The Superhabits System
October 14, 2025
Hello! How is each and every one? Yesterday, I participated in the Mass for the preservation of peace and justice. It was also yesterday that peace and joyful celebrations were happening in Israel and the Middle East. As I listened to the news the following words “Hope Springs eternal” came to mind and I searched its source and found the following:
"Hope springs eternal" means
that people will always hold onto hope and remain optimistic, even in the
most difficult circumstances. This phrase comes from Alexander Pope's
poem An
Essay on Man, where the full line is "Hope springs eternal in
the human breast". It emphasizes the enduring and resilient nature of
optimism as a fundamental part of human nature.
Original context:
Pope originally wrote
the full line, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is,
but always to be blest," to highlight the human tendency to believe that a
better future is always coming, perhaps even pointing to a belief in an
afterlife.
Modern interpretation:
Today, the phrase is
used as a proverb to suggest that hope is a powerful and persistent force that
continues to exist, regardless of how bleak the current situation may seem.
Underlying idea:
The expression implies that, even when common sense or reality
suggests a negative outcome, people will still find a reason to hope for a
positive one.
We
need to keep our hope and trust in the Lord always alive and active every time
we remember and while reading or listening to news local and
international. God is never asleep. He
is constantly thinking of each one of us, loving us and listening to our hearts. While you and I keep Him present in our day,
in everything we desire, think, say and do.
Then you will truly experience His love and mercy every moment.
Personally I find myself moved to make acts of petition, thanksgiving, reparation, and adoration towards God. Firstly that is what we do whenever we attend and participate in the Holy Mass. I ask for persons in need of any kind of help at any moment during a calamity, earthquake, accident, etc; I thank God for whatever good that comes little and big ones; I ask Him for pardon and forgiveness for every evil that is done and committed against Him and His creatures; I praise Him for His goodness, love and mercy at all times.
Given that Jesus gave up His life on the Cross out of great love for you and for me who are sinners, while at the same time His first words on the Cross were “Father forgive them for they do not know what they do”, I pray for the ignorant, the atheists, Marxists, communists, socialists, totalitarians, and the evildoers. I pray that the ignorant may be given the grace to seek the truth, find the truth, and live by the truth. I pray that the atheists, communists, socialists, Marxists and totalitarians be given the gift of faith to seek Christ, find Christ, get to know Him, love Him and live their lives according to His teachings; I pray for the evildoers under the power of the devil, that the good seed in each one’s heart no matter how little that good seed is still remains in there, to be revived to a hundred percent, enough to drown the evil tendencies in each one’s heart and mind. I pray that each one may in the end be happy with Christ in Heaven like the good thief who won Heaven in an instant and was the first one to enter Heaven. I pray I would have the same sentiments of Christ on the Cross.
The challenge is for you and me to trust in the Lord and to keep a loving relationship with Him where you and I can express ourselves freely and truly live in His presence. Following now is the next chapter on The Superhabits System (From SUPERHABITS, The Universal System for a Successful Life by Andrew V. Abela, PH.D., Dean, Busch School of Business, The Catholic University of America, 2024)
#9 The SuperhabitS System
To the question of how many superhabits does one need to live her best life? Scientists and philosophers can’t seem to agree. I found the answer to the question in the work of Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century philosopher-monk. The way Aquinas solved this problem was by offering a system of virtues, not just a list.
What’s
the difference? Here’s an illustration
of what I mean. In the previous chapter
on Eutrapelia, I wrote about the boat I sailed to Washington D.C., where I met
Kathleen. We sold that boat when our
first child was born. In the intervening
years we owned other, smaller, boats, but it was not until last year that we
acquired a larger sailboat, with an inboard engine…
I believe Aquinas
understood this. He presented the
superhabits – the virtues – systematically in a way that demonstrates
completeness, and that illustrates how the superhabits all work together.
To explain his approach, let me introduce you to a concept I learned as a young management consultant at Mc Kinsey and Company. The main task of a management consultant is to solve problems for a client. To do this, the client’s problem needs to be properly understood, which requires taking it apart and looking at the pieces.
