1 June 2024
PART II: Process
Why Processes?
This is a book about living a well-spirited life. Aristotle, the Stoics, and almost all the thinkers cited in this text, believed that this was possible only through accurate thinking and well-spirited actions. To achieve accurate thinking and well-spirited actions requires disciplined practice or, per Aristotle, habituation. This quadrant of the book is about the process of habituating those two values.
I am not as well-habituated as you might expect. Graphics and musical work have long taken back seats to physical fitness, academic/professional work, family, and relaxation. In a perfect world, I would be practicing guitar, singing, and graphic work (architectural or otherwise) as a regular part of my existence.
It has taken me decades to come to terms with this perceived failure in light of the discipline I can bring to the other aspects of my life, particularly physical fitness, which is one of my least enjoyable pursuits. What those decades of failure taught me is that I am extrinsically motivated when it comes to design and music i.e., if I have a gig, I practice well and regularly. If a project was due, in my architectural days, I was a disciplined designer, spec writer, and draughtsman. Why am I boring you with all this personal history? I am boring you because of what lies beneath my late-to-appear revelation regarding my apparent failures.
At Delphi, in Greece, there’s a miniature temple, scaled for individual contemplation, with the words Know Thyself inscribed in the frieze (in Greek). That’s my point. It took me decades to know that my now avocational practices only come about with a committed public goal to catalyze action. All of my self-blame and unhappiness, about my musical and graphic work, were useless and harmful. Knowing how we are motivated is a vital factor in creating the processes beneath your own well habituated life. Know thyself.
Better news is that you don’t need to go back to zero. Already, there will be patterns of behaviour in your own past providing ample evidence of how you work effectively and ineffectively. Harness these to your hierarchy of values*. Let’s look at a definition of that term and an example.
A hierarchy of values (HoV) is a ranked list with the most important values at the top. Your values will change as you age, and sometimes within the same year. That’s not as important as aligning the top values with the greatest effort at accomplishment—and the bottom values with the least effort.
Edith Hall (2018, p. 1) lists values such as good health, longevity, a loving family and freedom from either anxiety or financial problems. Hierarchically, these might be ranked as follows:
If you’re already in your mid-80s, longevity might be a lesser concern as your health fades and your contemporaries die. Alternately, if you’re in your 20s, and very fortunate, you might take health for granted with the realization that anxiety is keeping you from reaching for your top professional goals. As a younger person sees professional growth as necessary to marriage, and having a home, longevity and a loving family come afterward. That’s why an HoV is a shifting and context-dependent ranking.
As an older person, I suggest to clients, that health is the primary value, regardless of age. This is a self-fulfilling valuation, as well-habituated attention to your health, in youth, establishes a pattern that virtually ensures its own success. In fact, that principle, of laying a well-habituated base for future success, also works socially and financially. My (anecdotal) experience indicates that families who inculcate early-in-life patterns of percentage-based savings, are more likely to foster financially responsible people. Similarly, families who promote good reciprocal social interactions, within the home and without, are also more likely to foster socially adept people.
In the paragraph above, we have just tackled health, wealth, and friendship. What is the likelihood of someone who has learned those habits suffering from runaway anxiety or an unloving family? No question, the risk is still there based on individual personalities, sudden reversals, deaths of loved ones, wars, famine…but, in stable countries with relatively stable economies, good work, friendships, and health are probably not a bad trio with which to begin.
To be continued next week.
Dan Chalykoff is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). He works at CMHA-Hamilton and Healing Pathways Counselling, Oakville, where his focus is clients with addiction, trauma, burnout, and major life changes. He writes to increase (and share) his own evolving understanding of ideas. Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery. Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the bcc’d emailing list.
Hall, E. (2018). Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life, Penguin Press.
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