21. Let’s not behave
August 8, 2025
What have you discovered in terms of what your core values are? Have you taken time to think about what lights you up, what makes you unreasonably happy? Based on that, can you figure out what underlying theme is most important to you - Fun? Community? Growth? Knowledge? Tradition? Honesty? Each of us has different core values, and they are revealed by the things we truly care most about.
What we care about when we think quickly is likely influenced by our experience in the world. In my view, society and culture put a lot of pressure on us to all want the same thing. Family advice and peer expectations and advertisements act as though X is the “right” thing to want and strive for, and that Y is not. Have you noticed this? For example, the Western culture pushes us towards having a value of “consumption.” It’s true that we all need to be able to make money to support ourselves and our families. But we don’t talk about having values of sustenance and support; rather upward mobility is the goal. “Busy” and “productive” are good. We “should” want more money, more status, more resources. There are also cultural values in beauty, around fitness, in what is a “good” job, a “good partner”; the list goes on. When we think quickly, we may adopt these as our values. If we think more slowly, really considering what is important to us, we can connect with our own core values. I encourage you to take time to do this.
A few years ago, I thought about writing a book, so I investigated developing a book proposal. One thing that was for certain in every guide I read is that you need one radical idea – something that gets people’s attention. Here’s my radical idea for this week. It’s about behaving. I overheard a mom talking to her child the other day – the child was maybe 6 or 7. She said – “now come on, I want you to behave.” I had been thinking about values and realized this: when we “behave,” we are acting in alignment with values that someone else has defined for us. So, “behaves” means:
BEHAVES = BE a Human Accepting the Values of an External Something or Someone
In other words, when we “behave” we are allowing ourselves to be subject to someone else’s values. And to be clear, there are many times that this is needed. If everyone followed different rules when driving, the roads would be very dangerous. If children don’t follow the rules set out for the classroom, the opportunity for learning can be lost. There is a place and time for behaving so that we can achieve common goals when we are working together.
However, when we are making decisions about our days and our lives, we can be aware of what values we align with personally and which ones we do not, and act accordingly. Rather than feeling badly if we want to do something in different way than our friends or family, wouldn’t it be better if we could reflect, for example – oh, they want to do it that way because they value Fairness, but in this case I actually value Compassion more so I would do it this way. What a revelation that would be!
The challenge of living in a society that holds so fast to specific values that everyone might not agree with is that questioning them goes against the grain. I’d like to see this change. Wouldn’t it be amazing if our society celebrated each person finding their own way. Right now, we don’t have the language or even the awareness of concepts that could help us on this inner journey of discovery. Teaching about these kinds of knowings and these kinds of truths could be a role for the elders in society. I propose elders could help with seeing these opportunities for self-awareness in our lives. It would serve an important purpose that is not be filled now. And perhaps these experiences and interactions with wise elders would give us the strength to not “behave.”
