CLAWSON FAMILY PRINCIPLES

Principles for Effective, Happy Living
My wife and I developed these "Clawson Family Principles" over a decade out of the question, "What would we hope our kids would remember as what we had taught them?"  We began with five, added one, then two, and have been stable now at ten for the last five years.  Sometime ago, one of our daughters came from from school all excited and reported that they had had an exercise in which the class was to pretend they had been shipwrecked on an island, and they had to develop a new culture from scratch.  She breathlessly reported that they came up with twelve principles and that seven of them were from our Clawson Family Principles.  I knew at that moment that our attempts had born some fruit: she had learned them well enough to introduce and persuade others from memory.

  1. Work for what you want. There is no free lunch; no short cuts. Do the work, expect the reward.

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  2. Clean as you go. Leave your "campsite" better than you found it. Don't plan to come back later and clean it up, do it as you go. Make your bed, hang up your clothes, dispose of your own trash, take care of your environment. Show some pride in your place and person.

  3. Save and Invest 10%. No matter your bills, put aside ten percent right from the start and invest in stock. Live within your means. Don't borrow, pay from your savings. Spend less that you make. You'll be glad you did.

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  4. Respect the Rights and Views of Others. You don't have to accept what they say or ask, but you should listen to, understand and respect others.

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  5. Be reverent. Show respect for nature, for beauty in the world. You have a right to be here, and we all play a small role in the world. Be modest.

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  6. Contribute to your community. Fight collective entropy. Be a net contributor to your neighborhood, give a little more than you take.

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  7. Read. If you don't read, you won't have anything to say.

  8. Find your Resonance. This is the purpose of life: To find your resonance, invest in your capacity to recreate it, to enjoy it, and to help others find their resonance.

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  9. Be Honest with Yourself and Others. If you can't keep your word, don't give it. Don't make promises you cannot keep. Be honest with yourself and others.

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  10. Exercise every day. Healthy body, healthy mind, healthy spirit.

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  11. Things Change, acknowedge and adapt.  Nothing stays the same.

Characteristics of RESONANCE or FLOW
Since FLOW/RESONANCE is an important part of our family principles,
we included a definition of it here--adapted from Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi's book FLOW. 

  1. Time Warps (gets fast because you lose sight of it, gets slow because your senses are dialed up)

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  2. Lose self consciousness. No longer worried about how you look to others, hair, make up, weight, tie, suits, etc.

  3. Intense focus. Complete concentration on something. Mental discipline to turn away distractions. Takes practice and effort.

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  4. Peak Performance. You perform at your absolute best, at the limit of your abilities.

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  5.  Seems Effortless. Although you're doing your best, you're not struggling and straining. It seems effortless; it "flows."

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  6. Internally Rewarding. This performance is intensely internally satisfying.

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  7. Renewed, larger sense of self. Afterward, you feel larger, more capable, more able to deal with the vicissitudes of life. Short cuts like amusement parks, drugs, alcohol, etc., only leave you feeling smaller, not larger.