The center of your life never needs much explanation because life centers always have all of us communicating for them. We communicate with our full selves who or what is at the center of us.
In other words, I know the bottom of a person’s spirit by good observation, listening, and patience. Those three behaviors help me pay attention both to who that person is and to who or what sits at the center of that individual.
You can see my presupposition: everybody has something sitting at the center of his or her being. There may be exceptions that I’d make to that comment, but most people have something or someone that is primary and of ultimate significance. Something at the center.
Most people who practice a religion would accept their religious rituals and behaviors and teachings as outflows of that language about Someone at the center. That would be God.
Religious or not (if a person can not be religious), living well cannot be done without knowing who’s there. Further, living well cannot be done without conscious choosing who’s at the center and who gets to stay there.
To create a Rule, it’s helpful consider who or what is at the center of one’s life. In that consideration, we question our behaviors and choices in an effort to inspect the bottom of those behaviors and choices. We look at our selves through the lens of our experiences in order to wonder around into the deeper floors of our selves.
We ask, what am I doing? It’s a plain question. What do I spend myself on? A calendar starts the answer. I’ve spent my days, my thoughts, my time doing thus and so. The surface level answers lead us to a less-seen, less-trafficked place: the center.
We ask more questions. What does this calendar of thoughts and behaviors say about my values? What do these things say about who is of importance to me?
Creating a Rule of Life is an activity of putting God continually at that center. But the survey of who or what is there first may open us to the kinds of activities we need to employ in order to unseat someone else.