Core values

An internal monologue written to myself. What are my core values? How should I steer my life towards maximizing the values that are most important to me?

Honesty

Honesty of thought and honesty of speech; utmost important value and life goal. "Everybody lies" - a classic catch phrase of Dr House, but a truth as real as time and space.

It's obvious that you should tell the truth. And you feel it in your heart, every time you think of steering towards a lie. But why should you? It's because honesty aligns your soul with reality, and brings peace to the mind. It also helps you build a better reality, not just for yourself, but for everyone around you who's willing to listen.

Another nuance of it is that you should try to be precise in your speech. Honesty alone is sometimes just not enough. You must aim to make every word and every utterance matter,

Simplicity

Simplicity is peace, complexity is chaos. While chaos can be the source of gold and riches, peace and harmony is more important on the long term. Keep things simple, as simple as can be, and the fog will be lifted from your mind giving you space to focus.

Responsibility

I find that when I'm standing still I feel this guilt... a guilt that I've wasted precious time doing nothing, while I could have used it to pursue something of a greater value, or I could have attended to something or someone who needs my attention.

Take enough responsibility, and you won't ever have to wonder what to do next, you'll always have purpose, you'll always have something to look forward to.

Openness

Creativity and openness are at the core of creation. Be willing to listen, be willing to consider "what if", be willing to allow new thoughts.

Of course, there must be balance, and there are always things falling short to the filter of common sense or practicality.

But be open nonetheless. Listen as if you might have something to learn. Use it to fuel creativity and knowledge, and use an open spirit to transform it all into betterment of the self.

Find out why

Don't follow blindly, don't jump in without a reason. Anything that's remotely good and true should be able to stand up to face the question - why?

Without the why - the how and the who and the when are dubious to me.

Sometimes the why is inherent in the context, and your mind's at peace. But seldom, something doesn't sit right in your gut when facing a particular situation. That's the time to find out why.

If someone is trying to avoid the why, or dancing and tip-toeing around the question, the situation is too fishy, and you should trust your gut.

As soon as you've found out the why, you can decide whether to trust or not; whether to move forward or walk away; whether it's a yes or a no.

Balance

All things tend to move towards equilibrium given enough time, and so must you.

All in moderation. You must balance work, love, family and friends between each other. You must balance intensity with relaxation. You must balance empathy with skepticism.

No excess can ever lead to a good outcome. After plenty of excess in the past, it even seems laughable now. How can one do such a silly thing, as to live in excess? Keep balance in the soul, balance in the mind, and balance in the world around you.

Pragmatism

Great values are a noble goal to aim at. However, the situations you'll encounter are sometimes not black and white, but more often than not, they're in a gradient.

How can you manage to balance all the values all the time? On certain occasions, you won't be able to follow the best possible path, and so you must be pragmatic.

Find the best possible outcome within the realm of possibility, try to balance everything as good as possible. But, when push comes to shove, you can pragmatically cut which doesn't make sense.

Pursue what is meaningful

There's an infinite amount of directions you could choose to go in life. And there's always something deep inside telling you which way is the right way for you to choose. Reason and rationale are not always up to speed with the abundant number of decisions in front of you at any given point. But your gut doesn't lie.

Trust your gut, and trust your instinct, especially when it's deeply negative about a certain perspective.

But also trust when meaning reveals itself to you. Don't waste your time on trivial pastime activities and diversions that numb your senses and cloud your mind. But follow that which speaks to you, which you find appealing.

Courage

All throughout my life I've had this one recurring dream, which keeps coming back to me. It's ever so slightly different every time, and never precisely the same. But here's the essence of it:

One way or another, through a certain sequence of pressuring events, I find myself needing to stand up for myself. My worst enemy slaps me over the head. Or somebody I care for gets attacked verbally by a hateful stranger. I know it in my heart: I must take a stand, I must fight back to injustice. But I'm afraid. Of course I'm afraid. All odds are against me, I'm cornered and surrounded. I look my enemy in the eye and my heart is beating hard. Fear is creeping deeper and deeper in my heart.

For the longest time, my dreams would always culminate in the same way: When the moment comes for me to say what I need to say, or throw the punch back - I became cemented, paralyzed. I'm paralyzed, literally paralyzed. Fist stuck in mid-air, on trajectory, unable to move, unable to blink, unable to speak. Unable to explain it. And then I'd wake up, feeling shameful. Feeling guilty. Feeling humiliated.

"What does it mean?" - I kept asking myself; for years. I didn't think it through, as deeply as I should have, but in my heart I always knew the answer.

Until one night, when, to my perplexity, the punch landed. And the dream changed forever.

Something had clicked in my heart, and I knew deep down that if the situation presented itself, I'd do the right thing, and stand up for what's right to the best of my abilities.

I was afraid for most my life of being a coward. And it haunted me, in my dreams, over and over again.

I know now, that all this time, it was my inner self, drilling the lesson into me: Be courageous ! Stand up! Fight for what's right! Fight for what's good! And my conscience never let me forget it. Until it became part of me. Until not even the dream could freeze me anymore.

Be courageous. It's the key to keeping your core intact.