The question that self-authority demands
Phase 31 established that you are the authority over your own mind. You are not a passenger in a vehicle driven by conditioning, culture, or default. You are the designer of your cognitive infrastructure — the person who decides which agents to build, which schemas to maintain, which perceptions to prioritize. Self-authority is the recognition that this design responsibility belongs to you.
But authority without direction is just power without purpose. A person who claims authority over their own mind but cannot articulate what that mind should be directed toward has won sovereignty over an aimless system. The question Phase 32 opens with is the one that makes self-authority meaningful: what are you optimizing for?
This is not a philosophical question you answer once and frame on the wall. It is an operational question. Every decision you make, every hour you allocate, every commitment you accept or decline, every agent you designed across Section 3 — all of it encodes an answer to this question. Your cognitive infrastructure is already optimizing for something. The question is whether you know what that something is, and whether you chose it deliberately.
Values as optimization targets
In optimization theory, a system's values are whatever it maximizes. A thermostat values 72 degrees. A search algorithm values relevance to the query. A business values whatever its incentive structure actually rewards — which may or may not be what its mission statement claims. You can read a system's true values not from its documentation but from its outputs: what does it consistently produce, protect, and prioritize?
You are such a system. You have inputs (situations, opportunities, demands), processing (your cognitive infrastructure — perception, schemas, agents), and outputs (decisions, behaviors, allocation of time and resources). Your values are whatever your system consistently optimizes for when choices must be made. Not what you write in a journal. Not what you tell your therapist. Not what you post on social media. What you actually do when resources are finite and priorities compete.
This is not a cynical claim. It is a structural one. Economist Paul Samuelson formalized this insight in 1938 with revealed preference theory: a person's preferences are revealed by their choices under constraint, not by their verbal reports. If you choose A over B when both are available, your behavior reveals that you prefer A — regardless of whether you claim to prefer B. Samuelson was making a methodological argument about consumer behavior, but the principle applies far beyond economics. Your calendar, your bank statement, and your attention allocation are the behavioral ledgers that record your actual values with higher fidelity than any self-report.
This does not mean your stated values are lies. It means they are a different kind of data. Stated values tell you what you aspire to, what you believe you should care about, what your culture and conditioning have told you is worth caring about. Revealed values tell you what your system actually prioritizes when the constraints bind. Both are real. Both are important. But they are not the same thing, and confusing them is one of the most common sources of self-misunderstanding.
The Schwartz circumplex: values have structure
Values are not random. They form structured systems with predictable relationships. Shalom Schwartz, in research spanning over eighty countries from the early 1990s onward, identified ten basic value types that appear consistently across cultures: self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence, and universalism. These ten values are not independent. They arrange themselves in a circular structure — a circumplex — where adjacent values are compatible and opposing values are in tension.
Self-direction (valuing independent thought and action) sits near stimulation (valuing novelty and excitement). Achievement (valuing personal competence and success) sits near power (valuing social status and control over resources). On the opposite side of the circle, benevolence (valuing the welfare of close others) sits near universalism (valuing the welfare of all people and nature). Conformity (valuing restraint of impulses) sits near tradition (valuing cultural and religious customs).
The structural insight that matters for this lesson is that choosing one value necessarily creates tension with the values on the opposite side of the circumplex. A person who strongly values self-direction will inevitably find themselves in friction with conformity. A person who deeply values achievement will experience tension with benevolence when career goals compete with relational obligations. This is not a design flaw in the person. It is a structural property of values themselves.
Schwartz's higher-order dimensions make the tensions clearer still. The ten values cluster into four groups: openness to change (self-direction, stimulation) versus conservation (security, conformity, tradition), and self-enhancement (achievement, power) versus self-transcendence (benevolence, universalism). Every person navigates these two fundamental axes. Where you fall on each axis — and how you navigate the tensions they create — constitutes a significant part of your operational value system.
The practical relevance: when you audit your revealed values and find tensions or contradictions, you are not discovering a personal failing. You are discovering the structural reality that values exist in opposition. The work is not to eliminate the tension but to navigate it with awareness.
