What do you value?
"Stress may be as much a question of a compromise of values as it is a matter of external time pressure and fear of failure." Rachel Naomi Remen
I read that today and it nearly knocked me down. It has been said that the devil is compromise. It is easy to equate stress with time pressure and not wanting to fail but I never consciously thought about stress and compromising my values. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how true this is for me. Most of my stress in life is related to the potential of compromising my values and I had never considered stress in this context. I notice that when I am compromising a value that I begin to feel the tension is my stomach. When I sense that I am being asked to compromise a value I typically revolt either externally or internally.
Values are general guiding principles that are to govern all activities in our lives. What we think is right and wrong, good and bad, desirable and undesirable. A value could be as simple as arriving home on time to eat dinner with the family.
I define my values. Einstein said that not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. What are your values? What "counts" for you? Knowing what I value is key to everything in my life and only I can determine what I value.
"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got." Janis Joplin
4 Comments:
I agree. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.
What a great quote, and one I will hold onto in my clippings file.
Looked at from this perspective, stress is very much an internally induced thing.
Guess it's one way to work out what your values are. What stresses you?
That is a great quote - and very appropriate to my own situation.
One guy in my early AA circles de-fanged this word stress. He said, "Steve, stress ain't nothin' but a fancy 90's word for fear. And fear ain't nothin' but the desire of yo' ass to leap up through yo' throat and throttle yo' brain cuz'a somethin' you did or didn't do, or something you're gonna git or not gonna git." That may not preach - but it's one of the truest statements I've ever heard.
If I compromise my values, I'm afraid of what I'll think of me. I'm afraid of what you'll think of me if you find out. I'm afraid of how I'll be perceived. I'm afraid - period.
When I've compromised my values - whether I've skipped doing something at work that needed doing, or I've done or said something to a loved one - I never feel right until I've done what I need to do to set the situation right. Heck, even the need to make amends can provide fear and stress!
For what it's worth, I think the Joplin quote is as important as the Remen one...
Thanks for sharing this, Rick. I can really agree. The tension that I have at work is largely because of compromises that I have to make--how I feel compromised. This is very insightful.
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