Hardship and Values:

I have talk at length about finding the core values that drive our lives, the things that we hold close and dear to us. Our core values are something we need to identify and understand so that we can make the decisions in life that keep us aligned with those values. This is the only way that we can look at our life and be happy with the choices we have made. Values define how we interact with our world and if we a disingenuous to those value we will not be happy with the life we are leading.

The real problem comes in the immediate consequences that we face while holding to our values. Many of us have values that don’t coincide with the dominant culture or the corporate culture that we find ourselves in. We find that we are constantly having to decide if we want to make our lives easier and go with the values of the majority or if we hold to our values and be at odds with the majority. This is an immediate and painful reaction that we face when wwe choose to live by the values that we hold dear and makes it very difficult to stay the course and make those choices that adhere to our values. The key here is to remember the big picture, the life and world that we want to live. If we get to where we want to be and look back at a journey full of compromises and slights we forced on our core values, we are going to be unhappy with the life we are leading, even it exceeds our expectations on paper. We have traded the nourishment of our core in order to make the journey easier for us and that will only lead to unhappiness and disillusionment.

The pain in the moment is terrible difficult to see past. I know for sure since I am in that quandary right now and am having trouble seeing past it. In a group that I am a part of, a nasty split has occurred due to the egos a of some people involved and though both of them say and might believe that they are fighting for the good of the community, the struggle between them is doing damage to the community in actuality. They are getting legal counsel involved instead of actually working together to bring peace and unity back to the community, something that the community finds as a vital value of its own. It is a value that I share, but my voice hasn’t been heard by these people. So I had to make a decision in a effort to protect the community by throwing my hat in with the aggressor in this situation so that if that person ends up winning the fight, there is still someone in a position of power that will work for the good of the community. I hate the choice and am starting to be ostracized by the community for “siding” with the person the community deems as the transgressor, but the choice was made to adhere to my values of protecting the community if the worst comes to pass. The pain is real and full and in force currently, but I know that in the long run it will be for the benefit of the community. Perhaps the choice will result in me no longer being part of the community, but if that is the price of the community becoming stronger and remaining a whole, then I will have lived my values and can take heart in that.

So remember as you hold to you values that it isn’t going to be an easy path. There will be situations and people in life that will make choosing your values and holding to them very difficult. There will even be situations in our lives that our values will be detrimental to us personally in one aspect or another, but when you look in the mirror a year down the line when all is said and done, you will be able to be happy in your choice to live your values.