The Relationship Between Happiness, Being, And Values

[TJ Reeves]

[Joseph Maynor]

I like your idea that "Wakeful people have set up systems to help them follow their core values automatically."  This is key.  I appreciate your outlines.  

Some ideas that I have collated myself about systems that might interest you:

1.  Systems are all about balance and harmony.

2.  Systems respond to outside forces in complex ways.

3.  There are no absolute truths for Stage Yellow.  All there is is a bunch of partial perspectives.  And every perspective is partial.

4.  Almost everything can be thought of as a system.  Almost all problems are systemic problems.

5.  Belief in your beliefs is dogma and it's what is holding back every stage below Stage Yellow.

6.  Stage Yellow is ecological in their thinking.

7.  Systems work in counter-intuitive ways.  They don't work in overly simplistic ways.

8.  When there's a larger system at work that we don't understand, this is a cause of failure and problems.

9.  Stage Yellow realizes that life is paradoxical.

10.  Stage Yellow sees the world as perspectives and in shades of grey and sees the world as systems to solve the problems that they care about.

11.  Systems resist you trying to change them.

12.  The dogmatic person, every stage under Stage Yellow, pulls out the pitchfork when somebody offends them or attacks their worldview.  This is an adversarial relationship with reality and life.  Instead of getting defensive, look over what was said and see if there is something there or a way to expand your model or growth to cover the new facts.  Stage Yellow has a robust model of the world.  And Stage Yellow always assumes that they could be wrong and is open-minded.

13.  The ego is a system.

14.  If you feel that your perspective of the world is the Truth, you are not at Stage Yellow.

15.  Stage Yellow sees the world from the perspective of interconnected systems.  These systems interact with each other in interesting and counter-intuitive ways.  The subconscious mind is also a system.  To change a system you have to understand it first to avoid traps.

16.  Think of systems as organisms and meta-organisms.

17.  You are a conflicted system maintaining homeostasis.  By raising awareness, the web of beliefs starts to restructure itself naturally.

18.  When you get angry, stop and look at the big picture.  Your point of view is not the dominant point of view.  So what you judge as evil is not what evil is.  There are no divisions.  Your partition gets encroached upon because it's part of a larger system where encroachment happens.

19.  Systems thinking requires that you start to step outside your self-centered view of the world.  You have to be conscious enough to step outside of your own value system and genuinely care about other beings besides yourself and your tribe.

20.  Systems are non-linear.  This means that they are unpredictable and chaotic.  

21.  Stage Yellow gives up rationalism and absolute truth.

22.  You're a distributed system not a centralized system.

23.  Set realistic, pragmatic expectations regarding making change in your life.  Expect that your subconscious mind and body systems will play tricks on you to resist the  change to maintain homeostasis.

24.  Think of everything as a system.

25.  Problems are systemic and not personal.  Poorly designed systems are creating the problems.

Edited July 20, 2017 by Joseph Maynor