The word value is used for several different things: worth, usefulness, advantage, price, cost, specific amount that replaces ‘x’ or ‘y’ in an equation, moral principles, and more. Here, I will speak mostly of economic values. But know that all values are related in a system. When we change one, it affects all the others and the overall system.
Just as we must distinguish shade from shadow, and in addition see the tree and the light source that allow both to exist, we must distinguish a value from its projection. Gold has no value unless we decide so. Gold’s value comes from our projecting it onto gold with our minds.
What we value, and how much so, drives our behavior within a system. We neglect things we consider having little or no value to us, like plastic bags for some. We may put these things in the trash, or not even see them. Most of the time, we ignore the role they play in our lives. We also do not read the information we do not value. We give our attention to things we value, positively or negatively. Some pay high prices—and even sacrifice their homes—to pay for their children’s education. Some risk their lives in perilous migration journeys. Some have several luxury automobiles. Some cherish growing their own vegetables. Some spend most of their daytime hooked to their cell phones.
Sustainable development is, quite centrally, about humans being able to behave in a certain habitually virtuous way: one that develops human beings and expands life on earth, and keeps at it, thus requiring a constant updating of these habits. We have not been very good at the latter: the regular actualizing. Since our values drive our behavior, and our current behavior is driving a reduction of life on earth, threatening our own species, we must change our values. And also organize to keep changing them.
But what exactly is value, as a piece of reality, a tangible part of nature, that we can describe and change?
A value is a recurring emotional event. It is what we feel about something— itself inseparably related to what we think about that same thing. It may be subconscious. It has a quality and an intensity (more or less “value”). Essentially a recurring electromagnetic field and signal, it is a fuel that moves the body to do this or that. The resulting body movement is also naturally inseparable from its feeling and thinking aspects. This think-feel-do trinity gets repeated over and over, in a habitual behavior, for as long as we maintain the same mindset about a thing or a specific set of circumstances.
Values happen in the mind and reside there. In systems, there is a feedback loop between two system components. There are people and things in what we see as our external world. We experience these. But our values are born and evolve internally, as we live and interpret what we experience. We then merely project our values onto external things, anything. We use currencies to help represent such projected values more materially for things that can be exchanged. For monetary values to exist in the economic system, there must be enough people collectively agreeing on these projected values, thus having a sufficiently similar mindset about the same things. And we can also collectively agree, freely or not, on fixing certain projected values on certain products and services, within a given sub-system, for a period of time: for example, the amount of the minimum salary per hour.
It takes some time and effort to change collective values’ projections, because of all the legal and regulatory texts, and the derived way entire societies have come to function, including their buildings, technology, art, etc.
But we can all change the values in our minds a lot more easily, anytime. And we must. And that will make changing the projections a lot easier.
We just need to start paying more attention to our emotions: what we typically feel about something (the sensation in our body), the story (with words and numbers) we tell ourselves when we hold this feeling, and what doing our body is typically drawn to do as a result (action). We must look for patterns. If we visualize our thought system as a tree, values are closer to the roots of the system, driving and irrigating the branches of our habitual thoughts and behaviors.
Since what we pay for reflects what we value, it is a good idea to do this emotional self-awareness work for each and all the goods, services, and experiences we typically pay for, and those we do not pay for: clothes, different foods, being outdoors, our own labor by unit of time or deliverable, our different skills, another person’s skills. The list is long, but with practice, it becomes a habit. Professionals in the psychology field can help make this process easy.
If we do not feel good enough about something, we must change the story we are telling ourselves about it; choose thoughts that feel better (that feel freed, relieved, more aligned). We must then put our new value into practice by adopting a new behavior and making it a habit. We may so choose to change jobs, demand higher wages, stop falling for manipulative ads, switch to buying only healthy products, decide to vote. And choose to be and seek strong, kind, inclusive, visionary leaders. Change one value at a time, and keep at it. You will succeed faster than trying to change too many at once.
The same work must be done at all scales of human organization: individuals, teams, corporations, countries, international organizations. Good communication is essential to succeed. For guidance on this, read Five Keys to Communicate Sustainability for Success.
Important note to my readers: from now on, I will be publishing one article every other week only, as it appears to suit both you and I better!
