Gratiae

Patientia

Patience lets you take a moment to think. It gives you a chance to let the Empire of the Mind take over and evaluate whether your instincts are good or if they are the sort that should be avoided. Patience gives you endurance so that you can get to the goals you have set. It gives you the chance to move forward in life. It keeps you in relationships that are good for your life. It makes sure you have the chance to truly put in the effort in relationships that may not be but need the chance. Patience makes sure you can accomplish long tasks. It keeps you going beyond the cursory and you can begin to work on refinement and perfection. It makes you appreciate the things that have taken a long time or a lot of work to achieve. You gain more anticipation for the things that have been long in coming and they are only possible because you have been patient.

Humilitas

Humility keeps you in touch with the people around you. It shows that the primary value in your life is not your own accomplishments. It is a way to show others that you think their accomplishments are excellent as well. It is a way to avoid taking yourself too seriously or thinking you are better than the people around you. By being humble, you can let your actions speak for you rather than shouting them to be noticed. The value of humility is in the esteem it gives to others. You do not invite conflict or competition when you are humble. You show yourself grateful for the things that you excel at rather than entitled to them. It shows that you can think about your own actions and give consideration to the thoughts and opinions of others. It is a strong way to encourage others. By being humble, you can convince those around you that your accomplishments are achievable by any human. You can give them encouragement even as you quietly lead them to be better people.

Fidelitas

Fidelity is showing commitment to something. It is the promise that you will be true to that thing whether it is action, thought, or feeling. It is showing that you will not give up on it. It is showing that that thing has ultimate value to you. You want to have it in your life, and so you may adjust your life to be able to have that thing present. You will be there if it should be needed. You will make and keep commitments to uphold the thing you are faithful to. You will express the other graces in regard to that thing and in so doing you bring grace to both yourself and the thing in question as well. It is saying that there may be hard times for you, but you will accommodate those hard times to make sure you can achieve this grace and in so doing 改善 toward a better balance in your life. In others, it gives hope and value to them. It is the ultimate expression of love because it is the fundamental commitment to a person despite any other thing. It comes from yourself and is upheld only by you and only in your heart and mind. There is no such thing as imposed fidelity. You are faithful and committed. You can control and evaluate your thoughts and actions with the Empire of the Mind and so train thought and action that is faithful. The will for fidelity is the surest indication to yourself that you personally place value in it.

Venia

Forgiveness allows you to repair things that have broken. It is the acknowledgement that mistakes may have been made in the past, but the future is worth having despite those mistakes. To forgive is to say that something deserves another chance. It is to give the chance for improvement. It is living in the present or looking toward the future, but it is a necessary forgetfulness of the parts of the past that are not worth remembering. Mistakes are a necessary part of learning and progressing. They happen most when you are unsure of a path, when you are trying to improve, but in doing these things 改善 is possible. The balance can be sought. The mistake is a setback on this path. Forgiveness is keeping the path and game in mind. It keeps the system alive rather than destroying it entirely. It can be the hardest of the Graces to uphold because there is often hurt, embarrassment, and regret involved. In reducing these, forgiveness can be sought.

Amor

Love is the perfect relationship between two things. It is wholehearted acceptance of the thing. It is the commitment to that thing to give everything you have of yourself. It is not idealization of a loved, but being in love lets you forgive or even enjoy the foibles of the object of your love. It is not that it is perfect but that it has acceptable and comfortable faults in your eyes that makes the love perfect. You are able to move beyond criticism and hatred and accept what actually is. Love is about what you can give to what you truly care about. It is inherently from you and selfless. If possible, the best love is one that is reciprocated for there is then a positive feedback into the system and balance sublime is achieved. It can come in many forms from an interest in a hobby to the owning of a pet to familial, to platonic, to amorous. The importance of the love is not the form or object of affection, but the generosity implicit in the affection. How one expresses the love can range in all manner of forms and propriety, but the core and goodness of the grace itself is wholly good.

