6 Core Values Life Has Taught Me To Respect
The lessons that life teaches us are often beyond classrooms and textbooks, and they outweigh anything that conventional yardsticks can measure. Pausing periodically and discerning our experiences can help us unfold these lessons towards fulfilling our purpose.
Here are six of the values I have learned from life.
1. Gratitude
Gratitude is about gratefully acknowledging every privilege presented by life, along with opportunities and lessons that come in the form of challenges. It is, however, a much-discussed but often ignored attitude when it comes to practical application.
Having been blessed with life’s valuable privileges such as family, education, and access to an evolved social system, I grew up with a sense of entitlement that led to high expectations of the world. Inevitably, frustration and disappointment came easily to me, and a stage arrived where I had to determine their source.
Focusing on self-awareness and introspection taught me that I was falling short in my quotient of gratitude. I realized I was receiving a lot from life, but losing sight of it in my pursuit of more. I also learned that apart from feeling the gratitude, it is important to express it to people who have supported our journey.
Quoting the Buddha:
“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so let us all be thankful”
2. Self-control in the face of abundance
It is fair to enjoy the universe’s gifts in response to our efforts, and why not? Yet it is easy to succumb to the lure of abundance by craving enjoyment and bloating of the ego. Unfortunately, a stage arrives when either the loss of that abundance causes pain, or more of the same, no longer gives joy. A sense of purpose is then lost.
Exercising self-control when blessed with abundance ensures that we do not become the mind’s slaves solely pursuing sense driven material satiation, and, are in fact, able to share the abundance by practicing core values of generosity and compassion for lasting joy.
3. Following a personal path cleansed of craving for others’ lives
During my formative years, I found myself making decisions around education and career based on my perception of opportunities, and the rewards they were apparently bringing to others. I learned later that this is seldom a good approach since it can lead us to directions that may not be suited to our qualities, and prevent us from finding our true purpose.
A related dimension of craving for other people’s lives is that it brings out jealousy, and eventually, anger when we find ourselves not achieving the same perceived results. We may also discover that an independent set of issues have accompanied the results, and we had not anticipated them during our blindsided pursuit. Consequently, we could lose mental peace and even act against our interests.
4. Valuing feedback
We sometimes tend to look at feedback as a criticism or disapproval of our views and approaches. Not only does that deprive us of objective assessments, but also closes our minds to alternative possibilities, and restricts open and trusting relationships. Accepting feedback with an open mind, and implementing it where possible can help cut out a lot of emotional stress and fear.
I used to struggle with receiving feedback as a potential channel of improvement until I learned to place it in appropriate baskets and deal with it on merit. I gradually began to feel grateful for feedback where it could help me improve, and realized that what we are appreciated for and take pride in is perhaps good, but is far from everything that is necessary or important.
5. Performance and experience count more than pedigree
Advantages such as excellent education or privileged lineages can provide a head start, but they cannot beat the value of devoted performance and hard experience in the long run. Becoming deluded by such pedigree can dilute efforts and limit our ability to appreciate others for their strengths and expertise. Such an outlook, apart from diminishing our probability of success, can also harm relationships.
6. Nurturing relationships
Over many years, I tended to lean towards transactional interactions driven by the immediate purpose and outcome. I eventually realized that the approach led to transient relationships and restricted my ability to translate my potential fully.
In contrast, a relational approach invests in relationships based on empathy and the principle of connected existence. Building long term relationships and nurturing them is a lesson I would share with anyone seeking to attain lasting growth and emotional well-being.
As Dale Carnegie said:
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you”
