Values:
These are a few of my favorite things.
Values…
…then principles, strategy, technique, and tactics.
Everything flows from Values. Your values are the most upstream “driver” in your life.
Values are the qualities or standards that guide our behaviors, decisions, and reactions, largely influenced by cultural, societal, and personal experiences.
They are subjective and personal… while many of our individual values are simply adopted from those we grew up around, they can be chosen.
Many of us have no idea what we actually value… fewer still have any real clarity around our values.
***Here’s a hint: …if you are getting things (people, circumstances, situations, and experiences) that you don’t like, that you wish you needn’t deal with, you likely have values that you’re not clear on…
You are currently getting exactly what you want, even if you’re not liking it…
You are fulfilling values that you’re not aware of and the way you’re going about fulfilling them is causing unintended consequences…
You may even secretly like it… and not be aware of it.
The shit we’re programmed with below the conscious level… We, humans, are a fuckin trip.
One way or the other, you are, however, getting something out of it. Or you wouldn’t be doin’ it.
Wanna “change” that?
Stick around, that’s at the core of what we do here.***
Values are dynamic, capable of evolving throughout our lives while serving as a compass to navigate between right and wrong.
Satisfaction and fulfillment tend to arise when one’s decisions and actions are aligned.
We all have our own values, and some of us are clear on them.
These are mine:
Choosing is an act of self-determination and an expression of freedom…
…to create, or craft, your own reality.
The decisions and actions we make have a ripple effect, impacting the choices we have available to us tomorrow.
Every choice we make has the ability to open up new opportunities or close off paths… think of these as doors, windows, escape hatches, and so on.
As such, our lives become a cumulative result of our choices. Each decision, a building block, shaping the trajectory of our lives.
The wider the variety of blocks we lay down (choices we make), the more diverse our potential future paths become. The more available choices we have.
By actively making decisions, you’re expressing independence and self-direction. You’re acknowledging that you’re not just a product of circumstances, but a proactive agent actively shaping your life’s course.
This perspective positions you as a creator rather than a creation, promoting a sense of empowerment and personal responsibility.
Having the ability to choose and doing so is how we craft our own game… rules and all.
Having agency over your life means having a sense of control, or the ability to influence your own thoughts and behavior.
It’s the capacity to be psychologically stable, yet flexible in the face of conflict or change.
Agency is also the ability to make wise decisions and put those decisions into actions that are consistent with the life you want to live.
It’s a sense of self-efficacy, or the belief that you can affect an outcome, that you have some power over what happens.
Agency requires getting your mind, body, and emotions in balance to think clearly, advocate for yourself, and make choices that create positive things in your life.
Authority.
Authorship.
Same thing.
Having the final, and often only, say so. Specifically in regards to one’s “self.”
You write the story, you make the rules.
Authority is a position often granted, or elected. If you don’t take authority over yourself and your life, someone else will. I don’t know about you, but I have a will of my own.
Be the author of your experience. It’s the responsible thing to do.
Responsibility = Ability to respond.
Being “able to respond” is a requirement of being the authority, lest you fuck it up royally… unless you’ve trained/reprogrammed your automatic behaviors. Shhh, we’ll sort that out later.
*For the overly analytical among you…
There are:
“Universal laws.”
“Man-made laws.”
“Rules.”
and “Guidelines.”
Most of those can be broken, the rest bent quite far… they all, however, can be written… That’s what authors do.
early 17th century: from Greek autonomia, from autonomos ‘having its own laws’, from autos ‘self’ + nomos ‘law’ or ‘govern’.
There are many interpretations and applications of this word.
Here, we see this as the capacity (a “RIGHT” and an obligation) to make well-informed decisions on one’s own behalf simply because you can and therefore should.
Not to “should” on you, but…
If you can’t, or won’t, or don’t, someone else will…
Your perspective. That’s what makes you actually unique. Different. Individual.
You are the literal center of the universe… your own personal universe.
You are the single common denominator that ties everything in your personal experience together.
You have a very particular way of seeing the world, the universe… your self, and that self in the world… your version of the universe.
Much of your perspective is “appropriate.” Much of it is accurate.
All of it is “true” and “correct.”
And the way you see it, how you have decided or concluded it to be, sets the foundational rules that your game is played… and, how it “works out.”
Perspective is a funny thing. Things are and aren’t, as they seem…
But, and, in the end, it is what you think it is. It is what you say it is.
If it wasn’t, why would you say it is?
Perspective is a choice, though we have all adopted perspectives that don’t work for us… aren’t as beneficial for us as they could be.
For you are getting an experience, based on what and how you expect it to be.
You are literally setting the parameters and the boundaries of what is and what isn’t possible, probable, and, predictable in your experience.
Want to change the world?
Want to change the experience you are having of the world?
Want to change the things (the people and circumstances), you are experiencing in the world?
Change your perspective.
It’s simple. And it’s easy.
Like putting on a different pair of sunglasses.
Hardwired into us is a primal drive for more, better, faster, and different.
Along with the need for safety, acceptance, and love, we tend to pursue things, events, experiences, and “things” we’ve ascribed or correlated feeling “better” with.
Everything you want is because you think you will feel better in the having of it
A. Hicks
Choosing what to pursue seems simple. Why do so many of us end up at the top of the ladder only to realize “WTF! This isn’t it either!!!?”
Many of us picked up on our wants based on what others told us was good, noble, righteous, or worthy.
***This is a bit more of a rabbit hole than we have the space here to explore, dark background and all… suffice it to say that Value Goals and Outcome Goals are not the same thing.
