Your Values Determine Your Lifestyle

We all have ideas about what lifestyle means but Your Values Determine Your Lifestyle. In my early years, lifestyle was about the goods I could buy so my life was about earning money to buy the good life.

In my later years I have made my lifestyle about the quality of my days and what has the most meaning. Both are lifestyle choices. Sometimes we have to experience the first lifestyle because the advertising media, our peers, and our environment support the striving for material possessions.

When we have found that material possessions don’t keep the vibe humming for long and we get into the race to continually buy better, we might finally reach the pause button. Adrianna Huffington in her book Thrive and Marcia Weider in her books, have stipulated that the work rat race to climb the ladder can cause serious burn out and big questions of why we are here.

Examining Our Values

Our values most likely start with relationships. How important are they and how do we improve them. We are certainly involved with work or more elegantly, what is our purpose and where can we make our biggest contribution. Hopefully, health doesn’t stand too far down the list. At some point it can become our number one priority.

Why are we here? This is a question that most people will be forced to query at some point. If it is addressed early, it can save a lot of wasted years. One thing to bear in mind is that our path is necessary for our development regardless of where it takes us. The earlier we find fulfilling values, the more years we will have to live in purpose.

What is important to us? The millennials are questioning their lives earlier than most boomers did. They are starting to value free time over salary. That is quite a big step in evolution. It might be part and parcel of how technology has accelerated our lives and makes speed more important than every other value.

Pretty soon what has speed is how fast our days pass and how our lives are struggling to feed the machine. We can easily get caught up in trying to fulfill promises that are hard to deliver. When we finally hit the pause button, we might examine what would make us feel the most purposeful.

What Do We Choose to do With Time

A good saying is that the rich have money and the wealthy have time. Strangely, what is more available to every living being than time. It is free. It is abundant. It appears to us every morning. What do we choose to do with our time?

How rushed do we feel each morning? How full of anxiety are we with what we have to accomplish as our obligations each day to keep the wheels rolling? How much time do we plan to engage in activities that are meaningful to our purpose and reason for being here? This is really where the work/life balance conjoin or separate.

Make lists of what you have to do and what you want to do? Are they similar? Some say they have never worked a day in their life because what they do is their purpose. When work is play we have joined the two lists. But there are other things that are important.

After we have enjoyed our purpose by being productive in some fashion, what else do we need to make life meaningful? Health is a top priority for me and I focus on diet, exercise, and relaxation.

I need solitude to feel myself. I have resorted to camping for the time away from civilization when I cannot accomplish any productive tasks. I catch up with myself in these days and the more solitude I enjoy, the deeper I go into a relaxed state where all tension is released a feeling of gratitude can pervade my being.

Gratitude should be one of our top goals. Maslow’s pyramid leads to the top shelf of self-actualization. This is the state of fulfilling our purpose by spending time doing what we are here to do. How do we know what we are here to do?

When we are able to do what we are here to do, we feel gratitude. Everyone who is doing what they are here to do always say they are so thankful. This is beyond relationships and acquisitions. This is the essence of who we are. This says we are spending our time in the most meaningful way.

Reaching this point includes the lifestyle we adapt because then it is obvious how we want to live. It determines automatically what is important to us. Most of the time, the need for possessions drifts away. The need for more meaningful time becomes a priority.

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