10 Daily Living Principles
As I began writing today, I started reflecting on why I write these weekly messages - ultimately, what’s the point? I suppose what I’m most interested in and curious about is the question of what it means to live well - what are the ingredients of a life lived optimally?
Optimization of one’s life at large may feel like a huge, unapproachable task; like standing at the foot of a mountain, realizing that you’re only wearing flip flops, the weather’s looking a little murky, and you’re either running on an empty stomach or maybe feeling a little too full… “Today’s not the day. Maybe I’ll start climbing tomorrow.” You may not even know what the peak really looks like, or if the peak you’re moving toward is the one you really want to reach, which adds to the hesitation toward taking significant steps on the climb.
To reach the mountain peak and have an “optimal” life maybe inherently cannot be done today. But to optimize one day, can be done. I believe that the entire quality of one’s life is informed by the way they live each day, and maybe can be boiled down to the way they approach and live each moment. And, in each moment, there may be an opportunity to be living now at the peak of the mountain. There is a difference between an ideal vision of the life I want to have and the way I want to live, and, while the ideal vision may never be finally achievable, I can fully realize the way, Now.
So, in reflecting on the way I personally want to live, I broke down daily living into 10 principle elements, 10 ingredients that, when prepared skillfully, form a balanced, nourishing, and delicious meal of a day that leaves me satisfied but not overfull and pleased but not regretful, at day’s end. I’ll share these 10 elements with you briefly, and you might then reflect upon the way you engage in each in your daily life, as well as how you might play and experiment with the skillful optimization of particular elements (or simply notice how well you’re already living in different areas). You might also notice areas important to you that I left out, and I’d love to hear about them.
Here are the 10 elements:
1) Waking Up
Simple enough, but I think hugely impactful for the momentum of the rest of your day in terms of when and how this is done.
2) Calibration
This is time spent correcting the course of your ship in the direction you’re most deeply drawn toward, reminding yourself of what is most important to you in life and of what it is you really want. This could be a period of meditation, reflection, prayer, journaling, or really anything. I find this to be essential as a preventative measure at the beginning of the day, rather than attempting to catch up and calibrate once the ship has already veered off course.
3) Care
This is related to the type of attention we pay to each moment. As I’m writing this, at any moment, I fall somewhere on a continuum between distraction and awareness; I may be distracted by thoughts of something or somewhere else, or I may be fully engrossed in this creative action that’s actually happening right now. This act is the only truly real thing in my life and, in each moment, I have the opportunity to be actually alive through the amount of care I offer to this act. Every single action in every moment is an outer expression of the inner clarity of your mind, so this daily ingredient can be applied to all others.
4) Authenticity
This relates to vulnerability and courage. To my mind it’s much easier to act in ways that feel authentic when we’ve already spent some time in “calibration.” I may have begun the day remembering that I most deeply want to be honest and true in every word I speak (calibrating to this personal value), which will make it easier to act this way when a moment (even a seemingly benign one) arises that tempts dishonesty or veiled truth.
5) Reception
Learning new things. Being open and receptive with the attitude of a complete beginner. Reading something, listening to something, talking with someone and being interested in only receiving something new from them, or simply taking in the “New-ness” of this present moment experience that is only ever happening Right Now.
6) Creation
Creative engagement with both that which you consider “work” and that which you consider “play.” I like to think of creation in work as existing to some degree for an instrumental purpose - I am doing this thing in order to _____ (e.g., earn money to pay my bills). Play, on the other hand, is creation for no other reason than itself. I like to think of Reception and Creation existing together in a sort of wavelength, moving deep into just receiving, and then exploding into creation, back and forth, like the breath moving in and out in a continuous wave.
7) Noticing
This is similar to Care but maybe in a unique form. I see this element as noticing one’s particular habitual patterns, noticing those things that you’ve developed over the course of your life, that are reinforcing in the moment but maybe are not ultimately serving you (e.g., going back for one more bowl of sweet cereal, hah). By simply/clearly identifying and noticing your particular habitual trains of thought (you might even give them names), I think they begin to loosen and have less power over the action you take, even if they continue to mentally arise.
8) Movement
Making some room for physical activity and using this miraculous body, this incredibly composed arrangement of tissue, bone, and liquid, to just move, and maybe to sweat. There’s something invigorating and even cathartic to me about getting a good sweat in.
9) Loving Connection
As applied to others in your life as well as, and maybe most importantly, toward yourself. This (self-love) might be one of the hardest elements to engage in for some, and I think it might be necessary in order to genuinely connect in this way with others. Even simply giving yourself a literal hug (maybe when no one’s looking, hah) can be a powerful practice within this realm of daily living.
10) Resting
Like waking up, this is simple but also really impactful in the way it’s done. And if your day was filled with the above elements, you may find yourself beautifully tired and ready to simply rest in preparation for another opportunity of a day.
Optimization of life could be viewed as like planting a garden, and the vegetables and fruits of the garden being those difficult-to-define things like “happiness” and “contentment.” We can’t actually force the outcomes to happen the way we want them to. We can’t physically make the plant grow (we will destroy it if we try). But we can set the conditions for the outcomes to arise naturally. And then, maybe they will arise, and maybe they won’t - we can’t control that. But we can optimize the soil, we can set ourselves up for potential success, and then we might be surprised by some fruit we weren’t even expecting. We can act in the best way we can, right now (living at the peak of the mountain), and maybe let go of attachment to the fruits of that action (the desired ideal mountain peak).