What are the values you live by?
By: Jessica Cote
Tags: Self Improvement, Life, Advice, Respect, Motivation

Values are defined in two ways. One being an estimation of monetary gain in math. The other being a more subjective definition. Values in a sociological standpoint are considered a person’s principals or behaviors. In other words, what we live by.

I considered myself living by the principals that would define me as being a culturally rich person. Sometimes people only look at monetary gain and forget the gains you can get by just being a decent human being. My values may differ from yours, and they may not make me a better person. But they certainty refrain me from being an ignorant human being. These same values are used to help combat against negative thoughts and actions.

1. Not complaining

Complaining about what you can not change is like looking at the sky and asking for rain on a clear day. Chances of you getting rain is slim to none. Chances of the sky caring back about your desire is also slim to none. Moaning about a situation does not change it, does not fix, nor does it help the situation. Its just exerting negative energy onto another person so that you feel better afterwards.

A quick to sink into quick sand is step right into it. Which is why people complain about useless things. Work sucked, your feet hurt, you got hurt, you haven’t eaten, this person did this, and that person did that. But is the person complaining changing their perspective or their habit? Averagely no.

I hate getting paragraphs about other people and what they did to a person. But the person complaining has no regards for their own action. I don’t mind dishing out advice. I don’t mind helping but after a while. It gets tiring to be dishing out the same advice.

This is why I live by the philosophy if I am still breathing, and still walking than I have nothing to exert negative energy about. All I want to do is write. If I can write than my life has no reason to see a single complaint in it.

“What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”

― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

I’ve come up with a few personal methods to battle any desire to complain to another person because complaining is often the culprit of being bored or sitting still. My methods may not resound along side yours but they are true and have not failed me yet.

Keep yourself busy. Being busy leaves little motivation to sit and squabble about the negative aspects of your life. I keep myself busy by writing, watching anime, reading, sifting through video games, and cleaning. Sometimes I’ll exersize if the stress weighs too much. But never do I open up with complaints anymore. What’s the point of complaining if your not gonna fix it? Instead I turn to making positive energy out of being busy.

A plus side is you get a better work ethic out of this habit and value.

2. Treat others the way you would like to be treated

Salt in your throat makes you choke when its apart of the sea. The same is said when you treat someone with disdain. You are pouring salt all over someone else without regards to you. You are choking out the seeds of positive life to that person and creating darkness instead.

A flower wilts every winter only to grow again in the spring. Trees shed leaves in fall just to grow them again in the spring. Being mean or disrespectful to another human being only sheds your own leaves. It doesn’t help you grow or be the bigger person.

Being the bigger person is being kind in response to any angst thrown at you. I like to call it be kind and let karma do its work. I try hard not to be unkind to people who are not respectful of my wishes. I do me. By doing me and being nice to the best of my ability I find light in what I do.

“Barking at people earns their respect about as effectively as staring into the sun improves your vision.”

― Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons

It does not bode well to treat someone like they are crap on the souls of your shoes. All you do is hinder yourself. Drain any positive thought that person had. By doing that you could be labeled a bitter person. Bitter people don’t tend to go far in life.

Its been said before but the only way to combat against a negative person is to either ignore them, or treat them with diligent kindness. But don’t go overboard. Too much kindness can create a strain.

For instance, when I was in elementary school there was a girl who gave me a bloody nose on the bus. Instead of making her life miserable or wishing for revenge…I waited for karma. The karma came in the form of the day she stole my chocolate milk. I bashed her head into the dining table at lunch. Gave her back her bloody nose. I proceeded to gain respect from her because I was the first person to help her through her family issues later on in life. Funny but the miracle is that often times people don’t like negative treatment to be dished back at them. It also doesn’t feel good to dish out negative treatment.

3.Don’t stress

Courage is being a squirrel trying to cross the road with a car rolling towards you. You will either jet back to safety or soldier on in hopes that your tiny paws scrape the other side without being dead first. Stress is the seconds right before the car slide by you. Stress is the second you see another car rolling towards you in the middle of the street. It clicks that the only path you have is forward.

I’ve learned that if you are not willing to control your own life than you are not willing to step into the unknown. Everyone has stress. Everyone feels the weight of it. The extreme of stress comes from the meaning of the problem causing it. We can’t control the events that happen in our lives. But we can control how we act on said events.

If we chose a path that makes us stressed than we are likely to have less energy to do what we want. Less energy to get up out of bed and face the next day. Its a waste to let your heart consume you in stress. Courage is the second you decide that stress is becoming a hindrance in your life.

