Define Your Core Values (Day 1 of 30 Days to a Better Man)

Define Your Core Values

     I spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing, as it happens. My core values rarely shift much - sometimes a slight reordering of priorities, perhaps, but I'm pretty confident in who I am and what my values are and ought to be. Nevertheless, it can be a valuable exercise for anyone to revisit their core values from time to time.

     The exercise as defined in The Art of Manliness' "30 Days to a Better Man" activity involves defining 5 things that really are essential to who you are, and prioritizing them from most important to least. My list is as follows:

1. Integrity - Without my personal sense of honor and integrity, any other values would be meaningless. Integrity must come first.
2. Family - Family is the most important thing to me (besides my sense of integrity - what good would I be to my family without that?). Sometimes honoring family is a delicate balancing act - like spending time away from your family at a job, but doing so in able to support and feed your family.
3. Reason/Education - The life of the mind is of extremely high importance to me, and I honor both the faculty of reason and the acquisition of material for reason to process (through education).
4. Philosophy/Spirituality - Nearly on par with reason and education is the care of the soul. Philosophy (particularly Stoicism) and spirituality (including religion - cultus deorum Romanorum - and valued spiritual teachings - like Unitarian Universalism) provide the soul with comfort and nourishment.
5. Discipline - I pride myself in my self-discipline. I know that my other values lend themselves well to a disciplined life. Left to my own devices, I tend to develop well-disciplined patterns of behavior. The problem is, I do let my personal discipline be swayed by circumstances, particularly when the circumstances involve other people (I don't feel comfortable demanding that others live by my code of discipline, so I let it slip . . .).  Lately, moreover, this is the value that requires the most effort and concentration from me. My health, my physique, my financial discipline . . . all are in ruins, at the moment. Going forward, I place "discipline" at number 5, but need to attend to it diligently (whereas values 1-4 come fairly easily to me . . .).

     Looking forward to the remainder of the 30 days . . .