It was during the summer I turned twenty-one that I was diagnosed with a brain tumour. A distressing piece of news which altered my world to the point it ceased to make sense anymore, at least in conventional terms.
Looking down on the city of Vancouver, I couldn’t understand the hurry. The hustle and bustle suddenly seemed not only incomprehensible, but unjustifiable as well—I started to question what I'd inherited as a value system.
Looking down on the city of Vancouver, I couldn’t understand the hurry. The hustle and bustle suddenly seemed not only incomprehensible, but unjustifiable as well—I started to question what I'd inherited as a value system.
This experience acted as a huge wake-up call. I was suddenly, intensely aware of my own mortality and it was plain to see that if my time was limited that I better be very clear about what is of true value and importance, because not to be would be a tragic waste of life.
The awareness spawned a more deliberate effort, a willingness, to examine my value system and do the hard work of looking at it with a more critical eye.
Turning my gaze inward was difficult to begin with, as I was confronted with both the goodness of my nature as well as the embarrassingly flawed parts of my nature—something I would have instinctively turned away from were it not for the motivation provided by having my life threatened.
What I have come to understand more fully is that it is dreadfully important to examine our lives if we want the values operating there to be those of our own choosing, working for us rather than against us.
Too often the values of the society in which we are embedded have their way with us, they play out unconsciously in our lives, making us unhappy in ways we can’t quite put our finger on.
You have to be your own guru—the answers to your life reside in you ultimately. No one else can do that for you. Take inspiration from books you have read and people you know, but at the end of the day only make use of that which resonates within you, refer back to yourself.
We are each, inescapably, the authour of our own life.
More sharply articulating your values isn't easy, but it is necessary and enormously rewarding. And there is no better feeling in the world than being clearer about who you are and what you stand for.
Understand that this is a journey towards greater clarity that starts with small steps, the first of which is an awareness of your discontent and a willingness to be more introspective, to take a closer look.
For me, understanding more about who I am as a human being helps me to understand others, and understanding others helps to foster intimacy between people that makes real relationship possible, makes peace possible and makes happiness the rule in my life, rather than the exception.
