Undo the folded lie - Aligning days and weeks to life priorities

[juggleandhope]

Seeking feedback and participation in a shared effort to develop a movement of better living, embodied in lived experience and rooted in philosophical exploration, drawing on some of the themes from ancient philosophy and modern living that MMM has popularized.

The election has sparked me to begin to actualize this effort after years of thinking.  We waste hours in the day with activities that leave us feeling flat.  Sometimes our routines fail to elevate our highest priorities above the grind of making it through a day.  I would like to gather participants around the sharing of encouragement and ideas to redesign our lives around some common principles, individually interpreted.  These principles inform a list of capacities which become real through the conscious development of sturdy habits of a good life.  There's also a list of common cultural traps that damage our capacities to live a good life.

Principles -
A. We live better if we pause to reflect on our priorities, create sturdy habits to fulfill our priorities, work through the cultural traps that impede the good life, and consult the best thoughts and experiences of others (living and dead) on the good life.
B. By living better lives we also improve the lives of others in our families, communities, and societies. 
 
Most Prioritized Human Capacities for a Good Life:
Sleep
Reflection
Togetherness
Exercise
Food
Work
Beauty
Neighborliness
Learning
Civic participation
X

The big idea is that we stop to figure out our priorities, build habits to live those priorities, and learn to ameliorate cultural traps that prevent us from living our chosen lives.  As my friend said, "Learn not to be a dumbfu*k."

So, for instance, I have noticed that I feel flatter and unable to avoid common cultural traps when I haven't slept enough.  For me, sleep is the single item that most affects my ability to focus on my other desired capacities, so I put that first on my list.  I noticed a lack of beauty in my daily life.  For me, cello is the most beautiful instrument and the Bach Cello Suites the most beautiful music.  I've begun learning cello and created habits of daily practice that immerse me in the making and appreciation of beauty. 

X stands for the item that you need on your list that might be unique or unusual compared to most people.  Or perhaps it's a shifting focus - now it's getting your home de-cluttered but later it will be a full on attempt to get out of debt.

Common Traps -
Each of the following activities, powerfully encouraged by dominant culture, hijack us away from our intentions through a combination of super-stimulation, over-satiation, and a paradoxical insatiability.  We let them make us into junkies.  These traps lose us time and energy to carry out our priorities for a good life.

A. Eating badly
B. TV and other mass media
C. Spinning around the internet and social media
D. Overexposure to news
E. Consumerism
F. Personal drama
G. Substance abuse

Would your list of core capacities of a good life look roughly like mine above?  Would it make sense to you to share ideas and encouragement with others that want to live better, around this sort of prioritizing, planning, and habit building?  Are there other important traps to name and avoid?  Has anyone elegantly crafted habits that have fulfilled multiple capacities?

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/september-1-1939

[EuroGap]

Thank you for an interesting post, and what a great concept! I can certainly agree with you in that I also seek a movement towards a better life, and am looking for a way forward.

I actually started writing this reply by creating lists of what pertained to me, but quickly realised it wasn't at all coherent, which demanded some reflection and thinking, so here we are already started.

I reckon my list of core capacities of a good life are:

• Health (mind, body, relationships, economics)
• Freedom to pursue what I find interesting
• Optimism and a sense of inspiration
• Sense of accomplishment
• Sense of forward momentum
• Contentment with how my life is in the present moment
• Contribution

I have identified that I get these feelings from the following (in no particular order and with definite overlap):

• Spending time with my SO
• Spending time outdoors
• Snowboarding, DH biking, Skateboarding
• Reading
• Working on creative projects
• Meditating
• Practicing Yoga
• Pursuing Minimalism
• Spending time with friends
• Saving money
• Making choices that benefit the environment
• Creating instead of consuming
• Taking care of my relationships

So why don't I do these things more? Why don't I devote all my spare time in the pursuit of these feelings? I reckon my willpower and habit forming skills are too low, getting beating down by those common traps that I encounter all too often. What I need most is a way to change my habits in a permanent fashion, making the new ones stick and getting rid of the old ones for good.

I think the single most influential factor is getting stuck on instagram, facebook (etc) on my phone or computer, waking up a few hours later as if from a coma.


Back to the discussion. I feel it is a little unclear as to what you are actually proposing? Are you looking to develop a method for how to move forward? Are you looking for accountability partners? Lets create something!

[juggleandhope]

Thanks - this helps me already think better.

I will put a few little thoughts/responses now, but will try to write more later. 

It's interesting that your list is mostly about feelings and my list was mostly about abstract aspects of the world.  After reading your list I also thought about aspects that I under-represent in my list - like family - which really can't be subsumed under "togetherness" together with sexuality, friendship, etc.

What I'm proposing is that we get a discussion going of how to live well through a non-dogmatic thinking together about (a) set(s) of "building blocks" of a good life. And that we also try to refine our understandings of the traps that make living in this way impossible at times.  I would feel that this project was successful if there was a small but growing group of people who shared ideas online and in person, comparing notes, encouraging each other.  I reckon this is what MMM is really about but a somewhat different evolution of how to go about it than the forum has provided yet.  My best analogy for what I want with UTFL is what the Bogleheads do about investments - help each other evaluate various "portfolios" of investments (in our case life choices), generously provide some expertise with newbies, provide thought-provoking ideas and questions for each other, consider the strengths and weaknesses of the 3 Fund Portfolio vs the 5 Fund portfolio, and share encouragement and listen to each others experiences.  Maybe eventually meet up once a year to talk in person.

One of my big insights has been that when I didn't sleep enough the night before I have a much harder time resisting the traps.  Since I've got 8 days of not reading the news, I'm going to go to bed now to avoid breaking my streak tomorrow.

[juggleandhope]

Thanks for this helpful link.

I also stumbled upon this other similar idea - https://mylifebook.com/ - which looks more self-aggrandizing than I'd like to do but could probably help me better articulate the idea.

[juggleandhope]

I've been thinking about what would make this idea "sticky" in the Heath Brothers sense (attached).  One possibility is to draw the 4 big categories (Health, Heart, Outer, Inner) as a spiral or fractal - which would both make working on one at a time obvious, but also suggest connections of energy flow between categories and also that perhaps learning how to facilitate our efforts in another category.