What is a personal philosophy, and how will it benefit my life? I taught philosophy for 13 years, and I would hear this question regularly. I realize I could not respond meaningfully to the question until I was clear about how a personal philosophy had benefited my life. It involved stepping away from strong precedents established by academia, which declared that real philosophy involved a series of serious intellectual inquiries. Henry David Thoreau criticized reducing philosophy to intellectual inquiry: “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

I began with the word philosophy, which was likely first used in 500 BCE by the philosopher, Pythagoras. The word *philosophy, *from the Greek, means “love of wisdom” or “love of Sophia.” It is noteworthy that there is a female name for the word *wisdom. *We might consider that wisdom is about the birth and nurturing of insight. Philosophy is then the love of birthing and nurturing insight, which has a maternal feel. Such love is a creative act. We create who we are by the insights we birth and nurture, as well as the actions we take, which define our relationship with life. However, it is all too easy to stray from living in a love story.

The Intellectual Bypass

A significant impediment to listening to our hearts is an intellectual bypass. This bypass translates instinctive urges, emotions, and bodily sensations into concepts. A tight gut, feeling fear, or having an urge to act are converted into abstract ideas. Abstraction acts as a kind of insulation from the unease and vulnerability we can experience when paying attention to what is happening in our bodies. Or ruminating in order to postpone taking some risk. Here’s an example of such a bypass, in which the person may not allow their emotions to inform their philosophy.

“I have observed that Marsha has a proclivity to employ both aggression and passive aggression with some regularity. Others have reported being subjected to her pugnacity, and in fact, I believe that I also have had the opportunity to be the recipient of her maltreatment.” Does this person feel hurt, angry, or disgusted by Marsha?

Love of Sophia

You’re developing a personal philosophy when you love birthing and nurturing insight, and integrating it. Integration happens as your insight morphs into an intention, then into action. Here are some indications and benefits of that happening.

• Be self-examining: The Greek philosopher Socrates suggested that living a self-examining life was the highest virtue. When this is the cornerstone of our personal philosophy, we likely have greater clarity about what we desire and value, which can give our lives direction and purpose.
• Remain curious: An old definition of the word curious is “to care a great deal.” Our questions become a way to create ourselves, as we bring attention and intention to what summons our curiosity.
• Commit to simplicity: An early consideration of the word *simplicity *is “unattached to artificiality.” To understand what is artificial for you is to understand what does not deserve your attention or what is not real for you. We bring wisdom to our personal philosophies when we pause and decide what is artificial and what is genuine, again and again. When I pause, I find artificiality in glory, pretense, pride, and glamour. That doesn’t imply that they don’t get my attention, because they tend to be highly seductive. They provide distractions from challenging emotions and can offer a reprieve from self-contempt. I experience authenticity, accountability, compassion, and courage as genuine and worth my attention.
• Be touched and moved: These energies are provided by the heart. They tend to be informative, describing what truly matters to you and what can be foundational for your philosophy.
• Experience awe and wonder. When you’re touched and moved, you’re likely moving into awe and wonder, which places you close to the immensity of reality. Now, you possess the wisdom of understanding that no single account of reality captures all that there is. A single act of kindness, compassion, or forgiveness cannot be reduced to a single explanation. Awe and wonder point us to the unexplored levels of the unknown.

You live your personal philosophy by allowing what you love to guide your actions. It means humbly remaining an apprentice who is touched and moved, a committed seeker of what truly matters to you. And as you step away from the artificial and lean toward what is genuine, your personal philosophy morphs into a devotion to serving. While in service, you know where you belong; you’re home. And this is how your personal philosophy benefits your life and others’.