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VALUES
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WE'RE ALL BORN WITH THIS INCREDIBLE CURIOSITY TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS. THE ESTABLISHED EDUCATION SYSTEM, CULTURE, AND PERCEIVED RESPONSIBILITIES CAN OBSTRUCT OUR DESIRE TO LEARN AND ENGAGE WITH OUR NATURAL WORLD.
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Inspiring global self-awareness, happiness, and health by sharing Art, Language and Life skills through fun, compassion, and creativity. Enjoying the quest for a meaningful life.
WHAT WE'RE UP4:
…dreaming big and evolving through learning.
…being positive, passionate, and grateful.
…inspiring and being inspired.
…welcoming abundance.
…honoring our words with action.
…celebrating life.
1. BELONGING
When we are understood, recognized, and affirmed by friends, family members, partners, colleagues, and even strangers, we feel we belong to a community. Results from some studies—as well as end-of-life conversations—indicate that many people count their relationships as the most meaningful part of their lives, even when those relationships are difficult or strained.
2. PURPOSE
When we have long-term goals in life that reflect our values and serve the greater good, we tend to imbue our activities with more meaning. Researcher Adam Grant has found that professions focused on helping others—teachers, surgeons, clergy, and therapists—all tend to rate their jobs as more meaningful, and that people who imbue their work with purpose are more dedicated to their jobs. Having purpose has also been tied to many positive outcomes, including increased learning for students in school and better health.
3. STORYTELLING
When it comes to finding meaning, it helps to try to pull particularly relevant experiences in our lives into a coherent narrative that defines our identity. People who describe their lives as meaningful tend to have redemptive stories where they overcame something negative, and to emphasize growth, communion with others, and personal agency. Psychologists have found that asking people to consider paths nottaken in life and the consequences of those choices imbued experiences with more meaning.
4. TRANSCENDENCE
Transcendence. Experiences that fill us with awe or wonder—ones in which “we feel we have risen above the everyday world to experience a higher reality,” according to Smith — can decrease our self-focus and lead us to engage in more generous, helpful behavior. It may seem counterintuitive in some ways; but the diminishment of our own self-importance can induce a sense of meaning, she says.
WHY?
Sometime in the last century, we entered a new era. It happened gradually in terms of human perception, but was an amazingly rapid event if placed in the perspective of the 4000 years of recorded human history, or the millions of years of life on earth. We entered an era of human domination of global ecosystems. This poses some of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced. These challenges span areas ranging from environmental management to agriculture, economics, law, philosophy and ethics. What does this human domination of global ecosystems mean? For the first time in the history of the globe, there are so many people, doing so much, that humans have become the major movers and shapers of global ecosystems. Humans now exert a greater impact on many critically important global processes than all other natural forces combined. Should we be concerned? What kind of world are we creating? What will future generations experience? What can we do about it?
Persistent gaps remain in human understanding relative to the challenges ahead of us, as a species, as a team. At UP4, we strive to understand these gaps and promote those who do the same. We believe mindfulness and a spiritual practice hold the keys to abundance, happiness, and health on a global scale. We are the way we are because of how we think. To make room for global prosperity and in order to express ourselves, communicate clearly, and be mindful of our thoughts and actions we choose to be UP4 Art, Language, and Life.
CONTINUE BY READING ABOUT OUR PHILOSOPHY...
UP4 Pillars of Meaning credited to Emily Esfahani Smith in The Power of Meaning
