Most life advice is incomplete. I don’t mean it’s necessarily bad, just that it’s not the whole story.
For example, there’s a popular philosophy of living that encourages people to exercise their personal freedom and liberate themselves from constraints. We’ll call it the Autonomy Ethic.
The core message of the Autonomy Ethic is:
Do what you want, as long as you’re not harming anyone. Express yourself however you see fit. Don’t mind what others think of you. Put your needs first.
(Of course, I’m simplifying.)
Ralph Waldo Emerson sums it up like this:
“What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think.”
This advice is coherent, sensible, and strategically sound...sometimes.
The problem with the Autonomy Ethic is that it leaves out the other side of the story: the fact that we are intensely social creatures with legitimate responsibilities to others. We have a deep need to cultivate meaningful relationships and belong to a group. We’ll call this philosophy the Connection Ethic.
The core message of the Connection Ethic is:
Be a good team player. Uphold the values and interests of your group before your own. Sacrifice some of your personal desires for the common good. Be responsible to and for others.
Confucianism, with its emphasis on selflessness, respect for authority, and fitting into one's community, is a good representation of this ethic.
This quote from Cloud Atlas also sums it up pretty well:
“Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”
This advice is also coherent, sensible, and strategically sound...sometimes.
So which advice is correct? It depends. Sometimes it pays to assert your individuality, sometimes it pays to prioritize the group. Often, both strategies are needed simultaneously.
Here’s the thing: Life is incredibly complex. Throughout our evolutionary history, we’ve had to navigate a vast array of social environments and situations. To ensure the survival of our species under a variety of different conditions, we’ve developed multiple strategies for living well. This is why we see such a diverse range of traits, temperaments, and value systems across the human species.
It’s also why we possess values that conflict with each other. For every coherent and useful life strategy we encounter, there’s an opposing one that’s often just as useful (under certain circumstances).
To be clear, this doesn’t mean human values are purely arbitrary, subjective, or relative. There are adaptive patterns of behavior and also maladaptive ones. There are ways of living that promote harmony and ways of living that promote dysfunction. Rather, the existence of multiple, competing values is evidence of the complexity of human nature.
Why I find it hard to post
The more deeply I understand this dynamic, the more difficult it is to post specific advice relating to personal development. I always know I’m leaving something out. Hence, my radio silence as of late.
However, I recently came to a realization. My role is not to stake my claim on any one particular ideology but to show how all of the different and seemingly contradictory advice we encounter fit together to tell a complete story.
In short, my job is to help clarify and revivify timeless principles for the modern world.
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been working on: a framework that helps make sense of our diverse and conflicting values. I want to offer a new lens to help you (and me) understand the world and ourselves more effectively.
Ruben