Structure

It is evident that people cannot exist without structure.

Social contract theorists often held the belief that without social contracts, people would steal, kill, maim, rape, pillage, etc with impudence. I've always thought of this Hobbesian world in which no social contract exists as being a lot like the world of Mad Max and Road Warrior.

However, there is really no place in the world that exists entirely without social order based on agreements (at the least, implicit agreements). The world has never seen an every man for himself free-for-all. Instead, people form groups. Even in Somalia and the Sudan we see this. Warlords help organize people and protect and feed them in exchange for helping their cause.

But that often isn't enough to create meaning or place in the world. Political religions go to the next step of sanctioning activity, and which actions are ok or not ok and what the penalty is for those actions. Governments do the same things with laws.

The trouble with any of these systems, is that these agreements are rarely something we create. Often, in fact, we are simply born into a place where these agreements have already been made and it is then explained to us as we grow up that it is our duty to follow, obey, and enforce these agreements.

The trouble is that we don't have that personal connection with the rules that govern our lives. And understand, that many of these rules are implicit, but are very much active and enforced.

Why shouldn't I go 10 miles over the speed limit? I can do it safely, my car gets better gas mileage then, and I get to where I'm going sooner.

Why shouldn't I go on someone's private property if they aren't there to take a hike to see some interesting places I've never been before? I'm not hurting the land, I'm not taking anything, what's the harm?

In addition to these police enforced laws, there are social rules that are even more arbitrary.

Why do I need to dress up to go to that stupid dinner party? I don't even like anyone there.

Why do I have to shave to look professional?

And so on, and so on...

In this way, life gives us choices: to obey the rules, or to be punished somehow.

But these leaves a lot of open room for each of us in the rest of our lives. Our jobs, our personal lives, our sex lives, our friendships, and so on are ours... but how do we make choices in regards to these things. The open-endedness of these choices can make life seem impossible.

However, it is precisely these things that give life its value. Most people don't make laws, but we decide each for ourselves what kinds of relationships we want, how we want to treat others, what job careers we try to go for, etc. This is where we are most free to express our individuality and humanity.

Unfortunately, the world we live in now makes the act of choosing for ourselves these important things more difficult than it needs to be. Television and other media are saturating us with examples of how to live that have become prototypical models of living. Most of these models are nearly impossible for most people to attain, or are simply bad models that really shouldn't be followed. Do we want our kids acting like Paris Hilton? Do we want our kids acting like people on the Real World or Laguna Beach? And what of ourselves?

Again, it is incumbent on us to find values for ourselves, and one of the best tactics for this is to create a structure for us to live our lives within. The other day I was talking with someone who's life is being suffocated because she never really made any active choices surrounding what her values where and how she wanted to live. Some solutions that I came up with were:


1) Map out your day, each day, hour to hour. Determine how you spend this time, evaluate what is good and bad, and then make choices that reflect what you've learned from this exercise.

2) Write down what you most care about in the world, what most bothers you, how you spend your time and what you think about the most... evaluate why these things are what they are and then judge if they should be that way, and follow that up with determining if you are doing what you should to reflect these values.

3) Make lists of short-term and long-term goals that you have for yourself. With those lists, try to come up with as much detail as possible as to what you are doing, need to do, can do, and can't do to achieve those goals.

4) Budget your time: give yourself time each day to reflect, and to do things that are just for you. Whether its exercise, writing, music, or whatever else - find ways to give yourself something each day that is your own and just for yourself. The more you have that is just for yourself, the more the rest of your life can blossom.


These things are all examples of creating structure in your life - personal structure. I rarely see anything in the media that discusses this, in fact, structure is often referred to as something that is external. For instance, the army and bootcamp are good because they give you structure. Well, these are just a few ways that you can give yourself structure without signing your life away.