Wishful Thinking as an Obstacle to Virtuous Action

As quoted in a recent edition of the New Yorker, John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, said: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat… that which purifies us is trial and trial is by what is contrary.”

Milton suggests that it is cowardly to ‘escape from the field’ which is what procrastinators do to avoid NEGATIVE judgment because they harbor doubts or have low self confidence,

And he suggests we are strengthened by efforts in the real world, not by contemplation alone, which constitutes what he calls “cloistered virtue.”

Milton is saying in effect that doing it (whether performing a task, making a contact or launching a new project of personal change) is so much better than talking about it. This has a familiar ring; I recognize this tendency in myself and only yesterday I was out walking with a friend whom I have known for ten years and again she was talking about how she would love to lose 15 lbs, how perfect this would be, etc. She has been talking this way for years but clearly it is a mere velleity (defined as a mere wish, unaccompanied by effort) rather than a serious intention.

Without actions to carry them out, claims of a desire for virtue are just wishful thinking. And the trouble with wishful thinking is that it tends to substitute for real achievement, gives the illusion of fulfillment and then produces guilt and frustration when the words themselves do not lead to objective results.

The key of course is to move from wishing and hoping to doing and having. The Milton quote serves as a wake up call for he is saying that by facing conflict and strife one is strengthened in one’s capacities. Better to be toughened by encounters with the contradictory forces to your fondest hopes and moral admonitions than to withdraw to the inner theater of your fantasies and dreams.

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