How did it feel to explore what you value?
If you’re not used to it, questioning how you think and feel and what you believe, can be uncomfortable. It’s one of the most critical habits to develop, which we will revisit in various ways.
A personal example. I decided that I wanted a better romantic relationship than previous ones. I’ll focus here on my exploration of what better meant.
When I started, I don’t know if I had a defined idea. To mention just a few things, I wanted to feel better (whatever that meant), be happier, have less conflict, feel safer and more secure, less anxious. To begin with I was focused on what I wanted for me.
As I deepened my thinking through reflection and study, I focused more on my potential partner, the two of us as a couple and the relationship between us. My list above might sound universal, but it’s actually quite personal. Everyone wants to feel safe and secure, but if they are generally safe and secure at the core and have had relationships where this wasn’t an issue, then feeling safer and more secure would not be a conscious priority.
Better would mean finding out what better meant for the other person specifically and understanding whether there was enough overlap between the two of us.
At one level this might not sound surprising. You’ve probably heard that having common values is a strong predictor of relationship longevity and quality. And we could get into that, but this is a different level of values — not what we each value in life, but what we each value in a relationship.
Better would have to mean both of us feeling the way we wanted to feel in the relationship.
If I am looking for a long-term relationship, then it means we would have to feel the potential to keep relating well over time, and that we could mesh well with each other’s communities of family and friends.
The details here are not essential. The example is just to highlight that my thinking deepened, that I extended who and what I cared about, and my time frame.
Do a search on ethics and explore a few different sources. What are some ideas about what should be considered when deciding: what better means? what good means? what right means? If Bentham’s approach from last post doesn’t resonate with you, is there something else that does?
About Learning
We’ve considered setting up a routine for study, and devoting sufficient time. Moving too fast isn’t helpful. If you have extra time, dig deeper on each subject rather than trying to move to the next topic. If it takes two weeks or two months to complete the work from a single post, it’s better to take that time than to move ahead. Having said that, there may be value in skimming ahead to get the lay of the land, especially until a roadmap is developed.
References
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. John M. Gottman
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Sue Johnson
Ethics references in the previous post