I recently watched an interview with a leading AI tech CEO, who said something that stuck with me: In times of rapid change, think about what doesn’t change.
That made me ponder what things will never change.
We’re living in an era where tools evolve faster than we can learn to use them.
AI is writing our emails, analysing our clients, and even simulating creativity. The pace is extraordinary.
But beneath all this acceleration, a deeper, quieter question arises:
Are there ideas so universal they’d still be true, even on a distant planet, light-years away?
Truths that existed long before us… and will remain long after we’re gone.
These are the timeless principles, woven through ancient wisdom, modern psychology, and human experience. They’re foundational and universal.
And in a world saturated with noise and novelty, these principles can serve as your inner guide, helping you build a business/career, a life, and a legacy that truly matters.
In “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey wrote about the differences between principles and values.
Principles or Truths, like natural laws, are universal and unchanging, while values are subjective and personal.
1. Know Yourself
When the Oracle at Delphi proclaimed “Know thyself,” she wasn’t suggesting navel-gazing. She was pointing to the most practical skill imaginable: the ability to distinguish between what you actually think and what you think you should think, between your authentic responses and your conditioned reactions.
The Vedantic tradition calls this svadhyaya, self-study. Carl Jung called it individuation. Modern psychology calls it metacognition. Same truth, different languages.
Consider this: Most people spend more time researching a car purchase than examining their own motivations. They can recite their LinkedIn bio but struggle to identify their core values. They know their credit score but not their emotional patterns.
Start noticing the gap between your public self and private self. What do you pretend to care about? What do you care about? The distance between these two points is where your real work begins.
Recent neuroscience confirms what contemplatives have long known, self-awareness literally rewires the brain. fMRI studies show that people who practice self-reflection develop stronger prefrontal cortices, the region associated with emotional regulation and decision-making.
2. Presence is Powerful
Here’s what every spiritual tradition knew but couldn’t quite explain: presence is about accessing the only moment where change is actually possible.
All the traditions recognised that presence is the gateway to power, not power over others, but power to shape reality.
Think about your most memorable experiences. Falling in love, holding your newborn child, and watching a sunset that stopped you in your tracks. What they all have in common isn’t the external event; it’s the quality of attention you brought to it.
The research is clear: people who practice presence are more creative, make better decisions, and paradoxically accomplish more while doing less.
Elite athletes call it “flow state.” CEOs call it “executive presence.” Therapists call it “therapeutic presence.” Same principle, different contexts. The quality of your attention determines the quality of your results.
3. As Within, So Without
This principle appears in the Hermetic axiom “As above, so below,” in the biblical “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” and in the Buddhist understanding of karma. It’s also emerging in quantum physics, where the observer effect suggests consciousness participates in creating reality.
But let’s get practical. Notice how the same external situation affects different people differently. A traffic jam can trigger rage in one person and contemplation in another. A business failure can devastate one entrepreneur and catalyse another’s breakthrough. The outer circumstances are identical; the inner landscapes are different.
The uncomfortable truth is that if you want to change your life, you have to change your consciousness. New strategies, techniques, and environments can help, but they’re ultimately rearranging deck chairs if your fundamental way of being remains the same.
Once you understand this principle, you stop being a victim of circumstances. You realise you’re not trying to control what happens to you, you’re learning to choose what happens through you.
4. Suffering Comes from Attachment
Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths begin with the recognition that suffering is inevitable, but then make a crucial distinction. Pain is unavoidable (stub your toe, it hurts). Suffering is optional (spending three days replaying the stubbing and blaming the furniture arrangement).
The Stoics understood this too. Epictetus, who was literally enslaved, wrote about the ultimate freedom: the ability to choose your response to any situation. The Bhagavad Gita teaches karma yoga, acting without attachment to results.
What attachment actually is, is when you need things to be different than they are in order to be okay. It’s making your inner peace conditional on external circumstances.
Notice where you’re arguing with reality. Where you’re thinking “this shouldn’t be happening” or “they should be different.” That’s attachment. Not the caring, the resistance.
When you stop needing things to be different, you often become more effective at creating change. Your energy goes into action instead of resistance.
5. Love Is the Highest Frequency
Love, in its truest form is a force. It’s what allows mothers to lift cars off their children, what enables people to forgive the unforgivable, what connects strangers across every possible divide.
Rumi wrote, “Love is the bridge between you and everything.” Christian contemplatives spoke of agape, unconditional love. The Dalai Lama calls compassion “the source of all happiness.”
Research in positive psychology shows that loving-kindness contemplative practices literally changes brain structure, increasing areas associated with empathy and emotional processing. Studies of happy relationships reveal that kindness is a better predictor of longevity than passion.
In a culture that often equates love with weakness, this principle can feel naive. But observe the people who consistently get things done, who inspire others, who create lasting change. They operate from love, not as emotion, but as orientation.
Start small. Can you extend genuine care to the cashier at the grocery store? To your frustrated coworker? To the part of yourself that made that mistake last week? Love begins as a practice, not a feeling.
