Living a values-based life: purpose and authenticity
Somewhere on this site, Kate Richardson wrote a comment. And that comment made me want to ask her to write something. So, here it is. A guest post.
As soon as Mark asked me to write a post on living a values-based life I started thinking about yellow cars.
What I mean is, you know when you decide to buy a yellow car and suddenly there are yellow cars everywhere, where there were none before? You can’t turn a corner without bumping into a shiny lemony automobile.
A values-based life became my yellow car. And before long, I was acting in a generally self-flagellating manner, citing values violations and issuing self-infringements.
In the end I tore them up (metaphorically speaking).
Because the notion of living a values-based life has many dimensions (too many for one blog post). Our values are not just defined by who we are, but by our purpose, context, those around us, and of course, the filter of our humanity.
And as those values change and shift and grow over time, living a life that’s true looks more like a story than an edict. For me, different values come in and out of focus.
So I thought I’d share two stories from different times when people that have challenged me to think long and hard about this subject.
Having purpose
In 2003, I chucked in my job and headed off to Cambodia in search of volunteer work. You know, all noble and lofty like. I felt so good when I told people what I was doing. In truth, it was a very humbling experience and the person who benefited most from the experience was me.
But I had the privilege to work with one of the most impressive, talented and fierce women you are ever likely to come across. She was unnervingly principled. She became a vegetarian at 8, could be found on soap boxes in Western Sydney at 12, and had read Marx at 16. She was married, but still called herself a lesbian. Within the space of a month, I saw two people (one from the World Bank, and the other from Oxfam) go into her office and emerge quite literally crestfallen. She had made such an impression on them with her case, that they went back to their offices immediately and quit because they couldn’t face working in jobs that contravened their values.
In living a values-based life, she has achieved incredible things: quite literally empowering a grassroots movement of women across the country. And I dont think I’ll ever meet anyone so damn uncompromising. Or ever be so inspired to literally join the charge.
Being yourself
The second experience was during my 9 month stint at the Sydney Leadership program in 2007 (now called Social Leadership Australia). The program espouses a new model of leadership, exploring amongst other things what it means to be purposeful.
For me, it prompted a lot of thought about whether I was failing at this values thing, or whether my values had changed. For one thing, during my twenties (including a fairly unattractive non-bra wearing phase which thankfully didn’t last too long) I was utterly opposed to working in the corporate sector. When I came back from Cambodia I was as an even more avid-liberal-evangelist-overbearing-social-capitalist, prone to delivering didactic speeches at dinner parties.
Anyways, during this time, I met a lot of amazing people, some of whom were on the course, and others who were speakers generous enough to share their experiences of different social issues.
A story from one of the speakers struck a chord with me. She was a firm believer in being the same person in every facet of your life and told a story to this effect from her time in banking.
Every day she’d drive in and park near a guy from her floor. She’d see him arrive in a yellow convertible: top down, sleeves rolled, breeze in his hair, music blaring. By the time he’d driven around the carpark and pulled into his space, the top was up, the sleeves buttoned, the hair flat and the music off. With newly drooped shoulders, he’d shuffle off towards the lift. So she started leaving anonymous notes on his windscreen that said ‘stop leaving your personality in the car’. After a while he realised it was her. They had lunch, she encouraged him to be himself, noting that his staff would be a lot happier for it, and he and they were was relieved.
So what’s the moral of this story?
If you rent a yellow car in Cambodia put the top down.
And in thinking about a values-based life, remember that it’s a never-ending story.
/ End
Many thanks to Kate for sharing her thoughts on living a values-based life. You can find her on Twitter: @katerichardson. She blogs www.stickywood.blogspot.com.
Photo courtesy Rouge Rouge.
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