Honos

Respect is a way of showing the world you value it. It is lesser than trust, for trust also shows that you care about their well-being. Respect on the other hand is the recognition that the people around you deserve to be treated well. They are deserving of kindness. They have their own values. Respect is a way to show that although there may be differences, those are minor to the ultimate system of the world and the fact that everyone deserves to have the amazing experience that living offers. Respect does not have to be agreement. Rather, it is often born of disagreement. It is the acknowledgement that the thing you believe that another disagrees with is not guaranteed to be the right thing. It may be that you are wrong, but you haven’t found that out yet. It may even be that both of you are right because different situations and beliefs apply to people differently. By showing respect to a person, you are letting them know that the state of their system may be in balance for them, and that is ok with you. Respect then allows each person to build bridges between their isolated systems and improve the greater system encompassing you both. Thus, balance between people can be achieved. It may be expressed in thought, action, or refraining from either of those. It shows that you have used the empire of the mind, and thus you can act rationally. Respect is not something that should be earned by people. It is something that you should implicitly grant people, even if they do not act with respect toward you. It is only for you and your own mind that respect matters. It is not imposing your own beliefs on others.

Spes

Hope is what keeps you going. It is inherent in you, but it needs to be nurtured. It will get you through the coldest nights and harshest rejections. Hope is the goalpost for 改善. It is the place where you are trying to get, and it is the way to know that you are building yourself a paradise on Earth. Through hope and acknowledging the hopes of others we can make a better world, because hopes become dreams, desires, goals, plans and eventually reality. Every great thing accomplished started as a hope. It is a seed that may one day become the greatest of wonders and strengths to be found on the surface of the planet.

Fides

Trust is what allows people to work together. It is the fundamental that all relationships are built off of from a mere acquaintance to the most passionate of lovers. When you trust someone, you give a little bit of yourself to them in the hope that they will treat that well. You relinquish a part of yourself and in so doing you are being truly selfless. How you treat the trust of others is largely how you keep relationships with the world. By being trustworthy, you are bringing something excellent to the world. Breaking trust with someone is to tell them they have no value and is a sad thing. By trusting others, you are admitting that you do not have entire power over the lives of other people. You are asking others to help you, to get along with you, to treat you with respect and dignity. By being trustworthy, you give those things to those around you and your relationships can be constructive.

Diligentia et Tenacitas

Many things worth having require diligence. You need to actually do things in order to achieve the best results in them. Thus, being diligent to your activities, your life, your duties is good and important. You need to be involved in the things you do to achieve the power over your own world. You need to be there actually for the things and people that are important in your life. You need to pay attention to what your actions do to each system. You need to participate to achieve 改善 and the Dynamic Balance that you seek in a system. It is only when you have put in your due diligence that you can know you belong in a situation or can walk away from it.

Studia

The world is our experience. We cannot guarantee anything outside the world either beyond death or in other universes. Thus, the world should be our focus. All delights and studies should come from the world around us. The things we delight in define our world and our character. It is in showing our delights that we can better appreciate the world and make ourselves better in turn. This does not mean unthinking subservience to our instincts or character. There are perverse delights lurking in your sub or overt conscious. You must use the Empire of the Mind and the graces to guide your morality. Instead it means finding worthwhile delights and expressing our appreciation of those delights. Study is focusing on those things you delight in or are working on improving. They become the focus of your attention, and you work towards 改善 and the Dynamic Balance in the areas of your delight. Thus delight leads to study, which leads towards the ultimate goals of the universe. Study may be easy or hard and the delight may be in joy or satisfaction. These may either resemble games and ecstasy, or they may be disguised as labor and quiet pride. Either way, the expression of delight is good. Studying that which you delight in is good. Find out more about the world, and you will have a greater appreciation for it.

Benignitas

Kindness is the motivation for good particularly in its inherent reciprocity. Kindness to you makes you feel good. It increases the positive aspects of your life and helps you see the world for the true wonder that it is. Kindness to others helps them feel the wonder of the world as well. The two feed upon each other to make the world and lives better. Thus, be kind. Kindness may be hard sometimes. It may not be what you want to do, but it is always worth it. Kindness can be simple or complex. It can be tangible or not. It can be a kind word or action. It can be a small gift. It is at its most fundamental expressing the value of a person or thing. It is not monetary value, but the wish that that thing exists in the world. It reaffirms the worth of maintaining. It gives encouragement to the weak and reinforces the strong. Determining the kind thing to do takes the Empire of the Mind. It seeks to move things toward the balance, thus achieving 改善. It is heartfelt. Acting generous without feeling it achieves at most half of cycle of kindness. It may be necessary to start with empty kindness to develop the habit, but one must also train the soul to feel and desire the kindness to fully add the value of kindness to the world.