On Privilege, Presents, & Presence: Spiritual Lessons From Hugh Hefner’s Life

Lessons on how to make your presence a present and a blessing…

Whether lauded or reviled, now deceased Playboy Magazine founder and sensuality industry magnate Hugh Hefner left a legacy that offers innumerable teachable lessons about humanity and human psychology. But, it’s in unraveling what the privilege, presents, and presence inherent in “life’s too short to be living someone else’s dream” — a famous Hefner quote — ultimately means, where the greatest value from his iconic existence can be gained.

Hugh Hefner’s formative years were spent in a “conservative, Midwestern, and Methodist” home. Looking past the terms “conservative” and “Midwestern,” which can have numerous connotations, the idea of growing up “Methodist” is important to understanding much of the impetus behind the aforementioned Hefner quote, and impetus behind his life overall. The Methodist sect of Christianity preaches the following as guiding tenets:

• an assurance of salvation
• righteousness
• the possibility of perfection in love