A value is something I care about more than something else. In math, there are absolute values, and there are relative values. Here I’m interested in relative values, things that are more or less important. A set of values, carefully considered, can act like a compass for helping me navigate life towards where I want to go. I can tell what my values are (or have been) by reflecting on my decisions about how I spend my time. There’s also [this process](https://substack.com/@astridwilde/note/p-44350414?r=1abwb&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action), from someone named Astrid, which I haven’t done but looks interesting. I came to 5 core values through the NM values card sort exercise, a process for weighing certain values against others. My core values right now, as I understand them, are [[fun]], forgiveness, simplicity, self-knowledge and humor. I think values change, and so I'm expecting my values to shift and drift over time. (Update, 2025-06-06: today they are Generosity, Simplicity, Ecology, Inner Peace, Fun, and those don't feel particularly stable, so now I am updating my model of how to *land* on some core values that really feel true in a durable way) Big learning for me, too, during the Give Your Gift session 2 about Values is that these Values can live in clusters, where a number of value-words seem to be clustering around something and the Value itself, the thing that's important, is some how in between the words that are near it. Also, sometimes it's more accurate to add a word that's not in the deck: - examples are Anansi valuing Mystery and Dopeness - Tasshin valuing Empowerment And sometimes it's helpful to articulate the Value in a phrase: - Tasshin has a value that is "Present Loving in each moment," that comes along with a story he remembers... or something like that. I'm also aware that a lot of good stories make use of someone's values changing, some new value coming on the scene. So I want to go back and see if I can discern moments in my [[life story]] when my values have changed. I'm not sure if my values should change, but I think they do change, and I want to go with the flow. I'm also not sure how values stack up against other compasses for navigating through life, so I'm open to re-evaluating values if I find something better later on. --- I also want to track the relationship between Values and Vows. This connection is inspired by this cool stuff that Dan Garfield wrote about "the inevitable unfolding of our implicit vows and what it means to live in accord with them." "We can think of implicit vows as having two categories: innate and acquired. Innate implicit vows are present at the time of your birth, the seeds of them planted prior to your birth, and the fruition of them unfolding as a natural consequence of the circumstances of your life (your karma, if you like that word). A very deeply universal (Esther Meekian, I suppose) kind of implicit vow is the drive for connection and the need to love and to be loved. This is an important type of implicit vow but it’s actually not where my introspective focus has been. I’m more concerned with the particular than the universal.  Particular implicit vows, in my life anyway, seem to be acquired during moments of personal transformation. These often correspond to spiritual breakthrough events. The big, memorable kind that hits you like a freight train and leaves you in an obviously different place then where you were before it happened.  But not always. Some of them seem to be more of a slow-cooker kind of thing (to use a culinary metaphor)." - [circle comment with more thoughts from Dan](https://community.evolvingground.org/c/community-hub/a-belated-introduction#comment_wrapper_61138648) --- As of June 2025, I'm also feeling out the idea that one of my main values is [[IRL]].