I don’t believe anything. That’s the beauty of it!
I don’t believe you.
…Hey, you’re right!
I have had help, nearly 20 years of therapy & medication. I see professional people weekly.
Go ahead and put me on sabbatical, it’s for the best.
Thank You.
Live and let live.
“Bo was a simple man. He had such a simple life that he only had one etho.”
“Try not to fuck up your piece of the world too badly.”
“What the hell. Why not drink paint?”
ETA : damn tablet keyboard
I have no idea how people can be glib or nonchalant about this. What the OP is asking for is a summary of your essence, a summation of your soul (not in a religious sense). If you don’t/can’t have an answer to this, it sounds like your “life-spark” has been extinguished, and there’s no “there there.”
In my case . . . I have often referred to myself as a “recovering objectivist,” and that will most likely continue as long as I’m alive. I’m re-examining beliefs that I thought would be absolute, and discovering that some of them arise from faulty premises on a very fundamental level. So I’m shedding that certainty that had, for years, been such a comfort, and daring to question beliefs that had been “carved in stone.” So I’m in a period of major transition right now, and feeling very much alive.
Try to make yourself useful.
Currently, my main driving ethos would essentially be Adam Smith’s invisible hand, with the provision that we should be pursuing self-interest in a rational and ethical manner. Find your talents/interests and use them in a manner supported by the market. In the end, you will benefit not only yourself but the people around you.
This is not to look down on things like charity and government aid, mind you. But if you’re expecting either of those to solve the world’s problems, it’s just not going to happen. There is no amount of money alone that will forever eliminate poverty from the face of the Earth. The “sustainable” solution to helping other people is to find a way to make a living at it.
Treat people the way you’d like to be treated, except if you’re a masochist.
Life is short. I know that’s said all the time, so much that we’ve been desensitized to what it means, but it is. Everyone only has a few decades in the universe, and too many people spend that time worrying about the future. Sometimes it’s good to take a deep breath and enjoy living in the moment. That Earth harbors such diverse life is pretty amazing, and I’m glad I was lucky enough to be born in the time and place I was. So I try not to let it all slip by.
Are you open to hearing an alternative interpretation?
Not everyone wants to wax philosophically, even if they are deeply introspective. There are some people who choose to live life rather than thinking and talking about it. They may believe that being too conscious of it detracts from the experience. And I share this opinion. It’s kind of like how some people make a big deal of being mindful or pursuing happiness. The moment you become intentional about it, the “essence” of what you’re doing is lost.
I try not to answer questions like this because it always feels like I’m deluding myself, no matter what I say. I can say that my personal ethos is to optimally balance a lifestyle of simplicity with personal growth and fulfillment. But I probably fall short of this a LOT, and I’m not wise enough to know to what degree. I know that I don’t get out of bed every morning thinking, “How am I going to have fun today without giving myself an ulcer?” No, my thoughts are much more concrete and mundane. Feed the cats. Eat this sandwich. Finish this report. Pick the boogers out of my nose. There is no ethos in my thoughts, guiding my actions. Whatever I come up with as an ethos is completely ex post facto, and thus likely self-serving and convenient.
So I find that it’s best that I not delude myself and admit that I have no ethos, which doesn’t say anything about who I am beyond me being someone who doesn’t want to claim an ethos. You are free to judge me as not having as much of a “life spark” as you. Or you can simply acknowledge that a question like the OP’s requires a lot of personal insight–something that not all of us possess.
But whether you meant to or not, you actually did describe your “ethos,” very eloquently.
Work smarter, not harder
Rather than say, ‘personal insight is something that not all of us posess’, I prefer to say that there is something to be said about too much time spent with self reflection. So, while there is some truth in the sentiment that an unexamined life is not worth living, it is equally true that too much time spent in self-evaluation can make one appear affected and boring.
Know thyself, but don’t be pedantic about it.
Or perhaps that your ethos is “try not to take yourself, or the people and things around you, so damned seriously.” Being that we’re all hurtling toward inevitable death, and the world is a pretty absurd place.
“Get over thyself,” is another way to put it.
Just speaking for myself, of course, but I know that for me, it is about insight. To answer the OP, I need to know something about my personal intention. Not the proximate intention but the ultimate intention. The latter is accessible by the conscious mind The part of me that likes to tell feel-good stories. But the ultimate “driver” in me–the thing that presents me with ideas and controls how I react to them–is unknown to me. I can’t speak to a personal ethos because I don’t really know why I do what I do or think how I think or feel how I feel.
See, even those of us who don’t like to think about stuff like this can be pedantic!
Hustle.
I am very selfish, self-centered, self absorbed, independent…take your pick.
I tend to believe that everyone should be more personally responsible.