The more we learn about and understand life, the more we realize almost everything we have been taught originates from society’s goals for us and not our own. Today, we are going to compare the core values of society’s goals to life’s goals for us. We will see how it is actually society that influences our plans, our thinking and our actions.
Lets start by defining what “values” are:
Value: a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.
Aligning Our Inner and Outer Worlds
In order for us to align our inner and outer worlds, we need to understand how life really works. Strangely, understanding life, ourselves and our minds are not things that we were taught in school. In fact, we are taught more about what is expected from us from society’s point of view.
If we are beginning our alignment later in life (past childhood), we can start by a personal inventory to determine where we struggle. We should attempt to see and learn more about our reactions and behavioral patterns. These patterns are usually self-limiting and have a deeper, underlying cause.
As we dig-in and learn about ourselves and our mind, we hopefully will have realizations and breakthroughs that help us transform our broken repeating patterns. The journey of self-discovery is extremely rewarding and essential to our understanding.
Magic really begins to happen in our life when we:
- Begin to align with our true purpose
- Learn to calm our mind
- Become and live in the present moment
All of a sudden things starting working smoothly for us. Our happiness increases. We don’t resist or fight things as much as we used to. We begin to see things from a different perspective. The path of our life becomes much more clear for us.
Our Beliefs Are Not Our Own
As we begin to recognize that our belief’s are learned and are not our own, we can intentionally rebuild new, healthy patterns and free ourselves from the suffering that beliefs cause us. When we think about values we adopted from society, a few come quickly to mind:
- the need for money
- acceptance from others
- social status
- having a successful career
- delivering rapid results
From a young age, we learn that these are the things that good and successful people do. We are told to get good grades in school so we can get a good job to afford to support a family. We are taught to stand up and fight for our freedoms and to become a responsible, working citizen.
But how do these things help us align with life? How do these things help us be happy and find peace?
Society’s Values
Society’s values for us can be very interesting. We must ask ourselves whose perspective do they come from? What purpose do they serve? So lets look at the list I put together for Society’s Values:
- To make money/the need for money
- Financial, social and career success
- Delivering or receiving rapid/fast results
- Opportunity for ourselves
- Convenience/to make things easy
- Self-focus/individual rights
- Taking responsibility/being productive
- Justice for wrong-doing
- Vanity
- Personal freedoms
- Privacy
Im sure we could create a very large list, but I want to keep it to the about the top 10 that come to mind. You will see right away how this list begins to look like a path to citizens rights, value of commerce, working and self. While these things are not necessarily bad in themselves, they are truly not critically important when it comes to our spiritual growth or life’s healing energy.
A Good Test of Value: ask yourself “if this were the last day of my life, would this matter or be of value to me?”
Life’s Values
Now lets look at the list I put together for Life’s values:
- Being present in the moment (our presence)
- Learning/growth/change
- Having understanding and compassion
- Ability to show unconditional love
- Having peace and happiness
- Connecting with life
- Connection to others/supporting others
- Being selfless
- Acceptance/patience/forgiveness
- Gratitude and appreciation
- Do no harm
You can immediately see how Life’s values align with things that should matter most to us. Life’s list definitely passes the good values test (if this was last day of my life, would this matter to me).
We need to bring these values more into our lives and into the values of our children’s lives. If we are truly aligned with life, we will live by the goal of “Do No Harm”. We must focus on and learn more about life-aligned values. We need to work together to try to make the world a sustainable, better place. This will align our inner and outer worlds.
The Source of Our Suffering
Sadly for us, things are accelerating and getting more distant from life’s values. Society is getting more of its values imprinted into us at a younger age from our schools, technology, media and our governments. Much of what we are taught and we are told to focus on is the cause and source of our suffering.
We do not have to accept what we are taught as our only values. Many cultures still teach and value important life-aligned principles. We can learn about ourselves and connect to life every day. We can practice mindfulness and be present for life.
I encourage you to begin to simply observe and understand, so you can come to the realization on your own that we all need to transform our broken patterns and seek after what is truly important in life.
Take a Personal Inventory of Your Values
As an exercise, take an inventory of your own values. Make a list of your top 10 most important values. Think about it for a few days and come back to your list. Then just observe what Society and the world around you values. Do they align? Where are they different?
If they don’t align, you will begin to see why your inner and outer worlds do not.
Commit to letting go of unhealthy values in your life. Practice good mental habits and mental nourishment that connect you closer to life and ultimately your true purpose. Learn to let go and trust life. Smile at the miracle and gift you have been given. It is why you are here. Practice remaining anchored in the present moment for you and your loved ones.
Wishing you peace and love,
Until next time…
—
Greg
