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To get a deeper sense
of my personal values, peruse the other other pages under the Personal
Philosophies part of this site. Here are some bullet-points about some
of the most important guiding lights in my life.
 
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Be your word. This is the single most
important principal in my life. I'm not talking simply about doing
what you said you'd do (although I think that alone is very important).
I'm also talking about being true to your ideals (that's kind of like
keeping implicit promises to yourself), even when (perhaps especially when),
no-one will ever know whether you were or weren't.
-
Strive to make a difference. I may not
accomplish it 100% of the time, but as a guiding principal, I try to make
sure that everyone who interacts with me is left, somehow, in however subtle
a way, enriched as a result of the interaction.
-
Think about the ramifications of what you do.
The simple act of slowing down to look at something on the side of a
busy road (be it an accident, construction or a pile of snow) can cause a
traffic tie-up that adds inconvenience, misery and/or outright hardship to
literally thousands of people. If there's an emergency vehicle in the
traffic, your selfish curiosity could literally result in someone's death!
The good news is that you can also choose to do things that have a
positive impact on thousands of people. To that end, I strive to
commit random acts of kindness and senseless beauty.
-
Either stop complaining or do something about it.
It may be trite to say that if you're not part of the solution, you're
part of the problem but there's a lot of truth in that. If you
have a complaint, take it to someone who can do something about it. If
you can't find such a person, go to work on the problem yourself, even if
that involves nothing more than enrolling somebody else in taking the issue
on. If you're not willing to do that, then shut up...you've forfeited
your right to complain!
-
Think globally, act locally. You can't
single-handedly solve the ills of the world but there are lots of
acts an individual can take on that will eventually ripple throughout the
world.
-
Always tell the truth to your intimate partners.
It flies in the face of a bunch of conventional wisdom, including that
espoused by a number of professional counsellors and psychiatrists, but as
far as I'm concerned, if you're not willing to be completely open and honest
about all aspects of your life with the people you're close to (and intimacy
does not necessarily imply sex here), you're building on a shaky foundation
(a bit like getting halfway up a mountain and then discovering that someone
on your team is deathly afraid of heights).
-
You should be allowed to do whatever you want with
your own person and property, as long as you don't physically harm the
person or property of another. This is the way Peter McWilliams
says it in his book Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do. That
book's an 800-page tome which says a lot that I agree with but the
above kind of bottom lines it. Put another way: Let's leave each
other alone when it comes to our hobbies, vices or what-have-you. If
someone takes moral offense at what someone else is doing but they aren't
physically endangered by it, so what. If the person doing it is
endangering him or herself, that's basically their choice...strive to
educate them if you like but don't persecute them.
-
Sex is wonderful. I refuse to be bound by
anyone else's notions that sex is dirty, evil, sinful or anything else.
Practiced responsibly, it is one of the great joys of life. Anyone
who doesn't think so is more than welcome to abstain but I have no interest
in having someone dictate to me (or anyone else) what our sex-lives should
look like.
-
Let go of things which cause you upset. A
certain amount of anger can be a powerful motivator but held onto and
incubated, it saps energy from you and does nothing but add misery to your
life. Being angry at someone for any significant period of time hurts
you way more than it hurts them. What happened, happened. If it
upset you, see what you can do to clean up the situation and then, whether
it gets cleaned up or not, be willing to accept it and move on with your
life. Being righteously indignant may make headlines but, of and in
itself, it never produced any meaningful results.
-
Take responsibility for how you occur to people.
I'm not a miracle worker and I can't make anyone think any particular
way, but I do try to come from the stand that if someone doesn't understand
what I'm saying, it's because I'm not being clear, not because they're being
thick. If someone thinks I'm being a jerk, I try to get that, at least
at some level, I am being a jerk. This is a "two-headed"
conversation that requires a certain amount of balance (if someone's
committed to not hearing me, I can't make them hear me) but it gives me a
lot of flexibility in dealing with situations in which I'm not getting
through to someone.
-
Give yourself room to be human. Well-meaning
people who strive to "do the right thing" (including me) often
fall into the trap of beating themselves up every time they do something
that's not consistent with their values. Integrity is a wonderful
thing but we all "slip" from time-to-time. It's important to
be able to forgive yourself when this happens.
-
Engage life fully...have fun...make every minute
count...take time to love the little things. So many people live
as if there's a magical, mystical "someday, one day" when
everything will get handled and they'll have time to enjoy life (I think
it's a bit cynical, but I know some people who respond to this notion by
saying "Yes, there is such a day, it's the date that appears at the top
of your death certificate). The time to love life is now. It's
been said probably thousands of different ways but if you're not lit up by
your life, if there's not a significant chunk of your life that you wouldn't
dream of giving up, you're ripping yourself off big-time (and probably doing
a number on the lives of most of the people around you as well). There
is joy to be found in virtually every part of life and I mean to seek it all
out. As George Bernard Shaw says, "Life is no 'brief candle' to
me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the
moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it
on to future generations."
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