What do you value?
A popular phrase now is “live your truth”. But what does that really mean?
For me, living my truth is knowing what I value and constantly trying to live by those values.
It’s easy to live not knowing what those values are though, because it’s not always easy to do the work of uncovering what you value.
Not everyone is willing or able to do this work. But if you can’t put your values into words, if you can’t define your truth, how do you know if you’re living it?
The realization that I could define what mattered to me was one I came to over the course of many years. It was slow to dawn on me, but when it did, I felt like I finally had a missing piece of the puzzle.
Putting my values into words was one part of the equation. (You can’t live what you can’t define.)
The other part was realizing that my values will not match up with anyone else’s. Moreover… other people could (and do) have values that I don’t understand. They could have values I don’t agree with, ones they haven’t even defined for themselves, or ones that looked like mine, but had a different perspective to them.
And what was even more interesting to me was that it didn’t matter.
My values are my own and your values are your own.
I don’t need to change mine because of yours and you don’t need to change yours because of mine.
Live. Your. Truth.
I used to feel threatened or jealous of how other people lived their lives. But now, knowing what I value, I know that their lives wouldn’t work for me anyway.
Defining my values allowed me to live my truth. I know what matters to me and I live my life accordingly.
If you’re curious, I’ll share just some of my values here:
- I value my time. I only have so much (just like everyone else) so I protect it diligently. I only take as much work as I need to pay my bills. That way, I have as much “free time” as possible to spend enjoying experiences with family, friends, and myself.
- I value my mind. I’m a lifelong learner. I take every opportunity I get to learn more about what interests me. I also value my mental health, so I meditate and practice mindfulness.
- I value my money. I’m not rich, I’m not poor. I’m careful with my money so I can save as much as possible at the same time as spending it on quality goods and experiences that I need or want.
- I value my freedom. I’m lucky enough to live in a country where I have access to most freedoms. I’ve never been stopped from doing something I wanted to do. I’m grateful that I have basic freedoms not everyone on this planet has access to.
If you’ve never considered it before, spend some time thinking of what you value. What is your truth? Write them down, put them into words. Have you been living your truth? Are you living in accordance with what you value?
