50. Reverse-engineering Our Values into Our Life

February 27, 2026

As I’ve written about a few times, ideally, we live our lives according to our values, that is, we live our lives to have more of what we hold important and less of what we don’t. We do not always have complete control over all the ways we spend our time (in fact, it’s rare that we do), but the idea is that, for what you do have control over, you make choices so that you move in a direction that is aligned with your values. I’ve also written about how there are so many influences in our society that tell us, directly or indirectly, what we *should* care about, that sometimes it’s hard to hear our own voice.

It’s not a common practice to have conversations with others or with ourselves about what is important to us, which is a pity. Having more opportunities for these types of open and non-judgmental conversations with our parents, our friends, our colleagues, our partner – this would help us strengthen this muscle, this ability to describe what we want and to move towards that.

What would that look like? I have an idea. “Reverse-engineering” is when you have a product that has already been made, and you take it apart and try to figure out how to build it yourself. So, let’s do that for a personal value-driven life. Let’s assume that we have a personal value-driven life and take it apart to see what it says our values are.

Think about a decision you made in the past, not a small decision like where to have lunch, but an impactful decision like what type of career to pursue, what to study, where to live, whether to stay in a relationship, a habit to make or a habit to break – something that brought a change to your daily life. First, consider what did you choose? And then, see if you can figure out why you chose that. You may need to ask “why” several times before you get down to the core value behind the decision.

For example, someone might say – I want to read more books. And you’d ask, why? And they might say, when I was young, I read a lot and I loved it, and I want that feeling again. Or they might say, I feel like I spend too much time on my phone, and I think if I have a book to read, that will reduce my screen time. Or they might say, there’s a group in my neighborhood that has a book club, and I want to hang out with them so I’m going to read. These are all potential reasons for making a decision to read more, but are driven by very different underlying values.

In another example, say someone is considering whether to make a job change. They can stay in the job they have, which is demanding and has high pay, or they could move into a freelance situation, which would mean less money and less certainty, but more flexibility. If you value flexibility over income, then you might choose the freelance option. If you value more income, then you would keep the job you have. There are of course many other factors to consider, but hopefully, these examples help you to shift away from the idea of “right” or “best” decisions, and help you to understand that the right decision will depend on the value of the decision maker. You could argue, well that person who does not prioritize income may regret it in the future, and that is true, but so also may the person who chooses higher income over flexibility may come to regret it at some time. The main lesson here is that you can’t argue values, any more than you can argue taste or fashion or art. Everyone has their own individual values, and the more we learn to see decisions and choices through this lens, the more the world will make sense.

So, the task for this week is to dig a little deeper on your decisions, take some notes, see if you can start to see patterns that reveal what your values are. Let me know what you come up with! I’d love to start building our own list of values, since one does not seem to exist already.

As we develop into elders, this type of reflection on values and how they show up in decisions is a skill we can start to practice with others, so everyone can build this habit for themselves. My theory is that if we had a practice of stating clearly why we wanted to choose one thing over another, we’d get more real about what is motivating our choices. At least at that point, we can start to consider the degree to which we are on the path we want to be on, and make any needed adjustments.