Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Boiling Waters PH.
My values are slowly becoming more apparent. I’m learning what situations to detach myself from.
I’m no longer measuring the success of my happiness from the amount of social events I leave my house for, yet instead I learned to use a metric where I can validate my happiness based on the lack of agitation, discontent and irritation in my being.
Becoming the main source of my happiness and being in control of the way I react to situations, I have come to realise that my emotions are my choice of weapon – Suffering is inevitable, and so I must choose my poison wisely.
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I desire a life of fun, mischief and intention. I desire a love with passion, honesty and loyalty. I desire a friend with respect, spontaneity and low maintenance. I desire a family of open mindedness, forgiveness and love.
My desires are simply just that, desires – Only few of these I can attach myself to.
Honesty: Articulating what I feel or think in the present moment, with enough analysis to validate that these said feelings and thoughts aren’t coming from a negative place of greed or entitlement.
Respect: Treat myself and others with empathy and understand that all beings, even myself, derive from biological primal instincts and respect that it is these influences that make us “human”.
Loyalty: I wanted loyalty to be one of my values but it is something that is out of my control. Sure, I can be loyal to my craft, but attaching myself to a temporary material item, or a person, or mission isn’t realistic. The same goes for me asking for loyalty from someone else – I am not in control of others’ loyalty.
Vulnerability: To allow myself to wander through life bare – I could protect my heart and soul from the world, but how would I grow if I am not beaten down and challenged? To accept failure is vulnerability. Failure is the darkness to our light, the evil to our good, the ying to our yang.
Standing up for myself: Taking the previous values into account, I will use them as my shield. While treating others with respect, I must carefully subtract myself from environments that attack my values. There is no need to be excessively vocal or violent, but it is necessary to remind myself again how and what makes us human.
Curiosity: Forever I will be inquisitive. I am the student of life, for life. If I become aware of a fear, worry or anxiety in my being, I will cling onto it until I understand it and until then, I will let it go. To be curious is to allow people, situations and material things to temporarily pass through our line of attention, then when the time is right or if it is out of our control, to let it go.
Of course, these are just my values in this present moment and it will be a living and evolving list as I age, something that I will refer back to realign my mind when I find myself inevitably fluttering off.
