Scribbles and Doodles's blog — Values-first living

My grandmother passed away recently. During her visitation and funeral, I was struck by how the stories people told about her reflected that she lived by her values. She was a very Christian woman and spent her life helping others by cooking them food and providing encouragement. She was known for her kind actions. While I'm not Christian, I want my life to be filled by values-first living. I want my actions to match what I think is true.<br>In order to maximize values-first living, I have to first identify which values are most important to me. In any situation, there are many possible actions. One action might maximize one value while another maximizes a different value. Both actions may be "good" but I can only make one. Thus, I should pick the one that most aligns with our values.<br>A few years ago I did an exercise where I printed out cards with values on them. I arranged them left to right on an increasing scale of important to me; cards on the right resonated the most for me.

I found values like honesty, knowledge, and generosity mattered most to me. On the other hand, I wasn't very interested in tradition or God's will. I still value tradition but if a situation arose where I had to pick an action between it and a value further to the right, e.g. family, I would lean towards honoring the further right action more. It's time for me to do this exercise again. As I've grown and matured, my values have shifted slightly. I have begun valuing interconnectedness and related values more than I used to because I see how so much of life's meaning comes from how we interact with others.<br>Merely identifying my values isn't enough though. I have to live by them in the moment. I can do that by listening to what my heart says. In some moments, I may have the opportunity to pause and ponder but other moments require quick response and I'm forced to respond by my gut. Both are opportunities for values living but gut moments require me to be more in tune with my values.<br>Reflecting on past actions helps me be in tune with my values. I find journaling about how I acted in past scenarios helps me determine on whether I was acting in a values-first way. It isn't about judging whether I did the "right" thing. I find it more constructive to ask myself questions like "what value was I demonstrating here?" and "how would it have looked if I demonstrated this other value instead?". There are many paths and decisions. None of them are intrinsically right. I only aspire to stay on the path where my footing matches what I say I believe. The honest path.<br>Someday my own funeral will come, and I hope people eulogize my life in a similar way, that I lived by my values. In the meantime, I can mindfully choose a values-first path today by determining what I value, trying to live mindfully in the moment by those values, and pausing to learn from past scenarios.

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