People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. – Jospeh Campbell 

Several months ago, I introduced an idea called “The Four Principles of Human-Centered Living” (“The Four Principles” for short). The Four Principles are alignment, sensitivity, creativity, and mystery. On some level, I think the title speaks for itself, and yet, I am also keenly aware that the concept needs a clear and comprehensive introduction. While I have no problem writing at length about the four principles individually, I have been struggling to come up with an effective way of talking about them together, or about the ethos behind them. I published one such attempt at an introduction back in January but deleted it shortly thereafter because I felt it was clunky. I hadn’t yet found the most effective framework for my ideas, and as a result, I haven’t discussed The Four Principles since the beginning of this year.

Over the past few weeks, that’s been bothering me. I love The Four Principles. I believe they have merit and that they can be really useful for the right people. So, I’ve been rethinking the idea of an introduction. And this morning, for the first time, I felt ready to make another attempt. This one will be considerably shorter and more direct than the last.

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My early to mid-20s was a tumultuous time for me. As I recall, I was busy pursuing a lot of the wrong things for the wrong (or right?) reasons. In terms of career, I was attempting to follow the path I believed I was supposed to follow…and I was deeply dissatisfied in doing it. I had a growing sense that I was betraying myself. I felt lost. I didn’t know where I belonged or what I was supposed to be doing with my life. 

Eventually, I changed jobs (several times), went back to school, and embarked on a whole new chapter. But that period of discontentment and all of the challenges it brought with it, really, was when The Four Principles were born.

They were how I got through a chaotic and confusing time in my life. Each of them was, first and foremost, a natural, instinctual response to life’s challenges that, over time, evolved into a daily practice, or ethos for living. For example, the principle of creativity, for me, hinges on one very important question that I ask myself every morning: on this day, what have I been given, and what will I do with what I have been given? That question—now, a way of celebrating and expressing gratitude for the blessings in my life, big and small—was born out of chaos. It was my way of trying to find something good in an otherwise dark and difficult situation, of looking for something, even something tiny, to live for each day.

And I found it. Actually, what I found was far greater. What I found by enacting The Four Principles over time was the inherent worthwhileness of living. Not purpose. Not meaning. But the satisfaction, pleasure, and intrinsic value of simply being alive.

Indeed, I almost feel like I’m saying something risqué when I suggest that the experience of being alive should be satisfying, even pleasurable a good portion of the time. Feeling the warmth of the sunshine on our faces should be pleasant. Going for a walk in the woods and engaging our senses by really looking and listening should feel good. Physical exercise should feel pleasurable enough to be its own reward. We shouldn’t feel nothing. We shouldn’t feel apathetic about these things. This is the principle of sensitivity.

Living should feel worthwhile not because it allows us to pursue alternate aims, like money, career, status, recognition, etc., but for its own sake. The experience of being alive should be its own reward. Life is worth living. Full stop.

I know we’re not trained to think this way. How much easier life would be if we were! How simple is the idea that life is inherently worthwhile? How simple is it to suggest, as Maslow did, that “basic life-functioning pleasures,” like taking a big breath of fresh air, sharing a hug or a kiss, or (I’ll say it again) feeling the sunshine on our faces makes life “precious in itself”? That we don’t need to be more or do more or acquire more in order to feel that life is worth living and worth living well. How terrifically we have complicated something that should be so simple. 

I’ve given examples of the principles of sensitivity and creativity. In closing, I’ll talk about the remaining two; although, I don’t mean to diminish their importance by leaving them for last. Alignment is not only the first principle; it is the core. When we are aligned, we experience, in Rollo May’s words, a continuous “stretching of the self,” or a “continuously replenished urge which impels the individual to dedicate himself to seek forever higher forms of truth, beauty, and goodness.” We’re not only involved in developing our talents and abilities, but we are also impelled by a desire to live according to the highest values, to enact some sort of good in the world. That is, we are aligning with our own souls. In a recent post, I talked about the ways in which my life changed since I began developing my talents and skills in a dedicated way, the rewards of which have been far-reaching, indeed.

The fourth principle, mystery, is about understanding ourselves as participants in and witnesses of the great mystery of life. We do this chiefly through ritual and storytelling. The principle of mystery is about transcending the mundane and coming to understand ourselves in the context of eternity, in which context we are not powerless, passive, or ordinary, but incarnations of the divine.