“Your analysis isn’t MECE” is one of the most crushing criticisms you can receive as a junior consultant at McKinsey. It means that you haven’t adequately separated the business problem you’re working on into its component parts. In order to do that, a business problem had to be carefully divided and sub-divided to make sure that every part of the problem was covered, and only once. There had to be no overlaps among the parts, and no gaps between them: they had to be Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive, or “MECE”.
Reading Aquinas’s
“Treatise on the Virtues” carefully, I was amazed to find that he had developed
a “MECE” analysis of all of human life.
By disaggregating every aspect of life, he showed how there is a
superhabit for each.
Aquinas’s approach was
much like the children’s game “Twenty Questions”. Did you ever play it? One person thinks of something and the other
person gets to ask a maximum of twenty questions to figure out what it is. Each
question has to be a yes or no question.
Bigger than a bread box? Smaller
than a house? (Much like Pinoy Genio game, I think)
The secret to winning
is to ask each question in a way that the answer divides up the remaining
universe of possibilities into roughly two equal parts, thereby eliminating
half of them. For example, the question
“Is it alive?” will divide the universe into two parts, and the yes or no
answer will exclude one of those parts.
The question “Is it bigger than a bread box?” divides the universe by
size into those things that are bigger than a breadbox and those that are
smaller or the same size, and the answer will exclude one part…
In a way, Aquinas played a game like twenty questions with life itself. He considered a human life, and kept dividing its aspects into two (and occasionally three or more) parts. By doing so, he showed how there is a superhabit for each.
For example, he first distinguished between the material and spiritual aspects of life (he was a monk, and so the spiritual side of life was very important to him). He then divided our material lives into our practical and our intellectual lives. The latter is when we think just for the sake of thinking and knowing things; the former is for everything else. He then divided our practical lives into thoughts, actions, and feelings. (Look how “MECE” this is: In your day to day living, is there anything that occupies your time, other than your thoughts, your actions, or your feelings? No. There are no gaps and no overlaps here).
Brené Brown, based on
her extensive research, describes eighty-seven different emotions in her book Atlas of the Heart. These include stress, anxiety, worry,
excitement, admiration, reverence, envy, shame, perfectionism and guilt. Her descriptions of each are helpful for
trying to understand and sort out complex and shifting feelings.
Aquinas
did something much simpler. He divided
feelings into just two groups, those that attract us to things, or people – our
desires – and those that push us away, or repel us – our fears.
Next he did something
very insightful. He noticed that our
everyday thoughts, actions, and these two kinds of feelings lined up with what
the ancient philosophers called the cardinal virtues: Prudence (or Practical Wisdom), Justice,
Fortitude (or Courage), and Temperance (or Self-Discipline):
*Practical Wisdom is
the superhabit of making wise decisions.
In our everyday lives, our thinking is mostly oriented toward making
decisions; so Practical Wisdom is the superhabit for managing our thinking.
*Justice is the
superhabit of being fair to others and treating them in accord with their
dignity. Since most of our day-to-day
actions are interactions with others, Justice is the superhabit for managing
our actions.
*Courage is the
superhabit for moving ahead with what we need to do, even if we are afraid; so
it is the superhabit for dealing with fear.
*Self-Discipline is the
superhabit of only following our desires when it makes sense to do so; it is
the superhabit for managing our desires.
Practical Wisdom,
Justice, Courage and Self-Discipline are really big superhabits. Together they encompass every part of your
everyday life: your thoughts, your
actions, and your feelings.
At the same time,
they’re so big and so wide-ranging, they can be difficult habits to acquire –
which is where Aquinas’s second great insight comes in. He noticed that each of these cardinal
superhabits had several other superhabits associated with it, which
collectively contribute to it. Cardinal comes from the Latin word cardo, which means hinge, or pivot. These four are pivotal because so many other
superhabits turn on them. For example,
the superhabits we have covered so far – Restraint, Humility, Diligence, Gentlefirmness,
Forgiveness, Orderliness, and Eutrapelia – are all types of the large
superhabit of Self-Discipline. So the
best way to grow in Self-Discipline is to focus on growing in one of the
smaller superhabits, like Restraint, for example, or Forgiveness. Then move on to another, then another. Eventually, you will have acquired the superhabit
of Self-Discipline.
