of social and political environment, just so long as we mouth the right platitudes and vote for the right politicians, we can proceed with our ignorance, narcissism, cowardliness, and lack of discipline—without ever feeling an urge to internalize our focus on what we can do better as individuals.
This essay is a call back to Virtue.
It’s a challenge to spend less time worrying about the behavior of others and more time assessing yourself critically, asking what you can do to make the small patch of earth around you better.
In our extraverted age, in which everyone is outraged, self-righteous, and hypercritical, the most radical among us are those who exercise some introspection, humility, forgiveness, and most importantly, personal responsibility.
Start by returning your grocery cart to where it belongs.
It’s a simple task that less of us seem to be capable of performing these days.
And while by no means a sophisticated metric, I dare propose that the number of carts left in our parking lots is a direct indicator of the vitality—or lethargy—of the social capital within the society at large.
Begin to see yourself in everything you do.
Return the cart, not because if you don’t nobody else will, but because of what it says about your character and the way you choose to live your life.
It says that no task is beneath you; and that you always assume full responsibility over your actions.
It says that you have mastered the art of living; and that you don’t compromise any part of your day, regardless of its supposed inconsequence.
It says that you respect your fellow citizens; and therefore refuse to allow another human being to take time out of their day to do something for you that you are more than capable of doing for yourself.
Start with this simple task, then let this behavior radiate outward to more consequential endeavors.
Contrary to popular opinion, these individual, bottom-up transformations are what eventually lead to systemic change—not the other way around.
So, pick up after yourself.
Infect others with your grace and magnanimity.
Be just as present with your waiter, grocer, clerk, or office janitor as you would with the CEO of the company for which you work, or your favorite celebrity or politician.
Lead by example.
The world doesn’t need any more hollow, corporate campaigns or social justice warriors.
It needs more Virtue Warriors.
So, if you truly want to be a radical, then start embodying The Four Cardinal Virtues in every aspect of your life.
Prudence: Discernment of right and wrong.
Justice: Giving to each their respective due.
Fortitude: Strength when fearful.
Temperance: Restraint over excess.
Start by returning your grocery cart—but please, don’t stop there.
Because the “little things” do add up.
And by focusing more on improving your own faults than criticizing others, you may just end up transforming the world in the process.