Personal Principles for Social Impact
Let’s explore the construction of our core values, our principles. We all have them, but how do we arrive at them? How might we be able to harness them?
Some of these principles are seemly given to us, through folk stories, codes of law or religious texts. We may find that these rules don’t suit us, or require some more nuanced thinking as we grow and change. We sort of refine our rules and principles, I like to perpetually refine.
How do you define and refine your processes for life, the principles by which you live by to determine right conduct for yourself?
How might I focus my efforts?
Lately I’ve been reexamining how each of us might curate our own set of core principles. I’ve written down some of my principles, it is a challenging process that requires me to scrape at my most basic understandings.
If you’d like to consider diving into the idea of principles deeper, check out the book Principles by Ray Dalio (learn more https://www.principles.com/).
Communication is power. Real power can’t be bought. The message has to mean something. You are the sender. Art, action and language make up the message. Your network carries your message. Your listeners care about your messages. Your supporters encourage you with their words. Your advocates get others to listen to your messages. Your subscribers form your base income. Your patrons support your production.
Explore [life] to find better possibility. Better is defined by you. In the best circumstances this can create a virtuous cycle of perpetual win-win scenarios. Examining situations for alternative solutions is the only source of real non-incremental progress (both personally and when properly directed at whole groups of people). Noticing details and exploring the cause and effect nature of life can help you get into interesting and overlooked cracks where the real, juicy personal value lives.
Imagination is internal exploration. The Imagination’s linguistic source is the question (any question, all questions). Our mission is to ask ourself the best questions as they uncover the opportunity for remapping old assumptions. Test what you think will happen against what really happens. Imagination lets us identify and examine different scenarios, patterns, assumptions, motivational triggers. Why does it? How might we? What if I? Given that then?
Project into the future, avoid traps where possible. Think 3 steps ahead… when possible, avoid traps. Traps come in all shapes and sizes but they share a commonality, there is no alternative way out. I try to avoid singular options (or paths), because they easily become traps. We often trap ourselves by not being prepared, or thinking ahead. By considering future outcomes, we might evaluate our response to those outcomes by asking additional questions. Does this invested time in obtaining this outcome get me closer to where I eventually want to go? The hope is to avoid time “illusions of grandeur”, intensive efforts that don’t deliver long term value for us. For any considerable effort or risk I like to have time to evaluate where I might end up.
You are going to fail, so fail gracefully. When looking for paths, choose those that come with natural check points to limit your fall. The best example of this is learning from your mistakes. If you start a business, you might fail (go out of business) costing you some money, and a few years of your life. But you also might learn things in starting a business you wouldn’t be able to learn any other way. This might open new doors for you, so while you’ve failed in one way, you’ve grown in another. That makes it educational, valuable and quite possibly worth it.
Test your assumptions and the assumptions of others. To maximize the impact of my life I like to test my assumptions across perspectives or lenses. Like a runner, I use critical thinking and feeling to judge my own progress against my previous evaluations. Humans are very similar, but from our differences all of culture is created. Our differences are the reason we need to communicate at all (if we were all the same and would do the same things, informal communication would not be necessary). In this way the value of everything in nestled inside our various human expressions. We should take care to not oversimplify and diminish the value of our fellow humans. We should seek to understand and be understood with consideration, with optimism.
How do my principles relate to the principles of others? Our own principles (whatever they might be) could be mapped and prioritized across our social lenses.
What are some of your Principles? How do these principles play out in social settings? How might we make room for others who are on this same bumpy path of discovery?
How do we decide what to do?
When we make a decision or prepare to take action, we might consider opposing rulesets. For me it feels like a bit of consideration from a prioritized stack of influencing considerations, a hierarchy of influence in social order. How do you determine the appropriate action in a given situation?
1.) Rules from our biology and our past
We are humans, we are animals. We have certain instincts and while we have adapted to be able to suppress our instincts, they are an undeniably powerful force. Our behavior is driven first from this place. We might instantly know what to do because a.) we’ve done this before b.) our nature dictates we react this way.
2.) Personal principles, ethics, morals, and values
Our personal rulesets that helps us make decisions in life (see above). This can be anything from a rule you borrowed from a movie to a quote from a religious text. The important thing is that it’s a small nugget of information that you use to make decisions. Ideally you are choosing principles that deliver the outcomes you are looking for yourself and the ones you love. It’s like a T-shirt slogan that you really mean, that you use as a guiding light… you know, like “Life is a garden, dig it” or whatever.
3.) Known Community Values
Basically the same as social norms but on a much smaller scale, applied to a community you are immersed in. This represents the seemingly the power of given values to drive a small community to build its own rules and norms that may be in opposition to broader social norms. This can be a constraint or an opportunity. When Community Values and Social Norms are in line, it becomes more difficult to choose a path outside of their gravity.
4.) Learned Societal Norms
Women do x, men do x. These are the informal rules among the majority of people in a given box… how close to stand to one another, how to use silverware or chopsticks. These are our social trends, stereotypes and mirror neurons at work.
5.) Explicitly Stated Law
Living under a government imposes a set of rules on all people who reside in a governed region. These are often nested in Federal, State and Local levels. We learn these laws over time, and they generally come with somewhat known penalty for breaking the rules. Religion operates in a similar fashion for those who choose to observe it.
How do you create the social reality that you exist inside of? How different is this than that of others in your community or our broader society?
How might I balance my effort?
How do we spend our time and energy each day? When I’m considering my potential social impact, I‘m trying to use different perspective lenses to look critically at important efforts. How might we use social lenses to balance our efforts?
Lens 1 — Protect My Self / Core care and risk mitigation
It must be fundamental to take care of my whole (physical and mental) self. We might imagine likely / potential pitfalls and avoid those that have high probabilities of irreversible negative impact. Take care of basic needs (diet, yoga, rest, leisure). Try to find a career that provides me suitable working conditions and a sense of producing social value.
Lens 2 — Grow My Self / Self directed improvement
Enjoy the basic building blocks of life while striving to better understand it, explore it and live it. Maximize the impact and experience of your life. Learn what we need to learn next. Reach for the next self directed outcome. What impact am I striving for?
Lens 3 — Protect My Community / Build pillars of support
Starting at the nearest pillar we must protect those who bring stability to our lives. Build a strong family and friends group who will support you as you need, when you need. Be cautious to respect the balance of this inner community, it requires your energy and attention. Our broader community provides the additional balance and beauty in our lives. When possible we should use our energy to support those nearest to our proximity and core values. We must remain open to our community when possible, but recognize that sometimes each of us must focus on our internal challenges when required. Community is about collaboration, it requires patience, focused attention and growing empathy.
Lens 4 — Grow My Community / Share insight with others
How might we connect with others deeply and broadly? How might we find connections that nurture our being? Much of the pleasure in life comes from intensely personal, shared experiences with other individuals and small groups. This is the stuff that makes life feel like it’s worth living. Give to as many as possible as much as possible, especially when it can be in the form of an inspiration, a lesson or a tool that can create future good for those persons. Consider your potential positive impact across number of persons you might impact. Try to leverage the advantages you have both earned and been given to make them count for the greater good. I’d like to have rich, meaningful social bonds and eventually a large, positive impact for humanity. To me it seems like a good goal… even if I never achieve it. I alone get to define and judge this success.
How do you balance the time and effort of your life to create healthy spaces for yourself, the ones you care most about, and your impact in a broader community?
