What Do You Stand For REALLY? An Answer to Urgency Culture
In a sea of imagined urgency, core values offer calm, clarity, and a compass. An exercise in navigating life differently and more beautifully in 2024.
Dearest Reader,
As we approach winter solstice and the turning of the calendar, I’m reflecting on my principles, what I stand for, and where I’m willing to speak and act courageously—even at the risk of difficult consequences.
Rather than formulate resolutions, intentions, or even a “word of the year,” I’m focusing on bringing more precision to how I understand and articulate core values.
Doing so serves as an internal compass and reference point. It also helps me stay the course and hold to what I consider true and essential in a sea of imagined urgency, shifty algorithms, and strident opinions.
The more vehement the online demands and divides, the more this feels needed. It also goes hand-in-hand with my decision to leave Instagram earlier this month (and my decision to leave Facebook years before, never get on X or TikTok, etc.).
I refuse to be buffeted about on the waves of social media, mainstream soundbites, and public opinion. I refuse to let the most boisterous, vitriolic voices in the room decide what I stand for or which hill I should die on.
Instead of looking to Instagram or Notes or the newsreel. Instead of being bullied and shamed into standing for this thing or that. Instead of being pressured to not speak about what I hold dear…
I’m taking my time and consulting my values.
From here, I can proceed with confidence and courage. From here, I am willing to sacrifice. From here, I can accept the consequences.
The things I say and do from this place won’t look so different from what I’m already saying and doing. But energetically, the difference is huge. Energetically, I’m taking a conscious step back from external expectations, manipulations, and urgency.
As I engage in this work, I’m learning from and deeply grateful for the following teachers:
Africa Brooke, whose podcast (especially this episode) is my primary guide in this domain and the inspiration for this essay.
Gil Fronsdal, who’s been my primary teacher in spirituality, ethics, and life for more than two decades.
- , whose writing on Monday Monday offers a model of how to navigate online and offline realms more creatively and beautifully.
To you three: Thank you. Bless you. You are making a tremendous, life-changing difference.
I gave myself a loose constraint of choosing 5 words that best encapsulate my core values as I experience them today, in this last stretch of 2023:
Love
Integrity
Serenity
Honesty
Freedom
As a writer with much to say, it’s hard to stop there! But I consider other values I hold dear to be folded into the above, including:
Generosity
Courage
Discipline
Precision
Health
Among those “corollary values,” generosity and precision are ones that I aspire to step into more fully and consciously in the year ahead—including here on Sober Soulful. And I consider everything above to be contained within spiritual practice and connection to Nature and Source.
To support me in living these values—especially when traversing insistent seas—I’ve chosen this quote by Elizabeth Gilbert:
“Life has taught me that things tend to shake out, if you can be cool for two minutes and try to not freak out. Aging has taught me how to respond, not to react—and sober, intelligent responses can take weeks or even years to formulate. That’s ok. Weirdly, I feel like I have far more time now than I did when I was in my twenties, when everything was insanely urgent.”
Find lots more wisdom in the full interview here.
Now you.
I’d love for you to share in the comments:
What words capture the essence of your deepest values and what you stand for?
What values will you lean into as a reference and compass as we move into what’s next?
Which of these values are you already embodying in daily life? Which do you aspire to inhabit more fully?
If you’d rather not share, no pressure! But please do tap the little ♡ if you’d like to bring a ray of light to my day. And to all of you reading, subscribing, commenting, recommending, sharing, being here…
Thank you. My heart is full. I wish you a magical holiday and blessed, blessed new year. See you in January.
With love,
Dana
Your essay inspired a realization: Without active participation, the core attributes to which I aspire — generosity, humility, compassion, curiosity, whimsy — are but hypothetical. What good are they to me, or to you, if I’m not engaged, present? Awake. Or, as you put it, what do I embody?
It’s too easy for those who communicate through writing, especially long-form writing, to devolve into mere observers — to click ‘post,’ then start composing the next essay — to avoid messy, face-to-face human interactions.
I love your honesty and integrity, Dana. (And thank you - right back at you!) As you say, all the core values role up into a spiritual journey, and to that end the goal I am always working on (and failing to achieve constantly) is to be more present for the important people in my life. I strive to be honest (both with others and myself - I say "no" a lot now) and compassionate. Patience is also something I value and need to work on a lot! And even though I say no a lot, I still say yes, too much - mostly to my own crazy desires to do all the things all the time. I take on too much! But the number one thing that keeps me sane (other than not drinking) is being in nature, and I could always have more outdoor time. Thank you for the thought-provoking questions and all your work and writing this year!