Core values beat bad circumstances any day

At the most dire of times, circumstances and events most people turn to superstition and religion. Believing that their tenacity and strong belief alone in the ancients and saints will be the key, the answer, the long awaited solution to the problem they are facing. It's not all bad to pray, go to mass, or even consult the mystics. After all, faith does wonders. A strong belief or faith gives an unexplainable fuel for an individual to go on and master the emotion and conquer anything in their way.

But what is really needed is going back to basics. From my experience, I too prayed more than the usual when in doubt or when facing a problem. The comfort that it brings me, is welcoming and warm. Though, again guilty of the placing trust where action is needed, not really serving it side by side with my core values.

From a tweet of @wilsonng
Crisis into an opportunity - Jim Collins

Taking the article to a more personal level, as it is indicated though it is a study made on why businesses succeed in tough times, I have realized that much of the values I hold and practice aren't located at my core being. I loose faith, belief, action when bombarded with emotional bombs. Not to be proud of the emotional weakness I have, but a fact that I must face. Reading the article above made me think twice of how I value my core values, of how strongly attached their roots are to me and of how time and circumstance proven are they to me. My verdict, guilty. I am one of the persons, most of the time, described above.

To give an example. Of the things that I always keep in mind, is the thought of proving people wrong when they say or even think negatively of me. I don't want to be put in a story and be written as the one who cannot recover, as the one who is lacking in good judgment, as the one who is always far behind. I despise it, who wouldn't, right? But it seemingly stops there, just the hatred. Which really makes a rotten apple out of a person, seriously. I do a rebound and recover, of course, but not as often as I would hope to. It was a weakness that I have, I told myself, at the same time contradicting myself saying that it wasn't put there to be accepted as it is, but rather as how you would understand it and how you will translate it.

Translating, adapting to maybe, perplexing problems with one of the most valuable tools, your values, will help you learn and recover. What am I talking about? Further using my example, now I'm feeling down because somebody, because of my mistake of course, wrote me down as someone who commits a mistake more often than the usual. The core value, I don't want to be branded with a negative title like that. What I should do, like to do at the darkest of problems, is to get out of the hole where the person wrote me into. I will do everything I can, a battle cry of resolve… I will not be put down. One way or the other I will prevail. I will erase it, even if written in permanent ink, and write myself a new version of my character. With that in mind, I will correct it with a plan, with a goal in mind, with my other values.

I won't focus on the difficult or troublesome situation dealt to me, I will focus on what I hold dear, on what defines me as a person, father, friend, husband and whatever role I will play in flesh or in spirit, I will focus on the positivity and value of my core being.

This year started rough, but hey, it won't be much of a life if it wasn't :)

And to think that I was lightly using the word value in one of my conversations with a friend of mine.