What are the guiding principles in your life? Here are a few principle-related posts you may have missed.
“Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.”
“Set your course by the stars, not by the light of every passing ship.”
Image from Unsplash by Christopher Paul High
Imagine you are about to play a new board game. Although you want to begin playing immediately, you must first read the rules.
What if your current life was actually a board game in which the rules – and even the players – were already established without your knowledge? How much do you enjoy playing your current game, and how often do you experience that winning feeling?
Upon opening the box to your new game, you are surprised to see that instead of being highly detailed and specific, the rule sheet offers a number of provocative questions for you to create your own set of rules.
You have the power to guide your play and who you invite to join in the fun.
What questions could you ask yourself to reveal a set of rules that would most fully resonate with your most closely held values and guiding principles?
Which people in your world that live by these rules can and will you invite to take their turn rolling the dice?
Image from harborfreight.com
Historically, sailors used a device called a sextant to determine their position in the ocean, and to chart their course.
Given the fixed positions of various stars, including Polaris (The North Star), and other commonly seen constellations, they were surprisingly successful in finding their way.
With today’s GPS technology, only a few sailors continue to use the sextant — although many a masterful sailor uses it as a backup in case technology fails.
With the volume of cruise ships, container vessels, and other boats on our oceans, it would be foolhardy to try to navigate strictly by watching every passing ship.
Consider your core values and guiding principles as fixed stars that guide your life. Which do you cherish the most? How do they help you navigate life’s rough seas?
Image from Flickr by Igor Shatokhin
What would you be willing to do if you and your family were literally starving? Would you be open to the possibility of stealing, or even killing an animal to survive?
When we look to the news these days, we see far more unprincipled behaviors from people around the world and within our own communities than we ever have in the past.
What is all this craziness about?
Twain’s quote suggests that many around the world are starving for things other than food, such as respect, dignity, freedom, peace, and leadership.
Where and in what ways can you satisfy the fundamental appetites of your communities to more fully live in a more principled world?
Image from imgion.com
Have you ever felt disconnected and off your game? How does this feeling differ from being in the zone and experiencing flow?
What if you had the ability to shift from disconnect to flow, and stay there for longer periods of time?
Create a list of your fundamental guiding principles for living. Google this subject to see what others have written, and collect the seven to twelve principles that resonate best for you. Display these principles in multiple places in your life, as a reminder of what is in your heart.
If you are presented with an experience or situation that does not fit with these beliefs, take yourself out of it.