What is a Capstone?
I’ve cleaned out my office and brought everything home. My life unfolds before me like a game trail waiting to be explored.
Looking for balance in a spinning world is my tagline. Is it still relevent?
While working, my balancing act was often off-kilter. The job was demanding, but the goal was straightforward – balancing worklife/homelife. Now there is nothing competing for my homelife so what am I balancing?
I thought it was my values but I hadn’t come across the metaphor of a capstone yet.
I thought the most about values at Work.
Trying to compress what we as a school community of 500 thought should be the values through which we operated was no small task.
I’ve always thought that I lived a value filled life. However, as I learned more about values and the role the play in providing direction and stability, I realized something.
I had too many things/ideas that I valued – not only did this dilute their efficacy, but often they competed with each other, which led to frustration and confusion.
Our Values can’t be people or material objects
One day, my husband, knowing how important my family is to me, asked why they weren’t one of my values.
Values are the roots that nourish the tree. My values, properly lived, enable me to love and appreciate my family and other relationships.
Values are not people or possessions. Values are abstract concepts that guide our thoughts and actions.
But the abstract is hard to conceptualize and that’s why I like metaphors. Metaphors help me wrap my head around abstract ideas.
Visualizing my Values
Initially I visualized me balancing my values like a plate spinner or a juggler striving to keep six rings in the air at a time.
These images fit well with my life roles and responsibilities. They aren’t accurate for explaining a value filled life.
I found my metaphor in the Rocky Mountains of BC.
The Capstones at Muncho Lake, BC
The end of July, 2017, we pulled our converted sled hauler to Muncho Lake, which is Km 681 (Mile on the Alaska Highway.
We backed into a beautiful lakefront campsite at Strawberry Flats.
With kayaks and bikes unloaded, hammock slung, cooking area set up, we were ready for our ten day stay.
One of our hikes up an alluvial fan had these spectacular hoodoos that rose majestically amongst the trees that grew along the mountain side.
Wind, rain, and snow had worn away the less resistant materials, leaving columns that towered high.
Perfectly balanced on top of the tallest columns were smooth, rectangular shaped boulders made of a much less porous material than the conglomerate that formed the columns.
These boulders are called capstones and it is these capstones that prevent the erosion of the columns.
There, on top of these hoodoos was my metaphor.
Values are the Capstones of our Lives.
Stop trying to balance everything like a plate juggler and beating yourself up when you drop a plate, or two, or four.
Determine your values and let the values be the capstone that protects you from weathering away.
Often it isn’t the big things that do us in, rather it’s the little things. It’s those dripping irritations, the endless decisions, the barrage of needs and wants and responsibilities that threaten our calm.
Values, well thought out and established, are the capstone that protects us as we go through our daily living.
It is these values that clarify our decisions and nudge us to take note. Our values protect us from the non-essentials and point the way to the important.
We can withstand the daily weather because our capstone helps us shed that which wears us down, diminishing us.
I’m still seeking balance in a spinning world, but my capstone helps me keep that balance.
What Values Form your Capstone?
Without a clear sense of our values, we are like a hoodoos without a capstone and risk being worn down by whatever elements life throws at us.
The beauty of values is that they’re unique to each individual. Your values may have similarities to mine but your priorities will be different.
The values I selected as my capstone are values that are essential for me to be whole. I know they are essential to me because over the years I’ve experienced the negativity that enters my life when they lag.
Determine your Values Today
Spend some time today determining your top values.
Don’t get bogged down with choosing too many. Rather look at your life and decide what helps you soar as opposed to that which tethers you to mediocrity.
If you’d like a resource to get you started, check this out.
Capstones aren’t pretty but their value is priceless!
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