Knowing how to discern the difference is often all it takes in order to experience the dance between satisfaction & fulfillment. The bottom line is that when we fulfill what we actually value, we are in fact satisfied.***
The reality of the human situation is that many of us are chasing things we think we want only to realize that the thing we’re trying to fill is empty yet again, as soon as the new car smell wears off… typically it happens faster than that.
Our modern life, and the hopes, dreams, expectations… and programming of others…
…has us chasing clothes, and cars, working jobs we hate, so we can buy shit we don’t need…
…our great war is a spiritual war, and our great depression is our lives…
Tyler Durden
In our lifetime we may in fact see both a great war and a great depression… Even if that’s the case, we will still be wired to pursue it. Hopefully, you and I have the ability, and the capacity, to aim that need to pursue beyond what’s necessary for survival.
In the meantime…
“Dude, it’s a game.” Yes, having that perspective will radically change the experience you are having…
And still, life (you, your decisions, and this particular playground) will absolutely kick your ass on occasion.
Grin and bear it? Yep.
Get back on when you get knocked off? Yep.
Did you pack a lunch and wear a helmet? Yep yep.
It’s still going to kick your ass from time to time and while we can mitigate a HUGE amount of that…
It’s still going to happen. Even when it’s not a full ass whoopin’… life gonna sucker punch you.
What you do with that. What you do in light of that. What you do in spite of that…
What you do in Response to that, yeah, it matters.
But there’s nothing like having enough grit to finish the round…
Having the tools and the established skill sets to deal with life and the Mountains we face, and the ass-kickings that go with it can make all the difference in what those experiences are like.
Becoming resilient is like fortifying a character in a game.
It’s actually the other side of the coin… yep, it’s a game… a game of learning how to climb “The Mountain.” The point isn’t to climb “The Mountain” like there’s only one and get safely to the valley on the other side and chill out in a hammock.
The point is to become a better mountain climber, so that you can navigate yourself and those around you up, down, around, over, and under the “Mountains” when they appear.
Resilience allows us to do that elegantly. Make it look easy. Make it look simple. And continue on no matter how rough the terrain.
There are so many ways to say this… to me, being able to demonstrate the magic to those around me so they can see that they are also capable of doing so, is the most appropriate way.
Unless I have to, carrying someone else’s ass up the mountain is not what I’m here for, nor do I believe it’s the point or that life “Saddles” us with circumstances like that. We do it to ourselves…
I have, however, found that resilience is essentially “the thing” we end up attaining, all other earned “gifts” like wisdom and patience are merely the ingredients that make someone resilient.
If/When the shit hits the fan and the Mountains of life show up in front of you resilience is what’s going to get you up it.
The Ability to Discern…
Between good & bad, right & wrong, appropriate & inappropriate… what you want vs what you think you want…
Thinking tools. From meta-rationality to systems thinking… from first principles to the Ladder of inference. From mental models and frameworks to gut feelings and intuition…
Allow you to do one thing… (and, hopefully well), discern the difference between “things” while making sound judgments.
If resilience is the endpoint of all the other “earned gifts”, discernment is the endpoint of learning how to think appropriately.
To understand something…
…is to know it well enough that you can apply the knowledge of it to solve problems and create altogether new things, and ways to do those things…
Such as ideas, structures, and even art… or, the entirety of your life, from here on out.
To be understanding is one thing…
To have understanding is another…
To wield understanding is what we’re after.
This is ultimately what DIG is for.
A playground to gain understanding, so you can reality test it by creating your experience at will in “real” time.
A season.
The Ebb and The Flow.
The up and the down.
The in and the out. Rocking back and forth, like a metronome…
Like life is breathing.
Like the whole thing is breathing.
It is.
It may feel like it starts and stops. it doesn’t. There is no end to it and there was no beginning to it.
That “thing” whatever it is, the thing behind or beneath all of this, “realiwhateveryoucallit” – it’s breathing, once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Once you learn how to ride with it and not against it… you find the rhythm, the cadence, it’s like surfing, or dancing, or snowboarding.
It’s like the ocean tide, in, out, in out.
That’s you, the life force, the spark, consciousness, Source, God, or the gods, the fabric, matrix, etc.
Whatever name you’ve given it, it’s breathing and it has a rhythm to it, a particular cadence, a harmony and/or disharmony to it… all of which is the energetic signature of how you are being.
You are after all, experiencing yourself being displayed on an imaginary canvas that you’ve convinced yourself is real so that you can experience yourself.
Curious… how’s it going?
Curiouser & curiouser… how good could you stand it?
Breathe in and breathe out…
Learn how to ride it… and… learn to swim 😉
It’s you, Dude.
You’re doing “it.”
The good. The bad. The “WTF” of it all.
No one’s coming to fix it. That’s on you.
The good news is that you can craft it anyway you want
Life is the path, You are the way…
The way to do “it”, make it the way you want.
- Know the-self.
- In order to understand the-self.
- So that you can lead the-self…
…in creating it to be the way that you want it to be.
‘Decisions & Actions.’—That’s all it is.
The question is not how far…
The question is, do you possese the constitution, the depth of faith, to take it as far as is needed?
NOAH ‘IL DUCE’ MACMANUS
Relationships…
Are the most important thing on this planet.
If you hold that as true, the one you have with yourself is the most important.
You are a system of systems operating within a system.
A closed-loop feedback system.
You are part of the larger system, not separate from it.
Sort yourself out so that you can navigate yourself in the world in such ways that cause you to feel about yourself and the world, and that self in the world the way that lights you up.
Be that which you want to see (experience) in the world, first, and the world will show you that.
It is, after all, a canvas, or a tv screen, showing you how you are “being.”