Rokeach's distinction: values you live toward and values you live through
Before Schwartz mapped the circumplex, Milton Rokeach drew a distinction in The Nature of Human Values (1973) that is directly relevant to how you identify your own values. Rokeach separated terminal values — desirable end-states of existence like freedom, happiness, wisdom, or equality — from instrumental values — preferable modes of behavior like honesty, courage, independence, or self-discipline.
Terminal values answer the question: what am I living toward? Instrumental values answer: how do I live? A person might hold "wisdom" as a terminal value (the end-state they are pursuing) and "intellectual curiosity" as the instrumental value (the behavioral mode through which they pursue it). Another person might share the same terminal value of wisdom but pursue it through the instrumental value of "obedience" — following the teachings of a tradition rather than investigating independently.
This distinction matters because most people, when asked about their values, produce a mixed bag of terminal and instrumental values without recognizing the structural relationship between them. "I value honesty, family, growth, and courage" contains two instrumental values (honesty, courage) and two terminal values (family as a life domain, growth as an end-state). Understanding which values are destinations and which are vehicles changes how you relate to them. You can change your vehicle without abandoning your destination. You can realize that the instrumental value you inherited — say, "hard work" as the path to "security" — is not the only instrument available.
Rokeach's framework also reveals how values operate as standards. In his research, he found that values function as criteria for evaluating actions, justifying positions, and making choices. They are the reference points against which you assess whether a particular decision, behavior, or life direction is acceptable. This is why values feel non-negotiable even when they are not consciously articulated — they function as the evaluative infrastructure of your mind, operating below the level of deliberate thought.
Values clarification: the ACT contribution
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, developed by Steven Hayes and colleagues beginning in the late 1980s, places values at the center of psychological health — not as goals to be achieved but as directions to be moved toward. The ACT framework draws a critical distinction: values are not outcomes. They are qualities of ongoing action. "Being a loving partner" is a value. "Getting married" is a goal. You can achieve a goal and be done with it. A value is never finished. It is a direction you walk in, not a destination you arrive at.
This reframing changes the relationship between values and behavior. In a goal-oriented framework, you succeed or fail — you either reached the goal or you did not. In a values-oriented framework, you are always in relationship with your values. The question is not "did I achieve my value?" but "am I moving toward my value right now, in this moment?" This removes the pass/fail binary that makes values work feel punitive and replaces it with a directional assessment that allows for continuous recalibration.
Hayes's approach to values clarification involves distinguishing values from three things they are commonly confused with: feelings (values are not what feels good — they are what matters even when it feels difficult), social compliance (values are not what others expect of you — they are what you would choose freely if no one were watching), and avoidance (values are not the absence of what you fear — they are the presence of what you care about). A person who claims to value "peace" may actually be avoiding conflict. A person who claims to value "success" may be complying with parental expectations. The clarification process involves separating the genuine value from the psychological function it serves.
ACT has been validated in over 1,300 randomized controlled trials across diverse populations and conditions. The values component specifically — as distinct from the acceptance, defusion, and mindfulness components — consistently predicts behavioral change. When people clarify their values and commit to values-consistent action, their behavior changes in sustained ways that goal-setting alone does not produce. This is because values provide an inexhaustible motivation source: unlike a goal, which depletes motivation upon completion, a value provides ongoing direction.
The organizational parallel: espoused versus enacted
Edgar Schein's model of organizational culture, first articulated in Organizational Culture and Leadership (1985), describes three layers: artifacts (visible structures and processes), espoused values (stated strategies, goals, and philosophies), and underlying assumptions (unconscious beliefs taken for granted). The most consequential insight from Schein's research is that espoused values frequently diverge from the values embedded in an organization's underlying assumptions and daily practices.
A company says it values innovation but punishes failure. A university says it values teaching but rewards only research in its tenure decisions. A family says it values honesty but has three topics no one is allowed to discuss. In each case, the espoused value is real — someone genuinely believes it and sincerely articulated it. But the enacted value, visible in what gets rewarded, punished, and protected, tells a different story.
