my values and principles

I read an interesting article recently – here is my summary:

• time is an individual’s most precious resource
• obsession with productivity stems from a fear of death (otherwise known as an expiration of your time)
• using productivity techniques is an attempt to minimize future regret, but when you consistently approach your time through the lens of productivity, it becomes difficult to turn off that filter even when you want to take a break
• people “burnout” not just from working long hours, but from an inability to rest when they aren’t working
• the author’s personal solution is to ignore productivity and simply do a couple of things every day that optimize for clarity of mind

Between this piece and conversations at dinner last night about values (kudos SR, JR, and CR), I got to thinking about my own values. By values, I mean the things that I deem important to living a meaningful life. I think my values affect my life in the following sequence: values -> principles (heuristics that translate values into actions) -> decisions. This cycle ultimately repeats until I die, and thus is my life. To keep things simple, I tried to approach my values across 3 categories: body, mind, and soul.

I should note that all of us already employ this system, as it is a prerequisite for making our plethora of daily decisions. Do I call a friend to catch up? Do I go for a run? Do I read a book or watch tv? Do I hold the door for the next person? There is no “correct” choice in any of these instances, yet we all manage to make these decisions. There IS a choice, though, that most closely aligns with one’s values, and my premise is that the more we align our decisions with our values, the more meaningful our life will be (or should I say “will feel to us”…does meaning really exist in an absolute sense?).

I’ll start with my body value system because my thought process there is more developed than it is with respect to my mind and soul.

My body values could be defined succinctly as: look great, feel great. To me this means, low body fat %, great sleep, high energy throughout the day, and a high level of fitness. My principles associated with these values look like: exercise daily, eat whole foods most of the time, drink infrequently, go to bed early most of the time. None of these principles are hard rules (for example I ate several pieces of cake and ice cream last night), but they are deeply internalized guidelines that automatically drive my decision making (automatically only because I’ve been working at them for years). I’m able to stray from these principles whenever I feel like it because they are established habits to which I know I will return post-deviation.

What are my mind values? I’m not entirely sure, but the word “engagement” sits top of mind…ha. As in, I want to maintain a consistently engaged mind. What does an engaged mind look like in practice? Learning new skills (like a programming language), grappling with abstract ideas (like trying to figure out a value/principle system to guide me towards a meaningful life…), or taking a set of inputs and working to figure out a conclusion (researching a topic, playing a game, making investment decisions). I don’t know if any of this is “accurate” and clearly my examples are activities I enjoy, but it’s a start. Then the question becomes: what are the principles that will guide me towards a consistently engaged mind? It may actually only be a single principle, and that principle is focus. I only achieve an engaged mind when I am totally focused on a single task. I am an awful multi-tasker. And ever since I quit my job, my susceptibility to distraction via iphone has skyrocketed. As I write this I am beginning to think that my phone is far and away the most potent inhibitor of my focus, and that I should probably take a critical look at this addiction. I can write about a system for promoting focus in a different post, so for now I will close this section with the tldr: a focused mind is an engaged mind. An engaged mind is critical to a meaningful life (for me).

What are my soul values? That is a pretty immense question…thousands of years of organized religion have attempted to tackle it and, to my knowledge, no unanimous conclusion has been reached. A simplified approach to this question may be: how do I want to impact other people? What principles will guide me towards being a phenomenal son, brother, friend, husband, dad, partner, colleague, and stranger (obviously some of those roles are aspirational)? One principle is to always remember the golden rule: treat others how you would want them to treat you. Another may be: help those around me with no expectation of reciprocity. A potential third: don’t put others down to make me feel better about myself. One interesting note – we have received sincere gratitude from Recipeeper users for building the site. I have felt great working on something that is actually helping people AND may be worth something in the future*. Anyway, figuring out how to be a “good person” is really the work of a lifetime, and a couple of sentences will not suffice. I was planning to read the Torah as one of my next books, so I’ll report back as my thinking around the concept of “soul” develops.

In summary, my working principles/values cheat sheet:

Body: health principles -> look good, feel good
Mind: focused mind -> engaged mind
Soul: treat others how I want to be treated -> have a positive impact on those around me

*I want to make a lot more money. Why do I care about money beyond living comfortably? If I give myself the benefit of the doubt and assume my desire to accumulate capital is NOT driven by an excessive ego, then I could make the argument that trying to increase my wealth is logical to the extent that it gives me more freedom to align my time with my values. Or, if I planned to use the loot philanthropically, I could argue that earning the cash to then distribute is actually aligned with my values via having a larger positive impact on other people. Realistically this desire probably stems from my inflated ego, but it’s something to think about.