In my attempt to articulate what it means to live a life well-lived, I came to the realization that it is also necessary to clearly understand one’s Being, if one is going to understand how to live a life well-lived.
Your Being is who you are, but what does that entail? I am not going down the path of are you here, or are you in a suspended or dream state, or what have you. If you are reading this, then you and I are here, for better or worse, and that part you’ll have to accept or I’m out for my part.
Who you are is a combination of things that produce your being. Who you are now, in the moment is your Current Being.
In “A Treatise on Living a Life Well-Lived”, Spirit was one of the four realms and it is central to the ‘simple, elegant being built for resilience and growth – you.’
‘You’ is a reference to Being and is only touched on in the Treatise. I wrote, “My Current Being is my Spirit and my Meaning, in addition to my Health, Material and Insurance at this point in time. My True Being is the idealized version of the Current Being that I work to become through the Journey.”
There are then Five Aspects of Being. My Being, be it current or ideal, is Spirit, Meaning, Health, Material, and Insurance.
Since Spirit and Meaning were addressed in detail in the treatise, but Health, Material, and Insurance were not, I want to bring them all together here for a more complete understanding of Being.
The Five Aspects of Being
Spirit and Meaning
In the Treatise, I state that the Spirit answers the question, who am I. Further, “Who I am are the traits that I value and the traits that are inherently strong within me. This combination of character strengths and values orients me in life. Spirit is the identity structure of the model with capacity and character at its core.”
And I closed the section by noting, “The Spirit is structurally stable, developmentally dynamic, and interpretively evolving. The Spirit is comprised of those traits I value most that may or may not possess my highest character strengths.”
Meaning addresses ‘why I am’. Meaning originates within the Spirit, which answers ‘who I am’. Meaning is the constitutional authority indicating what matters to me based on the Spirit.
Health
Health is the condition of your mind and body.
Health progresses through the Tiers of the Life Compass Alignment Framework, which are Base, Transition, and Pinnacle.
The base is made up of survival and safety. A being requires a body to be in motion to secure survival first. To accomplish this, a being must have adequate enough health to physically survive, which requires the mental ability to manage the proper function of the body and mind.
Proper function requires sustenance. Sustenance sets off a process wherein an individual consumes food and beverage to intake nutrients.
The body processes the nutrients and distributes them as needed throughout the body to support the structure and systems we rely on. The processes also flush out the waste that is unused or depleted in the recovery phase.
Recovery happens both during distribution and while at rest. It includes a cleansing process that washes out waste products that are replenished with the new distribution.
Too often diet and nutrition are focused on our physical being, but it is equally important to our mental well being. Without the proper nutrition our brains and our bodies will not function as we desire.
The same is true for not giving the brain and body proper recovery and rest time. What is proper is individual. There is no magic number to target. It is about finding the amount of rest that works for you.
Survival is the minimum set of requirements, while safety is good enough for you.
Health follows the same Tiers. There is a minimum amount of health required to survive. And then there is more to be safe. With safety stress and anxiety are reduced and effort can be placed on optimization driving one toward esteem and actualization.
Material
Material is a combination of finances and assets.
Material are the things you have and own that provide you with survival and safety, allow you to maintain and build relationships, and to engage in the activities you chose to pursue.
There is a base level of income you require. Bills must be paid. In the US 88% of adults surveyed indicated they had a feeling of stress regarding finances in the beginning of the year and 77% said they feel anxious about their financial situation. Most significant, 40 to 68% of adults claim sudden job loss would be devastating. They don’t have the insurance to support sudden job loss.
Material also includes those things required for survival such as having shelter, food, and clothing. Most people are required to pay for transportation in some form.
Insurance
Insurance is how you have prepared to protect and maintain your Spirit, Health, and Material.
In the hierarchy it anchors the Safety level. The immediate thought is the insurance you purchase, such as medical, dental, vision, home, and auto. The premise is simple. You pay money in the event that something happens you don’t have to pay the full amount to fix what was damaged or lost.
It also includes skills. Literacy and Job skills which are insurance for future work.
The final element of insurance is having financial security to continue to live the lifestyle you require once you retire. Investments become a form of insurance.
Conclusion
Being is a dynamic structure composed of five interconnected pillars: Spirit, Meaning, Health, Material, and Insurance. Two of these, Spirit and Meaning, are also Essential Realms in the Treatise of Living a Life Well-lived.
At its core, Being is the interplay between your Current Being, who you are right now in the moment and your True Being, who you believe you ought to be, an idealized version of you. While Spirit and Meaning provide the internal identity and constitutional authority for why you exist, the external pillars of Health, Material, and Insurance provide the physical vessel, the necessary resources, and the defensive safeguards required to sustain that existence and pursue perpetual growth.
In my belief system, being is:
- the sum of my values, the traits I desire, my capacity, the traits which are my character strengths, the external vessel in which I physically exist, and the resources to ensure safeguards and growth
- the movement from my current state of being to an idealized state
- structurally stable but dynamically evolving: it has a firm core of values but is capable of growth and interpretation
- dependent on proper and optimized function, including nutrition, rest and recovery for physical and mental well-being
- is based in resilience to endure and learn from setbacks
- is the alignment of who I am and why I am
In my belief system, being is not:
- abstract
- purely metaphysical in that it cannot exist without the physical and economic components
- purely physical in that the physical structure requires direction through meaning
- a fixed point that can be reached through the achievement of traditional goals
- detached from the world as it requires shelter, income, and social/economic insurance
- accidental or predetermined, but established through free will
Ross Raymond Nunamaker 