In the next chapter,
we’ll see how all the Self-Discipline superhabits fit together. And in the following three chapters, we’ll do
the same for the superhabits of Courage, Practical Wisdom, and Justice,
respectively. If you haven’t done so
already take a look at the Anatomy of Virtue diagram that comes with this book
to see a visual representation of how all the superhabits fit together. The clockwise sequence on the diagram
starting from twelve o’clock is the order in which the various superhabits are
presented in the book. This sequence is
not arbitrary. Self-Discipline comes first, because without it you can’t even
begin to get anything meaningful done; you’ll be captive to all your whims and
desires pulling you in every direction. Courage comes next, because once you’ve
started in a particular direction, if you don’t have Courage every obstacle
will just knock you down. Then Practical
Wisdom, which is required to make good decisions. And finally, Justice is necessary so that all
your interactions with others are good ones.
I don’t mean to suggest
that until you’ve mastered Self-Discipline, you shouldn’t try to grow in
Courage. It’s just that if you have no
Self-Discipline at all, you might want to think about starting here. But once you have some measure of the
superhabit of Self-Discipline, you can work on Courage next.
The first seven
superhabits that comprise Self-Discipline, from Restraint to Eutrapelia, are
themselves organized in an order that makes sense. For example, growing in Restraint is a really
good place to start growing in virtue because, as we saw in chapter 1, there
are so many simple ways to cultivate it.
When you’ve developed some significant degree of Restraint, then you can
start to work on Humility. Humility will
give you a clear-eyed view of the areas in which you need to grow.
In a
sense, these first seven are an “on ramp” to the superhabit life. Choose the first superhabit in this sequence
that you think you need to grow in. Use
the tips presented in each chapter to start making the small changes that will
have a big impact on your life. (You’ll
notice too that making progress in one superhabit will help with others too,
because they’re all interrelated). Once
you’ve made good progress in your first superhabit, try working on the next one
that you need to develop, in the order they’re presented on the diagram and in
this book.
Whatever
challenge you’re facing in life, there’s a superhabit for that. And if you have struggled with growing in
Self-discipline in the past, here’s why it is so difficult: as you’ll see in the next chapter, there are
fifteen different types of Self-Discipline, one for each of fifteen types of
desire (desires to do things, to know things, to control things, etc.). Don’t try to grow in all of them at once. Instead identify which of the fifteen desires
you struggle with most and therefore which superhabit would most benefit you
right now – which would bring the most improvement to your life – and focus on
cultivating that one first.
We’ve already seen the
Self-Discipline superhabits for managing our desires to do, to know, to be in
control, to work, and to play. We have
other desires too, for food, drink, sex, for possessions, even for how we move
and dress. Is there really a superhabit
for each of these, too?
We
will find out in the next post. But for
now, you and I can take time and look at our life sincerely and honestly. Are we contented with superhabits we have at
the present? Yes and no? I don’t have
any? Oh! come on, be a little objective
and subjective at the same time. Be
realistic! Do we have all the seven superhabits for managing our desires to do,
to know, to be in control, to work, and to play? 100%?
At
this very moment, whatever superhabits we have and learned from this posts will
come handy. We can be gentle and yet firm
in our personal assessment, be forgiving, be humble, play a little bit or a
great bit, however, but be true to yourself and start with one superhabit we
have in defect so that what we have in excess may be balanced. And then little
by little we can work on being more each day.
Of
course the above assessment is best done with Jesus in our quiet moments of conversation
with Him in prayer. Be open with Jesus
and precisely tell Him about your desires and fears and ask for His help. Listen to what He tells you and heed it. Good luck to each one of us. Be sportive in
your efforts to acquire a superhabit.
This struggle will make our life more colorful and meaningful. Let’s pray for each other.
See you in the next post,
“May tomorrow be a perfect day; may
you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care;
‘til He brings us together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
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