Given the kind of year we had in 2020, I’ve been thinking a lot about dysfunction.
What causes people to become imbalanced and chaotic? How can we restore balance and cultivate well-being, both on the individual and collective levels?
Of course, there are many possible answers to these questions. However, I think they share a common theme:
Dysfunction happens when we fail to honor the full range of values necessary for human flourishing.
Conversely, well-being emerges when we cultivate and pursue this full range of values in balanced and adaptive ways.
I’ll try to explain what I mean.
For the past few years, I’ve been studying some of the most influential ideas in psychology, philosophy, and spirituality—both old and new. In doing so, I’ve realized that many schools of thought are pointing at the same set of truths, just from different perspectives and with different language.
Ultimately, my goal is to create an accessible model of well-being that integrates these many intellectual and spiritual traditions. I want to create a framework that unites ancient wisdom with modern knowledge and helps us flourish individually and collectively.
What follows is a very rough outline of that framework.
To begin with, let me restate the foundational idea for this this theory, which I’ve already alluded to above:
A good life is much more than the narrow pursuit of positive emotions. It’s the expression and cultivation of the many different dimensions of the human experience.
Different thinkers have conceptualized these "dimensions" in various ways throughout history:
Plato and Aristotle thought of them as virtues.
Carl Jung described them as archetypes.
Abraham Maslow considered them needs.
Buddhism sums them up in the Noble Eightfold Path.
Jonathan Haidt sees them as moral foundations.
Other frameworks refer to them variously as traits, character strengths, and developmental stages.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s just call them values. Some examples of essential human values include:
Compassion
Justice
Freedom
Loyalty / group cohesion
Authority / respect for rules & tradition
Sanctity / transcendence
Meaning
Wisdom
Creativity
Courage
Temperance
Accomplishment
Pleasant emotions (happiness)
Values are important because they are the principles on which we base our actions, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Understanding the values that drive our behavior can give us clarity and perspective on how we act and, perhaps more importantly, how we should act.
We experience well-being, integration, and balance when we honor the full range of values we possess as humans, both biological and psychological.
We experience dysfunction, disintegration, and imbalance when we ignore or reject too many of these values for too long.
This is obvious when it comes to our biological needs. If we overvalue physical comfort and pleasure and undervalue exercise, our bodies will start to break down.
But the same is true for our psychological needs.
For example, if we are too narrowly focused on the values of accomplishment and material success, our relationships and emotional health will suffer.
Here’s a personal example of a value imbalance I experienced in my own life and how I corrected it.
For the past couple years I’ve been going through what my wife and therapist both agree is the “Dark Night of the Soul.” Essentially, it’s an existential crisis characterized by all sorts of negative emotions, most of which stem from a loss of meaning and purpose. Apparently, it sometimes happens when a person is going through an intense period of growth.
For me, this manifested as feelings of inexplicable anger and/or profound despair for days on end. I had low energy, brain fog and would get irritated at the smallest things. To top it off, I could barely bring myself to write or create any content. An unfortunate fact, since that happens to be how I make a living.
But then something happened recently that snapped me back into balance.
In response to our two-year old’s new sleep schedule (and thanks to my wife’s grace and flexibility) we made a change to our daily routine. Instead of having scattered hours throughout the day to work, I now had a solid, uninterrupted 5-hour window to write, read, and think.
This may not sound like a big deal to you but let me tell you why it is.
A signature feature of my personality is that I love learning, engaging with ideas, and making sense of those ideas through writing. This is reflected in every personality or strengths assessment I’ve ever taken, where I always score exceptionally high on traits having to do with knowledge acquisition, curiosity, openness to new ideas, wisdom, and the like. In fact, it’s this very trait that impelled me to start ThinkGrowProsper.
Not surprisingly, this is also an important value dimension embedded in the human psyche. We are creative and exploratory animals (some more than others). In my case, being both an introvert and a lover of ideas, not having the time and space in my life to fully express and cultivate this essential value dimension seemed to create a sort of imbalance in me.
The Dark Side of Values
When we repress or ignore a value dimension, we often summon its shadow side. That is, if we fail to act out a value in healthy, adaptive ways, we will tend to act it out in unhealthy and imbalanced ways.
For example, if we don’t honor our need for meaning and transcendence in healthy and productive ways (a spiritual practice, spending time in nature, etc.) we will attempt to satisfy it in dysfunctional ways (extreme ideologies, grand conspiracy theories, etc.).
We can also encounter the shadow side of a positive value when we go too far in one direction. If we only value being in top physical shape, it can become an unhealthy obsession that takes a toll on our body.
On an individual level, expressing these essential human values in healthy, adaptive ways is crucial to our psychological well-being. On the collective level, it is crucial to our social well-being.
In my next post, I plan on sharing with you my first attempt at a more organized and complete list of what I believe to be the essential value-dimensions required for human flourishing
Ruben Chavez is a writer and host of The Think Grow Podcast.