Values, goals and the to-do list

[robinturner]

Now the time for New Year's resolutions is safely over, I can start thinking about what I want to do with my life. Some time ago, I decided that my life needed debugging, and uncharacteristically read a book on time management (John Adair's How to Manage Your Time). This is rather like George Bush reading a book on conflict management. I devour time like some apocalyptic Hindu deity, and as for "management", that is a word which has as many negative connotations for me as "Windows" or "bubonic plague". But something had to be done, so I started from the bottom up with a daily to-do list, each item coded alphabetically for importance and numerically for urgency (e.g., E1 means it's no big deal, but if I'm going to do it at all, I need to do it today, while A4 means I have a week or two, but if I don't do it, I'm screwed).

Now it's time to go top-down and think about my whole life. I'd always thought of "life goals" as only suitable for people at the extremes of the self-actualisation scale: Olympic athletes on the one hand, and on the other, the kind of sad people whose greatest goal is to be Head of Marketing by the time they're forty. Somewhat to my surprise, Adair agrees. A goal is something you score (or fail to score), and life is not a football match. Goals may be good things to have in the short or medium term, but life should be guided by values, not goals.

Of course, asking someone like me "What are your values?" defeats the object of time management. It is a month since I read the question, and I am starting to think that given a couple of years, I could come up with an approximate answer, or at least a good working definition of "value". But I need to remember that clarifying my values is just the first step on a road that travels through goals and strategies before arriving at my to-do list, just like principles of software design should eventually result in lines of code. So here is an attempt to put some values in an array.

0. Wisdom

Wisdom has to be the number one (or in this case, number zero) value. What am I, if I have not wisdom? Stupid, that's what. Arguably, there are worse things to be than stupid, such as miserable or evil, but stupid people are more likely to be miserable or do evil things. Wisdom is a virtue that defines other virtues: courage is wisdom applied to danger; justice is wisdom applied to distribution of benefits and harms; prudence is wisdom applied to desire.

1. Good Feelings

This encompasses a range of internal states including the eupatheia of the Stoic sage, the bliss of mystics, the "positive affect" of psychologists and straightforward enjoyment. Happiness, according to Aristotle (and indeed most Greek philosophers), is not just a matter of feeling happy, but who would want the kind of eudaemonia that didn't at least involve happy feelings? More pertinently, the elimination of bad feelings - fear, misery, anger, craving etc. - has to be a major goal.

I'm not sure whether to include physical pleasure here: my inner Epicurean says "yes"; my Stoic superego says "no". I like physical pleasure, and I certainly prefer it to physical pain, but I'm not sure if I would place primary value on it.

2. Right Relations

This is a rather odd term I've borrowed from my friend Jan Garrett. I'm taking it to mean that whatever my relationship with a person, I behave in the way appropriate to that relationship: to be a good husband to my wife, a good teacher to my students, a good friend to my friends, and even perhaps a good enemy to my enemies. Of course social relationships cannnot be formulated as simply as this (which is, in my humble opinion, a weakness of Stoic ethics and of systems such as Confucianism) and there are some relationships for which there is probably no right way to relate (e.g. master/slave). Nevertheless, such labels stand for a context of relating in which we can behave (and feel) well or badly. It's also nice if the other people involved reciprocate, but the really important thing is my behaviour: other people's behaviour comes, I think, under goals rather than primary values.

3. Power

I don't mean I want to rule the world, but it's good to be able to kick ass. As a value, it's on a lower level than the others, but the ability to overcome obstacles (including human ones) is surely worth having.

4. Creativity

To find solutions to problems, to express thoughts and feelings, to discern hidden patterns, to create beauty ... that's what makes life worth living.

Comments

[chr0me-kitten.livejournal.com]

I like this. There's something far more valuable about taking an inventory of one's values than making a yearly list of resolutions to break. Thanks for sharing.

[solri.livejournal.com]

The pleasure's all mine!

[eve-prime.livejournal.com]

I've been reading a fair amount in the literature on "self-regulation" (which just means goals). One way they have of conceptualizing things hierarchically puts guiding principles at the top, then programs or personal policies for putting them into action coming next, followed (trivially) by motor actions at the bottom. That is, what we think of as "goals" are really just ways of expressing one's values, a perspective that leads to a healthy approach to choosing them and to disengaging from the ones that aren't working out.

(By the time a person reaches our age, one's values and one's behaviors are generally connected, but young people sometimes seem to think endorsing a value is sufficient basis for feeling proud of themselves, without much awareness that there's a disconnect between that value and the rest of their decisions.)

[solri.livejournal.com]

young people sometimes seem to think endorsing a value is sufficient basis for feeling proud of themselves

Oh yes, we've all seen (done) that: "I'm better than you because I'm a feminist / Christian / Trotskyist / goth."

[yetibuddy.livejournal.com]

Why all this thinking? Just...be....mannnn...just be.

Things will come...you will change as change is required...you will adapt...you will learn...it just...is...it just...happens.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Dude, whatever you're smoking, save some for me ;-)

Actually, the real reason I'm doing all this thinking about values and goals is to avoid grading exam papers.

[solri.livejournal.com]

other people's behaviour comes, I think, under goals rather than primary values.

That's the Stoic in me speaking. Primary value can only apply to one's own state of mind and actions (strictly speaking, decisions to act, since you never know if you will be able to perform the action). I can make a change in someone else's behaviour a goal, but I have to realise that it is ultimately out of my control, and therefore something that shouldn't bother me too much.

but stupid people are more likely to be miserable or do evil things.

By "stupid" I mean the opposite of "wise", not the opposite of "clever". So your last sentence is true.

I might have laid this on your already ...

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

... a few years back Shambhala Press came out with a new edition of Sun Tzu's "Art of War". It was an instant hit. Even places like ___fill in name here___, the military college in USA adopted it.
Turns out it was the team in Halifax that worked on translating Tibetan texts ... kind of a fund-raiser for them. (Typical: spend 5 years on 1 project to keep your other projects alive!)

Anyhow, when the book came out the whole community perked up ... we had a series of informal talks and structured workshops, how Sun Tzu tied in with what we had learned in our more conventional dharma studies.

My take away: each of us should strive to become our own "sage general".

Re: I might have laid this on your already ...

[solri.livejournal.com]

Is that a new translation or just a new edition? I have a Shambhala edition of The Art of War, but it's the standard Cleary translation.

Re: I might have laid this on your already ...

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

A new translation ... by folk in the Nalandha translation c'ttee. 1996 or so ... let's see if I can find it.

Ayup""Art of War", the Denma Translation