9. Special Tools for Making Decisions

Because values always underlie decision-making, God gave us the freedom and the right values to make good decisions that would contribute to the success of our spiritual growth, maturity, and evolution — to eventually become more like God, loving in all our thoughts, decisions, and actions.

The Values that Sustain Families, Societies, and Civilizations

 The Values that Sustain Families, Societies, and Civilizations
© Copyright Daniel Raphael 2017 USA

NOTE: “Love” is in quotation marks because love is the value-emotion that points to: Honesty, truthfulness, respect, loyalty, devotion, faithfulness, recognition, acceptance, appreciation, validation, discretion, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, authenticity, vulnerability, genuineness, listening, supporting, sharing, consulting, confiding, caring, tenderness and many more. These values constitute the operational definition of love. (Source: Sacred Relationships, A Guide to Authentic Loving, Daniel Raphael, 1999. Origin Press.)

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.”
— Dalai Lama

 

The seven values above are organic to us by being embedded in our DNA. They identify us as being human, and humane. These values have motivated and sustained our species for over 200,000 years, and have prompted us to progress as individuals and as societies. They have particular characteristics that have helped all people for all time to improve the condition of their lives.

Living our life to become more perfect would be pretty hard to figure out if God had not given us these values for making good decisions. Living life this way is like “coloring inside the lines.” The lines help us color the object so that we can clearly see what a bird, or dog, or cat, or tree looks like with all of its colors when we are done coloring the object. These seven values provide us with guide “lines” for consistently making good decisions. Living life without these values would be like trying to repair your bicycle without a repair manual. So, God made us imperfect, but gave us the tools for making good decisions.

Let’s check out these values so that you understand what they are all about.

LIFE — If you have life, you want to stay alive.

Quality of Life — Everyone wants to have a better quality of life. If you are out hiking and it starts to rain, you want to put on a rain coat. If you are lonely, you want to have friends to share your experiences with. If you live in a cave, you would like to have a house with hot water, heat, a roof, and toilets. Each of these examples are related to wanting a better quality of life.

Growth Everyone wants to grow into the potential they brought into life when they were born. To grow is to be human. If you heard someone sing and you liked what you heard, you might want to learn how to sing, too. To sing like that you would need to practice and grow into your capability to sing.

EqualityEveryone, and I mean EVERYONE, wants to improve the quality of their life and to grow into their potential. To do that, everyone needs to have an equal opportunity to try.

Empathy — Sometimes we see someone who is in a bad situation. Maybe we see that their home has burned down and we feel bad because they don’t have a home. Empathy is that feeling you get when you see someone who needs help.

Compassion — When our sense of empathy rises in our hearts, we want to do something for that other person. When we reach out to help them that is an act of compassion. Compassion is helping someone who has a need to improve their quality of life and to grow into their potential just as we would do for ourselves.

“Love” — This kind of love is the “love of humanity.” That means that we have empathy and compassion for all of humanity just as we would for ourselves. It is a generalized kind of love for all people.

Characteristics of These Values —

Self-Evident —The three primary values, (quality of life, growth, and equality), are as self-evident as the values stated in the famous sentence in the United States Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths (values) to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We know they are self-evident because when people around the world are asked whether they would like to enjoy an improved quality of life, they always say, “Yes!”

Universal — These seven values are universal to all people of all races, cultures, ethnicity, nations, and genders. Ask anyone, whether they live in Bangladesh or Baltimore, Houston or Hanoi, or any other city, if they would like to improve the quality of their life with an equal opportunity as anyone else would or could. The answers are always, “Yes!!”

Irreducible — The three primary values, (quality of life, growth, and equality), are the most important values of humans. There simply are no other values that so clearly and simply explain human motivation for what people do.

Organic / Innate / Timeless — Even though I cannot prove it, evidence seems to suggest that these seven values are organic to our DNA and have been a part of our human existence from the earliest of times.


When you live life making decisions that use these values, then you are “coloring your life inside the lines” that lead to more wisdom for yourself and for others. This kind of living is what gives “ordinary” people the greatness to become extraordinary in how they live life.