The funny thing about values is that no teenager ever voluntarily goes searching for it. Yet as adults, that’s what causing most of our inner turmoil.
The story is common. We experience a mini “freak out” or “quarter-life crisis”, decide to take a week or ten days (or ten months) and cut all contact with the outside world, run to some remote part of the globe, and proceed to “find ourselves.”
At the core of it, our desires are in conflict. We find ourselves in situations where we don’t know how to get out. The voices in our heads are causing tremendous pressure and stress.
We want to save the world, but we are just swiping through social media all day long. We want a 6 packs abs but we also want to chuck down lots of carbs. We want to live in the moment and forget our worries yet we have bills to pay. We care about climate change but we can’t give up modern-day transportation.
We are stuck. Wishing we could change but not changing. Wishing we could accept but not accepting. Wishing we could ignore but not ignoring.
In the world of too many options, “values” become the compass guiding our actions. The easy part is unplugging and get away to a remote island. The hard part is to sit in silence, examine our inner conflicts, make sense of it, walk away from destructive ones and come out with an integrated set of rules to live our lives.
The value of “values” does not come from circling uplifting words from pages of adjectives. Consider what your “values” are for and unplug accordingly.
