One of the questions I ask when I start to work with someone is “Are you clear on your values, so that you know where to focus your time, energy and attention?” This is code for, do they want to fast or do they want to go alone?
What any of us values in life is subjective. Some people value safety and others value adventure. Our values and the things we hold in high regard tend to be at the center of our choices and our lives orient around them. Two things to consider when I’m asking this question; one is to define the values themselves and the other is to see how far away from living ones values you actually are.
I will tell myself one thing is important and I do another quite a bit. When I’m doing that I feel tension and usually some pain. I value XX but I spend my time and energy on YY. This is even easier when I’m not even clear on what my values are. Or they’re old and outdated. When I was poor I valued money but after I got money that needed to change to something else.
At times, people in relationships will have drastically different values and then there’s conflict. One person wants fun the other wants security. One wants efficiency and the other maybe wants excellence. At the core of this is that we can value things that others don’t and they value things that we think are worthless. So what do we do? One thing that happens is we say we’ll do something based off what someone wants but do what we want to instead. Yeah, we just try to have our cake and eat it to.
Plenty of my life I’ve operated in the mindset of everybody fends for themselves, the strong survive, I’m going to get mine first and fast, and basically fuck everyone else. That way of living is just a tad self oriented and I place the highest significance on me. There’s nothing wrong with that if that happens to be the way that you live in alignment with your highest values, you might just want to be up front and honest about it.
The problem with making myself the most important part of any decision I’m making is that I either have no relationships or I find people who will support that way of living to please me or other dysfunctional dynamic. “What can others and the world do for me?” Maybe that’s a good life… maybe not?
Insert the African proverb here, “If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together.”
A quick distinction between values and ethics. Value is defined as the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something. Ethics are the quest to define what’s right and wrong, good and evil, and things like what is criminal and what isn’t
Between those two we create our code. My code, like I think everyone’s, is what I seek to always live my life by when I’m operating as my highest and most evolved self. This doesn’t happen all the time for me. I’m rarely operating as my highest self for longer than a few minutes at a time. When I tell myself the truth I’m often running some strategy to get something something I “think” I need.
The more we live our lives against our own code we more suffer. In order to do that we have to contort our values, be inauthentic, and numb.
I’m going to attempt to define what “going far” is for you. I’m not going to tell you what you should make mean “going fast” is either. But whatever they are I’m going to bet that your values can always use a good ole review to see if you’re aligned or living against your own code. I can do some horrendous mental and spiritual gymnastics to try to make all that fit. I can convince myself that I’m living the way I’m supposed to but just be running game on myself and others.
A possible solution is to use respect to value the person in your life with the opposing values. The idea being to value what they value not because it’s important to you but because they are important to you. Maybe you’re not valuing your relationships enough?
The opportunity:
In descending order, what are your top five values?
Is connection in your top five? Could it be elevated? How would you do that?
How good are you at cooperation and collaboration? Could you handle to develop your skills in either or both of those?
Thanks for your time, have a great day!