Values

Warning, I might get a little preachy (and a little philosophical) here. 😁 

Values. It’s one of those words that gets loosely tossed around and is kinda’ overused on a daily basis. We see values listed on company websites: “These are the values that define who we are and how we run our business.” We hear values talked about by politicians on a regular basis: “Our core values are X, Y, and Z.” We hear religious leaders espousing spiritual values that, in theory, provide a roadmap for how we should live our lives: “Thou shalt not….” Values come up in conversations with friends and family as well.

My experience with values and value systems is that they have absolutely no meaning 99% of the time. It’s easy to operate with integrity and dignity when things are easy. It’s easy to say “love thy neighbor” when things are easy and we really like our neighbor. It’s easy to be kind when being kind is easy. It’s easy to wrap ourselves in a “values blanket” when there are no challenges, obstacles, hindrances, quandaries, or sundry other metaphorical blockers to keep us from living our values.

But what about that 1% of the time? That time when it’s most meaningful? That time when no one is watching? That time when we know we won’t be caught? That time when we have to make a really hard decision or confront a situation that puts our value system to the test?

As humans, we tend to default toward self-preservation. That doesn’t align with most of the core values I’ve seen written on fancy posters in break rooms, heard talked about by our elected leaders, preached about by our religious institutions, or even shared with our family and friends. But one of the things that makes us human is our ability to make difficult choices in difficult situations, even if it isn’t about our own self-preservation.

My wife and I had an interesting conversation recently. I asked her if there is anything she would do differently if she knew there were no consequences. We had a lively debate about it. Her closing thoughts were, basically, doing something that violates her ethical code simply because there aren’t consequences would make her a different person. I hadn’t quite thought about it that way – that we run the risk of changing as a person.

What I’ve learned is that values aren’t there to make us feel good about ourselves or hold us up as paragons of virtue. Values aren’t pretty. Values matter the most when we want to think about them the least. They matter when things are gritty, dirty, and uncomfortable. They matter especially when no one is watching or there are, seemingly, no consequences to our decisions. They matter when an easier choice is the one that goes against what we say we believe.

Can living up to our values and value system be hard? Yes, incredibly. And oftentimes it can feel impossible. But that’s where the true worth of our value system comes into play – and the true test of what we are willing to give (or not give) to adhere to our values. Will we always get it right? Absolutely not. That’s impossible. But if we understand that values become most important when things are most challenging, we stand a chance.  

Until next week.

Andy

(All written content created the old-fashioned way.)