Spiral Dynamics - Difference between thinking a stage and living a stage

[Zizzero]

Today I made an interesting observation about my own life which helped me understand Spiral Dynamics better, so I though I'd share with you.

For this I first need to share a tiny bit about myself. Cognitively I assess myself to be at stage yellow; the way I think, the way I learn, my opinion on most questions is typical stage yellow. Which makes sense based on what type of person I am; I'm a very open person who always enjoyed learning new things and exchanging perspectives. Also, I am someone who likes to think and philosophize. Quite naturally I would rush up the spiral in these aspects and enter stage yellow at a very young age. However, other parts of me would develop in a more normal pace which means these parts of me are sometimes more stage orange or green.
I was always confused how it could be that someone is scattered along the spiral and as a very thought-loving person I kind of only cared about my cognitive development.

I, however, realized something when I thought about money and especially my current financial situation. I know quite a lot about how the economy works and what someone would have to do if they chose to become rich or at least increase their earnings and I possess the yellow thinking abilities to back this practical knowledge up with a systematic perspective on this practical matter. But it seems like I don't live accordingly; a realized how orange-green my beliefs about my own financial future are. Here a quick repetition of the stages:
While stage blue exemplifies black and white thinking like no other stage, orange is guilty of that as well. Just slightly more complex than blue.
Blue fundamentally beliefs that things are either or: a = a and b = b
Orange beliefs that things follow a set of rules: a = b; therefore if "a" happens, then "b" happens as well.
But yellow now realizes that a = b is rather a probability than I rigid rule. If you want "b", then "a" is your best bet, but there are too many factors in place to guarantee such a simple equation in the real world.
A good example for how orange believes these matters work is mainstream self-help advice: "the top ten principles for success", "the step by step guide to become a millionaire". Orange cannot yet see the complexity of yellow's worldview and wants a simple step by step plan which unfortunately for orange often fails because it fails to go beyond the surface level.

If we go back to my situation, we observe the following: I outgrew orange's obsession with money; so money doesn't really possess any intrinsic value to me and my goals don't revolve around the acquisition of money. And in the near future, there is no need for me to focus on my financial situation; I'm living a rather minimalist lifestyle, my expenses are so slim that even though I don't earn much, I am far from financial problems and my highest priority goals that I am currently working towards don't require additional financial resources. But long-term, based on where I'm heading, more financial resources will be required.

Here's where my orangeness kicks in: My idea of how I will manage this is way too simplistic. I seem to have the belief that because I possess the general practical knowledge of what to do, I'll just earn some money when I need to. Basically; I just need to take step 1, then step 2, step 3, step 4 and then profit. So, instead of already beginning to build a system to create money, I used systems thinking as an orange method; I just need to apply the systems thinking and knowledge and these will equal success. Ironically, because I know that the matter is more complex and less predictable than they seem, I perceived it as overly simplistic and predictable because I knew that I was aware of the hidden complexity.

So; I understood the matter on a yellow level, but wanted to use this understanding in a way that orange uses its knowledge. Orange fails to see the big picture, green only sees the big picture and yellow sees how each and every pixel constitutes the big picture. Even though I have the yellow perspective on the whole, that doesn't mean that my instinctive way of going about things isn't to just focus on a single pixel and its rules and forgetting the other pixels that interact with this one. 

Thinking in yellow means realizing how the big and the small pictures interact with one another. Living stage yellow means to instinctively and actively create systems to solve problems. I instinctively think in systems and look at the world from a yellow perspective. This means my views on topics like spirituality, politics, relationships, society, money etc. are yellow, but this does not mean that they way I behave in these fields, or rather how I use my yellow understanding in these fields, is yellow as well.

[Forestluv]

@Zizzero There are multiple lines of development including intellectual, emotional, spiritual. One aspect of evolving into tier2 is an expansion beyond a contracted self. Attachments and identification to thoughts and concepts begin to dissolve and deeper understandings of relativity and inter-connectedness emerge.

[NoSelfSelf]

@Serotoninluv After that there is no stage no progress etc. ?

[Forestluv]

15 minutes ago, NoSelfSelf said:

@Serotoninluv After that there is no stage no progress etc. ?

Along developmental lines, I see no ending. 

[Leo Gura]

It's usually easier to develop the cognitive line versus the other lines. So you can be cognitively at Yellow but you're not actually able to fully embody it, you're just thinking from it whereas the bulk of your life and emotions are run from Orange.

Why listen a lot to my videos you will start to think from Yellow, but very likely your embodiment will very poor, at Orange or even below. Such is the nature of doing this work through YT videos.

You're always gonna know more than you can embody.

[Girzo]

True. Constantly seeing that in myself. Non-cognitive areas of life lag in development, but you eventually make the jump into the next stage and it feels so liberating to drop the old habits.

[now is forever]

@Zizzero you could see yourself like a matrioshka or like an atom model - youre identity is in the kernel, that’s mostly yellow, then you have your home, your business or way you earn money and then you have your standpoint in politics and social factors etc. and you can all give them different colours if you want. when you realize that you can work on your perspective and focus on these areas of application, watch your behavior and change it step by step. it’s not a how to change from orange to yellow plan but a method to get a personal colour map of how you assess yourself in various fields of life. with bringing some order into it you could work on it on a day to day basis.

Edited January 27, 2019 by now is forever

[Zizzero]

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and knowledge, fully agree with what you all said.

And @now is foreverI really liked that image with the atom

[now is forever]

5 minutes ago, Zizzero said:

 

And @now is foreverI really liked that image with the atom

the principle is pretty much the same - isn’t it  

maybe i should check out how atom models look today...