"People should always have something which they prefer to life"

To prefer something to life is to acknowledge that mere survival is not the highest good. The claim points to a hierarchy of values in which principles, loves, and callings outrank the instinct to preserve oneself at any cost. When people hold truth, justice, freedom, or love above the comforts of safety, they become capable of courage rather than mere calculation. A whistleblower who risks career and liberty, a parent who endures hardship for a child, an artist who sacrifices ease for honesty, a citizen who resists tyranny, each demonstrates that a life guarded from all danger can still be wasted if it bows to fear.

Such preference does not glorify death or suffering. It argues for living by standards that give life coherence and dignity. Paradoxically, those prepared to lose life for what matters often live the most intensely: stakes clarify purpose, and purpose animates the days. Without a value to prefer to life, one drifts, susceptible to manipulation, addicted to comfort, and quick to trade integrity for convenience.

Yet discernment is essential. To elevate an ideal above life can breed fanaticism if the ideal is brittle, unexamined, or indifferent to the lives of others. The test of a worthy preference is whether it withstands honest scrutiny, enlarges compassion, and can be held without denying the humanity of those who differ. A guiding question helps: would this value, if universalized, allow persons to flourish as ends rather than be used as means?

Practically, the counsel invites defining nonnegotiables, truthfulness, fidelity, justice, and aligning habits with them. Naming what outranks mere survival steadies the will when fear rises, helps one say no to degrading compromises, and resists the erosion of self-respect. Preferences can mature; humility keeps conviction supple without making it weak.

Life is the vessel; meaning is the content. To hold something higher than life does not diminish life, it deepens it, conferring direction, courage, and the quiet joy of coherence.