Books, Routines, and Habits: The Founders' Guide to Self-Improvement

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2024

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

A lot of self-improvement advice and content feels empty. And there's a reason for that. It often offers routines and habits to practice, but doesn't offer a strong, overarching reason to practice them. That's why the self-improvement advice of the Founding Fathers is particularly compelling. Though they were imperfect men, they had a clear why for trying to become better than they were. For the Founders, life was about the pursuit of happiness, and they equated happiness with excellence and virtue — a state that wasn't about feeling good, but being good. The Founders pursued happiness not only for the personal benefit in satisfaction and tranquility it conferred, but for the way the attainment of virtue would benefit society as a whole; they believed that political self-government required personal self-government. Today on the show, Jeffrey Rosen, a professor of law, the president of the National Constitution Center, and the author of The Pursuit of Happiness, shares the book the Founders read that particularly influenced their idea of happiness as virtue and self-mastery. We talk about the schedules and routines the Founders kept, the self-examination practices they did to improve their character, and how they worked on their flaws, believing that, while moral perfection was ultimately an impossible goal to obtain, it was still something worth striving for.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:11.0	A lot of self-improvement advice and content feels empty and there's a reason for that.
0:16.0	It often offers routines and habits to practice but doesn't offer a strong overarching reason
0:20.5	to practice them.
0:21.8	That's why the self-improvement advice of the founding
0:23.6	fathers is particularly compelling. Though they were imperfect men, they had a clear
0:27.5	why for trying to become better than they were. For the founders, life was about the
0:31.8	pursuit of happiness and they equated happiness with excellence and virtue
0:35.7	a state that wasn't about feeling good but being good
0:38.9	The founders pursued happiness not only for the personal benefit and satisfaction and tranquility it conferred,
0:44.0	but for the way the attainment of virtue would benefit society as a whole.
0:48.0	They believe that political self-government required personal self-government.
0:51.0	Tay on the show, Jeffrey Rosen, Professor of law, the president of the National Constitution
0:55.7	Center, and the author of The Pursuit of Happiness, shares the book the founders read that
0:59.9	particularly influenced their idea of happiness as virtue and self-mastery.
1:03.8	We talked with the schedules and routines the founders kept, the self-examination practices they did
1:07.9	to improve their character, and how they worked on their flaws.
1:11.1	Believing that, while moral perfection is ultimately an impossible goal to
1:14.1	obtain, it was still something worth striving for. After the show's over check at our
1:18.6	show notes at Awim.IS slash Pursuit of happiness. appiness. All right, Jeffrey Rose and welcome the show.
1:24.0	Great. All right, Jeffrey Rosen, welcome to the show.
1:34.8	Great to be here.
	...

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