5 values to live by
Thinking through an exercise among friends
I was recently asked to write out my values as part of a group exercise among friends. While the ask was political in nature, I don’t see much of a difference between personal and political values. Who you are as a person and who you are in society should sync up. Plus, you carry your beliefs with you wherever you go.
Distilling a lifetime of thoughts and experiences down to a few grounding principles is difficult. The first impulse is often, for many, religious. I don’t follow any religion, though I did study the field academically, so I have a pretty large well to draw from. Perhaps too large, which might be why choosing a religion is comforting to some: they come with a set of principles to work from.
Applying them is a different story. Hypocrisy quickly turns people away from religion. So I wanted my values to accurately reflect who I am as a person and not overshoot.
After mulling over the question for a few weeks, these five arrived in my brain while working out in the gym one morning—a common place for me to turn thoughts over. None are revelations; all reflect longtime values. Committing them to screen simply gave them a more definitive shape.
With that in mind…
Know what you can change. Know what you can’t change. Cultivate humility around the difference between the two.
I didn’t head to Rutgers University in 1993 to study religion; my initial aspiration was accounting. Something about numbers lining up in rows appealed my love of things lining up, and I had spent my senior year of high school as the business group’s accountant.
Yet I had dreamed of being a journalist since my youth. I joined a school paper my freshman year, and end up writing for all the campus papers for four years. I switched focus from business to English, but found that program too restrictive. I’m not sure why I didn’t pursue media studies, though I took a few classes. It was probably the psychedelics that found their way into my body during my sophomore year, coupled with a growing fascination in Buddhism and Hinduism.
After reading all the major religious texts, I found that I loved the simplicity of modern secular Buddhism. Joseph Campbell advocated for spiritualities that speak to the time you live in, now. All the backward naval gazing that dominates so much religious thinking—what was the original intention, as if we could ever actually tell—is never suited for this moment, though of course it can prepare you.
While Buddhism can get quite religious, the modernized, atheistic strain spoke most to me. Speaks, in fact.
This value isn’t limited to that group, though it’s a big one: don’t get too caught up in what you can’t change, but actively work on what you can. The principle I learned ended with “and know the difference between the two,” so I adjusted it slightly, as humility is an important force in Buddhist thinking.
The overwhelming flooding of the zone by the Trump administration is too much to process. That’s by design. It’s meant to keep you off guard, as if you’re drowning with no land in sight. While important to stay informed on what’s happening, there’s very little any single person can do about most of it.
That shouldn’t distract us from what we can impact. For me, that’s combating health misinformation and advocating for universal healthcare to an audience that turns to me for this work.
If we each choose to take on a little, collectively that can amount to a lot. But if we feel paralyzed into doing nothing at all—well, that’s what this administration wants.
Don’t hand them your power.
Don’t text and drive. You only find out that you can’t do the things you think you can do when it’s too late.
Nothing clogs up society as much as people so consumed by their small world that they forget anyone else exists. I can’t tell you how many green lights I didn’t make due to the person in front of me oblivious that other people might want to get somewhere.
Every day, nine people die due to distracted driving in America. In 2021, distracted driving caused 3,522 deaths and over 362,000 injuries. Every single one of these was completely avoidable—except for the fact that someone thought they could do something they couldn’t.
Don’t take my word for it: watch Werner Herzog’s short documentary on the subject. Hearing people who killed others because they were staring at their phones is gut-wrenching.
I’ve been writing about the differences between individualist and collectivist societies for years. America is individualist on steroids. That trait blinds us to the reality that we all need one another—the Buddhist principle of interdependence.
Sure, no one is immune to an addiction that would cause you to pick up your phone while operating a two-ton vehicle. But this savage act is responsible for too many deaths, and far more inconveniences that bogs everyone down.
Other people exist. They have places to go, too.
Always rack your weights. If you can pull them out, you can put them back.
Similar to my last value about collectivism vs individualism, though also a call for self-reliance.
I’ve been working out in gyms since high school. I grew up with home gym in our basement. I then taught fitness classes in gyms for decades. I’m well aware of the many benefits and downsides of gym culture. But besides sitting on a machine for minutes while texting or scrolling social media (more crossover), not racking your weights is a telling sign of your character.
Because it’s not only consideration for others. You’re signaling to everyone that you can’t be bothered to clean up after yourself.
No one has any time for that bullshit.
Every revelation is an opportunity to realize how much more there is to learn.
While studying Buddhism, I was struck by the concept of a koan—a nonsensical puzzle that’s intuited as much as understood—leading to satori, instant enlightenment. Don’t think of Buddha under the Bo tree type nirvana. More like, huh, that makes sense.
Nothing provides me with those little dopamine hits like a good book. A buildup of an idea smacks you with that sentence. A turn of phrase that makes you consider reality anew. Something you’ve been chewing on suddenly lining up.
I love momentarily putting a book down to reflect. The rush is irreplaceable.
Those small enlightenments are everything. They always seem to say: keep going. There’s so much more out there.
Siddhartha Gotama knew that even the big one, the transcendent “blowing out” that is nirvana, wasn’t an end point, but a momentary pause before continuing. He never stopped learning, never felt so full of his own awareness that no more could fit in.
Just leaves more room for awe and wonder in our lives.
Never, ever think your shit doesn’t smell.
Spirituality is often presented as the attainment of the highest virtue. Philosophers like Zhuangzi flipped that notion on its head. He regularly wrote about defecation.
Why? Because all humans shit. We’re animals. Go ahead and contemplate the heavens, but remember we’re all united by biology.
There’s plenty of greatness we can achieve. By beginning with fundamentals, we don’t get too ahead of ourselves.
None of us are immune from offending others. All of our shit stinks.