Over the last few years, I have found personal values to be foundational for shaping high level drivers for identity and growth1. A few months back I was wondering if I am overusing 'values' in my day to day life and discussions with other people. There is some truth to that, but now I am wondering whether I am under using them in some ways too.
In a few recent incidents I have found mentions of some sort of contextual values present in things like how to do interior design, what to eat, how to communicate, etc. These are probably more principles than values and I will pick a better nomenclature as I grow. But, in the meantime, the multifarity of categories here is unlocking new and extremely useful decision making frameworks for me. I have started to develop some equivalent of values for various aspects of my life—a few will be covered in my wiki under relevant pages—and it's been immensely helpful. Immediate impacts are in my health and eating habits, working space, and productivity.
Importantly, these set of contextual values sometimes connect to a broader pattern that becomes a part of my general identity. As an example, I realize that Empty Spaces are becoming an important part of my self-expression. This started with setting up my workspace (which has gone through enough iterations) but went beyond to things like calendars, writings, visual forms, and in general anything having sparsity-with-intentionality2.
Footnotes:
This seems like a nod to Minimalism but I would wait to conclude that far