6. Everything Is Interconnected
Indigenous cultures never lost this understanding. The Lakota phrase Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ means “all my relations,” recognising kinship with all life. Eastern philosophy speaks of Indra’s Net, an infinite web where each jewel reflects all others.
Modern science is catching up. Ecology shows us that ecosystems are networks of mutual dependence. Quantum physics reveals that particles remain connected across vast distances. Social psychology demonstrates that emotions are contagious, that we’re constantly co-creating each other’s experiences.
The personal implications: Your wellbeing and others’ wellbeing aren’t separate. Your individual healing contributes to collective healing. Your actions ripple outward in ways you’ll never fully see.
The social implications: The myth of the self-made individual crumbles under scrutiny. Every success story is actually a story of countless contributions, parents, teachers, friends, mentors, even adversaries who catalyzed growth.
The practical application: When facing difficult decisions, ask: “What serves the whole, not just my immediate interests?” This isn’t self-sacrifice, it’s enlightened self-interest, recognising that your long-term flourishing depends on everyone’s flourishing.
7. Stillness Reveals Truth
Every wisdom tradition prioritises contemplation, meditation, or prayer, not as escape from life, but as preparation for living more fully.
The Zen tradition speaks of zazen, just sitting. The Christian mystics practised contemplatio, resting in God’s presence. The Stoics engaged in evening reflection. They understood that wisdom doesn’t come from accumulating more information; it comes from digesting what you already know.
The modern challenge is that we’ve created a culture that equates busyness with importance, stimulation with aliveness. But constant motion often masks anxiety, and endless input often prevents genuine insight.
The default mode network, the brain’s “idle” state, is when the most creative connections happen. It’s where memories consolidate, where patterns emerge, where “aha” moments occur. But this network only activates when we stop trying to activate it.
Start with five minutes of doing nothing. Not meditation, not breathwork, not journaling. Just sitting. Notice what arises. Most people discover they’re afraid of stillness because they’re afraid of what they might find there. But what you find is usually not what you feared; it’s what you needed.
8. Growth Comes Through Challenge
The Hero’s Journey, mapped by Joseph Campbell across world mythologies, always involves a departure from comfort, an ordeal, and a return with wisdom. Every tradition recognises that growth requires friction.
The Stoics called this amor fati, love of fate, including its difficult aspects. Nietzsche wrote about the will to power as the drive to overcome obstacles. Buddhism speaks of dukkha, suffering, as the teacher that motivates awakening.
What if your problems aren’t interruptions to your growth but instruments of it? What if the universe isn’t broken when things get hard but working exactly as designed?
This isn’t just philosophy, it’s physiology. Muscles grow through resistance. Bones strengthen under stress. The immune system develops through exposure to challenges. Even forests need occasional fires to regenerate.
Instead of asking “Why is this happening to me?” try “What is this asking me to become?” The first question breeds victimhood; the second breeds power.
9. You Are Not the Ego
Perhaps the most radical insight in human history is this: the narrator in your head, the one commenting, judging, planning, worrying, isn’t you. It’s a useful tool, but it’s not your identity.
The Vedantic tradition calls this deeper self Atman. The Zen tradition calls it Buddha-nature. The Stoics called it the divine spark. Carl Jung called it the Self (capital S). They all pointed to the same recognition: beneath the roles, stories, and personalities is something vast and unchanging.
When you realise you’re not the ego, you stop taking its commentary so seriously. You can observe your thoughts without being controlled by them. You can play social roles without being trapped by them.
This isn’t abstract philosophy, it’s practical psychology. People who identify with awareness rather than content are more resilient, more creative, and more able to change. They’re not defending a fixed self-concept; they’re exploring what’s possible.
Throughout the day, ask: “Who is aware of this thought? Who is aware of this emotion? Who is aware of this sensation?” The answer is always the same: the aware presence that is your true nature.
10. What You Practice, You Become
The Buddha said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Aristotle said, “Excellence is not an act but a habit.” Modern neuroscience confirms: whatever you practice, you strengthen. Whatever you ignore, you weaken.
This applies to everything: thought patterns, emotional responses, physical movements, and spiritual practices. Every moment you choose fear, you reinforce neural pathways of fear. Every moment you choose love, you reinforce neural pathways of love.
The question isn’t whether you’re practising, it’s what you’re practising. Are you practising presence or distraction? Gratitude or complaint? Compassion or judgment?
The empowering truth is if you don’t like what you’re becoming, you can change what you’re practising. Not through force or willpower, but through conscious choice, repeated moment by moment.
The long view: Small practices compound over time. Five minutes of daily meditation becomes a transformed relationship with your mind. A daily gratitude practice becomes a fundamentally different way of seeing. One act of kindness becomes a character trait.
Living the Principles Every Day
These principles aren’t meant to be understood intellectually; they’re meant to be embodied practically. Pick one that resonates most strongly and experiment with it for a month. Notice what shifts. Notice what resists.
Remember these are discoveries that were made by countless humans who walked this path before you. They’re invitations to experiment with different ways of living and being.
The goal is to practice and move towards what’s true.
In a world that changes constantly, these principles remain constant and they might just be the foundation you’ve been looking for.