The decisions you make lead you to be weighted down by stress. Have you second guessed your ideas? What you focus on is what you get. If you focus on the idea that every person is out to get you they will get you. If you think you can do it than you can. Its simple. Its true.

“If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.”

― Śāntideva

But to get rid of stress you have to reassert yourself and your decisions. You have to choose the people you surround yourself with. The situations you put yourself in. Is it worth going out to drink everyday? Is it worth crying over spilled milk? You decide.

5. Respect

If I am a crow and I am surrounded by vultures you don’t dip your beak down on the road kill. The biggest bird on the street gets the first taste, and then you get the left overs. This throw of respect in nature displays why an alpha in a wolf pack is given first taste, and why a lion is king of a pride. Respect is a natural emotion. Every creature on earth understands how it works. Do they all follow it? No. Sometimes that crow dives down to fight the vulture for food . Sometimes the vulture gives up the food, and other times it doesn’t. If you think humans are the only creatures that understand the rules of respect…think again.

Respect is not just an emotion. It is a natural habit in the world. People have the choice to show respect or to show greed. We have choices. Choices leave room for disrespect. Choices leave room for us to sit and ponder about ourselves. Choices make us decide if we want to walk the life of respect or beat down the door of understanding to destroy our life.

There is a person in my life who showed me so much disrespect as a child that age eleven I was done. I was done loving this person. I was showing any sense of regard for said person. I learned where my breaking point was. My father treated me with an iron tongue. He used any means to make my mother look evil, and in doing so I learned it is often the one trying to hide behind a mask that is evil. I decided to live with my mother. I decided to trust her.

You have to learn when someone disrespects you more than twice in your life that you have a right to walk away. You have a right to decide you are done. You have a right to show respect but not expect respect back. People will give you platonic advice, and advice that sounds good but when you act on it…problems are all you know.

I will tell you as a child of both abuse, rape, and surrounded by drugs that what gets you through life is yourself. You have to look at what makes you happy and cling to it like you would your mother as a child. You need to respect everyone even when they disrespect you.

“It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,”

― Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspirations

6. Always be doing something

Don’t sit still. One of the biggest sacrifices a person can make is to allow time that could be used to waste away. If you continue doing the same things you are and your life is not progressing at all. You are likely walking into a wall of no achievement. There is only so long you can stare at social media hoping for someone to hit you up.

Life doesn’t happen unless you make it happen. You don’t get job offers out of the blue unless you have the ability to rise above what is expected to you. If you aren’t chasing your dreams, or chasing after the life you want…what are you doing? Time is wasting. Your clock could tick out in a split second. In those seconds what would you be thinking about? About the person you love? About the regrets you have? About a problem that will be meaningless once your dead?

I’ve lived my life with this old idea that if you are constantly trying to evolve on your dream than there is a possibility no matter how many times you fail there is success around the corner. No one has never failed in their life at least once. Heck..I failed a semester in science because of chemistry.

“Create your own miracles; do what you think you cannot do.”

― Roy T. Bennett

I’m not a famous writer nor do I wish for my words to become famous. But I won’t quit at producing writing. Producing words. I am making the choice to chase after my dreams without stopping. I’m not gonna skid to a stop because one bump in the road happened. Don’t be lazy. Don’t be the type of person who gives up.

I’ll sleep when I am dead is a philosophy that means we won’t give up doing what we need to do to keep us happy because we know we are doing what we want.

7. The key to life is karma and the best karma is when you are kind

Karma is what happens when no one is there to exert a better outcome. If you do something negative ..there is a chance negativity will come and bite you. The best kind of karma out there is kindness. Being a kind person can far. You feel better. You feel less stressed. You start to learn that being kind to other people is often the best price to pay in life. There are people out there that don’t remember that their actions effect other people.

Some people are so money hungry they forget that money can leave you at any point. You need to crawl and when you crawl you have to be kind. Just like when you are at the top of the chain with money. You can’t be unkind. You can’t expect one person to pull the weight in a relationship. You need to meet them half way.

Karma is a cruel creature when she wants to be. No one wants to taste the cruelty of karma. No one wants to taste the darkness of karma. No one wants to feel the bad side of karma. We only want the goodside.

If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.”

― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

These are the values I live by because not living by them has only caused me pain. I have experienced both the good side of karma and the bad side. Karma can wait and boil or it can hit you instantly.

I don’t chase after instant gratification. I don’t believe there is any gain in it. Thus my principals are where I turn to when I need reminding that life is not perfect, and I can become a better person.