I am interested in writing about my personal philosophy and all that includes. As way of introduction, below is a short essay on this topic.

I tried writing about this topic many times but always find it too big. I will be starting with the practice not as an academic idea but an introduction to the process. It is a practical method to change my life or make it better over time.

I have thought about it as a dialogue, and as a voice and sometimes as a journal to keep track of my daily affairs. In truth, this is a description of the process. It makes it a little easier to see without judging all the moving parts.

I try to get the gist of it by laying out the parts that come together to help inform my conscious decisions that actually make things change for the better in my daily affairs.

There are two parts that come together to make a practice: part one is a manageable chunk of theory and part two is a conscious decision. The theory is important and takes time to read and digest itself. One such theory I like is called the three treasures from the famous Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchel. And part two is when the moment or the conscious decision informs, which is applying the changes to my life in the moment.

So, this all leads to what I hear as a description called incrementally learning and changing my life with conscious decisions. We actually have agency over our lives if we only learn to contain our lives and not cause so many problems by our behaviour and lack of virtue in most parts of our living.

So at this point I am making it abundantly clear that a personal philosophy is a way to contain my life by some kind of mysterious way of changing myself with conscious decisions that are better than the ones I start with and will be better with practice.

I called out one theory from the Tao Te Ching called The Three Treasures: simplicity, compassion and patience. The simpler the better and more clarity will result. Compassion helps soften up the judgement I make each time that freezes my betterment with an inappropriate way of labeling we often call shamming or blaming. I do it to myself and others without the proper virtues to help me stop this kind of impulsive behaviour. Another element in all this processing is logic and reason or critical thinking to help me find all the pros and cons to better evaluate what works and does not in a practical application or practice of using virtues to better contain my life before I act out impulsively in one or some of my affairs with poor conscious decisions that inform our very lives almost without any thought before we leap into new situations.

What I am essentially containing is my reactions, poor behaviours and attitudes that colour my decisions in all my affairs. It is clearly not the simplest , or compassionate or even patient way of doing this thing we call living. So I am putting together a teacher student practice called a personal philosophy or a way to put better reactions, behaviours and attitudes into what results in a better living. I am working for myself. Many people think of this as being an adult or using a friend or family member as a mentor to help teach better living or life skills. For years I have used self care, personal medicine and other similar methods of containment, but with the death of self help, I am going to the next level.

This is my definition of a personal philosophy: some kind of virtue critically evaluated with critical thinking to use the appropriate virtue or attitude to improve my life incrementally by taking up the practice to incrementally improving my conscious decision to better live my life. Through solitude and dialogue I am learning to practice these more informed conscious decisions to learn and behave in better ways each time I practice and inform my own affairs in all I say and do. It is why it is so important to understand the student teacher relationship and the idea of mentoring and how I do this for myself with solitude and my inner voice. By getting to know myself better, with a stop look and listen attitude, I will pause and stop look and listen before I leap with a conscious decision to act in my life.

I will leave it there for now.

Next time I will talk about curiosity and how it informs my decisions about making a better living without so much harm and lack of awareness, it is an eye opener to me each day.