Values, Needs & Goals

Patience is a virtue

As human beings, we have needs and we also have values, awareness and volition. Often we attribute our suffering to disparity between our wants and our existing conditions and we toil daily to overcome the gap. Given the right to acquire and maintain good living conditions is incontestable and we must, therefore, exercise our agency and acquire means to that end, but somewhere and somehow we ignore the present in favour of the never ending struggle or in lure of future goals and rewards. But this happens at a cost: when we lose our bearings with present, a couple of things happen which can be attributed to loss of awareness and consequently, discord with our values and our needs ensues. All of what happens as a consequence leads to no joy or further suffering. We fail to appreciate that it’s here and now we construct our future and unless we don’t make it better we won’t be happy no matter what.

So, it comes down to our values, agency, present and future needs and how we design our daily life around these. If our game at balancing our efforts between our values and needs - both future and present - is strong we’d undoubtedly live a life of contentment and bliss. Any other way of living simply doesn’t make sense. How logical is it to spend days pursuing a goal which we formed just because we thought it’s good for us in the past? How flexible would any pursuit be where we lock our efforts on an enterprise that no longer suits us? Planning for needs while considering values instead of goals is truly liberating as it provides lot more options and enable us to navigate circumstances while heading forward. If we don’t account for our needs and values daily and also don’t apply volition to fulfil them, and instead remain fixated on a target, we might end up attaining a goal but it won’t bring us happiness. If we go the other way our happiness won’t be contingent on outwardly success.

No doubt circumstances play a very central role in attainment of any form: they can either put us on track or derail us. And who doesn’t has a bad day? Wishing for favourable circumstances without planning for adverse ones is not a sound scheme at all. What we need or value is seldom met by circumstance immediately. There’s often wait involved. Without Effort, Patience, Grit, Perseverance, Resilience, and Discipline we can not have favourable outcomes. The reason being our conditions place demands on us blindly. How often do our needs get anticipated and our values recognised in those demands can only be anyone’s guess. Without will, we can’t meet any demand put on us and our needs can not be met without fulfilling any demand. That’s why self-discipline is a key to success.

Making the ends meet!