Reflective Thinking • Personal Agency • Mutual Respect • Objective Reason

Four aspects of one way of being.

The Foundation

These aren't four separate virtues to master sequentially. They're four facets of the same diamond — each implies the others, each requires the others.

Reflective Thinking

The capacity to observe your own mind in action.

You have thoughts. You have reactions. But you are not your thoughts or reactions — you're the one who can notice them, evaluate them, and choose whether to act on them.

This is the meta-capacity that makes the others possible. Without it, you're captured by whatever arises.

The question it asks: What am I noticing about my own reactions right now?

Personal Agency

The recognition that you are the author of your own story.

Not that you control everything — you don't. But that within constraints, you choose. Your responses are yours. Your interpretations are yours. Your next action is yours.

Agency isn't granted by circumstances. It's claimed despite them.

The question it asks: What is mine to choose here?

Mutual Respect

The recognition that others are authors of their own stories.

The same agency you claim for yourself, others have for themselves. Their perspectives emerge from experiences as real to them as yours are to you.

Respect isn't agreement. It's the acknowledgment that disagreement happens between people equally capable of being right or wrong.

The question it asks: What might this look like from their perspective?

Objective Reason

The commitment to reality as it actually is, not as you wish it were.

Your feelings are real. Your perceptions are real. But reality doesn't rearrange itself to match them. Reason is the discipline of adjusting your map to match the territory.

This isn't cold rationality. It's caring enough about truth to let it change you.

The question it asks: What is actually true, regardless of what I want?

How They Work Together

A conflict arises.

Reflective Thinking notices you're getting triggered. Objective Reason asks what's actually happening versus what you're assuming. Mutual Respect considers the other person's perspective. Personal Agency chooses your response rather than just reacting.

Four principles. One integrated way of being.

[Next: How We Think →] Our epistemological position