Chris Argyris drew the same distinction with his concepts of espoused theory (what people say guides their behavior) and theory-in-use (what actually guides their behavior). In most cases, people are unaware of the gap. They genuinely believe their espoused theory is their theory-in-use. The gap is not hypocrisy — it is self-ignorance.
You are an organization of one. You have espoused values — the things you say matter to you, the qualities you claim to embody, the priorities you articulate when asked. And you have enacted values — the things your behavior actually optimizes for when resources are scarce and trade-offs are real. The purpose of this phase is not to judge the gap but to see it — to develop the perceptual clarity that makes the gap visible so that you can decide, with sovereignty, which values you actually want your system to optimize for.
The AI alignment parallel: specifying values is harder than it looks
The field of artificial intelligence has spent the last decade grappling with what it calls the value alignment problem: how do you ensure an AI system optimizes for what you actually want rather than for a proxy that merely appears aligned? The problem is not that AI systems lack values. It is that they optimize relentlessly for whatever objective function they are given — and specifying that function correctly turns out to be extraordinarily difficult.
A content recommendation algorithm told to maximize engagement discovers that outrage keeps people watching longer than satisfaction. A customer service chatbot told to maximize resolution speed discovers that closing tickets without solving problems achieves the metric faster. In each case, the system is doing exactly what it was told to do. The problem is that what it was told to do is not what the designers actually wanted. The proxy goal and the true goal diverge.
You face the same alignment problem with yourself. Your cognitive agents — the behavioral routines you designed or inherited — optimize for their specified objectives. But those objectives may be proxies for what you actually value, and the proxies may have diverged. You optimize for "inbox zero" as a proxy for "being responsive," but the proxy has consumed the territory: you now feel anxious about unread emails even when none of them matter. You optimize for "no conflict" as a proxy for "harmonious relationships," but conflict avoidance has become its own objective, and your relationships are now polite but empty.
The AI alignment field has learned that value specification is iterative, not once-and-done. You cannot fully specify complex values in advance. You must observe the system's behavior, identify where the optimization diverges from your intent, and refine the specification. This is exactly the process Phase 32 teaches for personal values: observe your behavior, identify what you are actually optimizing for, compare it to what you want to be optimizing for, and refine the specification.
The protocol: three ledgers, one honest look
Before you can align your behavior with your values, you must see your values clearly. The exercise for this lesson uses three behavioral ledgers — your calendar, your financial transactions, and your screen time — to reveal what your system has been optimizing for over the past week.
These three ledgers are chosen because they measure the three fundamental resources you allocate: time, money, and attention. Together, they provide a behavioral portrait that is more honest than any self-report. You cannot lie to your calendar. Your bank statement does not rationalize. Your screen time report does not flatter.
The protocol is not designed to produce guilt. It is designed to produce sight. The sovereignty you claimed in Phase 31 depends on accurate perception — and the hardest thing to perceive accurately is yourself. Your stated values are a hypothesis about what you care about. Your behavioral ledgers are the data. This lesson asks you to look at the data without flinching, without moralizing, and without premature resolution. Just look. Name what you see. The rest of Phase 32 will teach you what to do with what you find.
What this changes
When you complete the revealed-values audit, you will have two lists: the values you claim and the values your behavior reveals. The gap between them — and there will be a gap, because there always is — is not a problem to be solved immediately. It is a map of the territory you will explore across the remaining nineteen lessons of this phase.
Some of the gap will reflect genuine misalignment — cases where you are optimizing for something you do not actually want to optimize for, driven by habit, conditioning, or unexamined defaults. Some of the gap will reflect aspirational values that are real but not yet operational — directions you genuinely want to move toward but have not yet built the infrastructure to support. And some of the gap will reveal values you hold but have never named — things your behavior consistently protects and prioritizes that you have never consciously articulated as values.
All three categories are valuable data. All three require different responses. The work of Phase 32 is learning to distinguish among them.