Why Live 1.13

1.13 Evaluate Your Values

Just take a look at dating profiles and you’d have high hopes for humanity.

Seems everyone values honesty and real connection and just looking to be loved.

Compare that with the reality of cheating, shallow dates, and using others for self entertainment.

Clearly people are not aware of their actual values.

One person’s definition of “honesty" might be to not tell others certain details while another’s might be full disclosure. 

Vague terms of values only go so far with others….they do nothing for your own self growth.

My father talked about pride as his #1 value and yet, when everyone had gone home, he was extremely insecure.

I witnessed displays of values in social gatherings that were never followed up on home. It seemed to tear them apart to pretend to be something for the social acceptance of others. And I decided that social rejection was better than inner turmoil.

And, yes, I have spent many years alone.

I value my peace of mind because I witnessed to so many emotionally unhealed people growing up.

As an adult, I have come to learn how to value my physical health just as much.

My actions match my values. I turn down social engagements with people who are negative. I eat according to my dietary routine not emotional impulses.

But it wasn’t always this way. As I said, I grew up around liars and pretenders so I had to figure out what my values were.

To do this, I first recorded my habits for 2 years. Yes, you read that right – I never said healing was a quick journey.

I learned through the recording of my habits that I valued feeling superior and I  valued “outsmarting" others. I also learned that I was becoming a version of the very toxic behaviors that I hated.

So I went through a deliberate self humbling journey. I would not speak when I knew an answer- which felt like total fraud at the time. I would practice sayings such as “I appreciate you" and “I hadn’t thought of it like that, please tell me more" even though I had already emotionally decided this person wasn’t worth my time.

I needed to learn how to value people for the flawed miracles that they were. Not their potential, not their future goals, and not for what they could do for me.

I needed to value people as valuable.

When I started doing that I learned how little I valued myself. 

It all comes back to becoming curious.

I was curious why I didn’t value myself if I thought I was superior to others.

I was curious about how a person could become the traits they despised in others. It was about that time that I read the book “Why you behave in ways you hate" and learned that kids either accept, rebel, or emulate the way they are treated by others.

This has helped me many times since to evaluate my values.

I simply ask myself “Am I accepting, rejecting, or emulating this other person’s values?”

We accept, we reject, or we copy.

That is how humans adapt. 

I suggest you think about your closest social group. Did you become part of the group by accepting their social rules?  Or are the “weird oitsider" they tolerate for the social acceptance of one the members of the group? Or maybe you simply just started talking and acting like them?

I went through each person I knew and put myself in 1 of those 3 categories. I learned I was a rebel. Always the weird outsider brought in by a single person.

I learned I valued my truth over social acceptance because I could entertain myself alone but I could not sleep at night trying to remember who to tell what when so everyone was happy. 

Learning your current values is brutally important. That’s who you really are at your core and you deserve to know who you really are.