Professor H. L. Bray       
        Personal
                Virtue  
  
Personal Mission Statement

1. Virtue: Enjoy making the world a better place, in every possible way, no matter how small, as best you can.
2. Identity: Remember that you are the part of the world that you most control.
3. Purpose: Have well thought out goals, plans, and strategies for doing the most good in your life.
4. Self Discipline: Make sure you do what you think is best, every single time. Listen to your mentors for guidance.
5. Self Confidence: Aim high. Partially achieving a great goal is often better than completely achieving a mediocre goal.
6. Audacity: Find out what happens when you always try your absolute best. You might surprise yourself.
7. Positivity: Focus on the task at hand. Visualize it, then do it. Think positively, just short of unjustifiably optimistic.
8. Diligence: Work hard on things in order of their importance, and skip the things that don't really matter.
9. Abstinence: Don't waste your time. Define yourself in part by the things you do not do.
10. Learning: Always be learning. Develop the knowledge, skills, and experience you need. Ask questions. Stay curious.
11. Values: Integrity, honesty, open-mindedness, reliability, generosity, compassion, courage, creativity, mentorship.
12. Health: Practice lifetime habits of optimal diet, exercise, rest, and recreation for vitality and longevity.
13. Intellect: Use precise reason and logic as the guiding force in your life. Practice your ability to think clearly.
14. Emotions: Manage your emotions for the greater good. Natural selection gave us emotions to help us, not hurt us.
15. Think: Think before you act. While theoretically one could think too much, this is rarely a problem with humans.
16. Universality: Behave and follow principles that, if everyone did, the world would be a better place.
17. Vigilance: Beware of false notions of virtue that, if everyone followed them, would make the world a worse place.
18. Strength: Stand up for right over wrong. Invest the time and energy to know the difference. Beware of simpletons.
19. Character: Do what is right, even when it is not fashionable, easy, or beneficial to you.
20. Cooperation: Seek out others to help them make the world a better place, and accept their help in your life too.
21. Reciprocity: Say please and thank you, return favors, pay your debts, and keep your promises. Find win-win situations.
22. Kindness: Do random acts of kindness, volunteer for good causes, and make yourself a valuable asset to others.
23. Understanding: Learn from other people's experiences, successes, and failures. Copy the good and beware of the bad.
24. Regulation: Support proven rules that enhance the greater good, but beware arbitrary bureaucratic control.
    
25. Respect: Treat everyone, including yourself, with respect, kindness, and generosity, without empowering bad behavior.
26. Fairness: Be fair to everyone, and work hard against personal and systemic bias that is unfair.
27. Inclusiveness: Help others achieve their full potential for making their unique contribution to the world.
28. Diversity: Appreciate everyone's gifts to the world, including those who have different backgrounds and ideas.
29. Skepticism: Beware of arbitrary ideologies, especially ones that tell you or others what they want to hear.
30. Generations: Pass your knowledge, wisdom, and experience to the younger generations.

Hubert Bray
June 27, 2025