I mean, Core Values... Yes, synching (or is that sinking) to the last post, I want to focus on being a better person. And since my new favorite website (The Art of Manliness) has a specified program to be a better man, hells bells, I'm all in...
http://artofmanliness.com/2009/05/31/30-days-to-a-better-man-day-1-define-your-core-values/
Would you care to join me? If so, here's an excerpt from the first assignment in the series:
When I look at photos of men from my grandfather’s and even my dad’s generation, I can see a sense of purpose in the eyes of those men. Yet when I look at men today, I often don’t sense that kind of steely focus. Instead, I see dudes who are just sort of drifting along whichever way life pulls them.
I’ve heard a lot of men my age complain of a sense of shiftless. They don’t have the drive, purpose, and ambition that our forbearers had, and they feel adrift...
The Importance of Clearly Defining Your Core Values
Defining our values gives us purpose. When you don’t know or you haven’t clearly defined your values, you end up drifting along in life. Instead of basing your decisions on an internal compass, you make choices based on circumstances and social pressures. You end up trying to fulfill other people’s expectations instead of your own. And before you know it, life has passed you by and you haven’t even started to live. Trying to be someone else and living without core values is down right exhausting and leaves you feeling empty and shiftless. Conversely, living a life in line with your core values brings purpose, direction, happiness, and wholeness...
How to Discover Your Values
Your task for Day 1 of our 30 Days to a Better Man Project is to discover, clearly define, and write down your core values. Before we begin, let’s be clear that we’re not trying to define goals here. Goals are specific actions, like “becoming financially independent by age 30″ or “asking my girlfriend to marry me this June.” What we are looking for are values: the ideas that you esteem to be of great worth and that give structure to your life...
Okay, here's my stab at it:
1. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: To always strive for self-improvement. To intentionally seek out experiences, relationships, moments of reflection, arenas of critique, all leading me to take active steps to constantly better myself. (I don't need this stinking "30 Days" crap! jk~)
2. STABILITY: Living in a way that promotes more balance and stability in my life, in all facets. (Emotional stability, overall health and wellness, financial stability, career-wise, more balance between work and play, more faith and patience when it comes to love, romance, my general development, etc.) (((this sounds a bit more goal oriented. damn it!)))
3. CONNECTIONS: Create a legacy of compassion while connecting to humanity – do my utmost to understand individuals at the most basic levels, and try to forge connections amongst various people to help us not feel so alone and alienated in this often overwhelming existence. (To work in fields that have a positive impact on the world, make me feel inspired and fulfilled, while helping others in some way.)
4. PARTNERSHIP: To prepare myself in every way imaginable to be a good, stable, healthy, mindful, loving, funny, intuitive partner. To be patient and compassionate, first and foremost, and to be open to love, and all that it can teach me in every incarnation. To find someone who shares my deeply rooted belief in negotiation and allegiance – someone who is a team player, willing to invest in and with me.
5. INTEGRITY: To live in a way that helps me find my voice – my place in the world, what makes me unique, my perspective different from others' – and to muster the energy to offer it up to humanity. To share my voice in the most humble, yet courageous and open way, and to live with candor and integrity to create real change in the world, from my modest corner...
Does that count? Man, I'm tuckered out... What did YOU say????
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