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Top five values:

1) Friendship

2) Enjoyment

3) Community

4) Health

5) Creativity

Today is Sunday, I am staying at home and finish my homework. As a college student, I always have many homework to do during the weekend. I understand that it is important for students to do their homework, however, I do not think that doing homework is the primary goal for my college life. I went to the gym with my friends today, even though my homework is not finished. I have the dinner with my friends because we will have less chance to meet together during the weekdays, and it is a good time for everyone to communicate together in the weekend. I also search on the internet for a while to find the interesting news and photos I like. For the activities I completed today, there are a lot of value that can be represented. I go out and eat dinner with my friends because I think friendship is an important value in my life, and I should always keep good relationship with my friends. I surfed online for entertainment because I think the enjoyment of my daily life is absolutely necessary. I went to the gym to exercise my body because I view health as one of the most important part of my life. I also love to be in a community with all my friends and classmate in the university. I like to have the sense of belonging in the community. Those activities I did today will represent how I view the world and what the values I have.

I think the family influence is the most effective fact for everyone, and it is also true for me. I think I learned a lot from my parents and there are many values I inherited from them. My father is the man who can make friends with every person he meet. He loves to talk with others and there are always many friends keep good relation with him. I inherited the value of friendship from my father, and it is good for me because I love to make friends. My goal for the friendship is to make more American friends here in Eugene. It is difficult for international students make true American friends because of the cultural difference and language. I will try my best to work it out and find a way to communicate with more Americans.

After reading the course material for this week, I was attracted by the question of where our value comes from. In the article, Lewis discussed about how we choose our value, and the relationship between the value and the mental modes. I always think about our value system and the mental modes, and it amazed me that people all have different values. It is hard for me to understand where the value comes from before I read this article. Fortunately, Lewis talked about this question and he mentioned that “Are human beings instead driven by inherited instincts, instincts that we like to dress up with the term values…… when it is really all programmed into our genes?” (Page 7) This raise the question that whether the value comes from our genes or not. In my opinion, the genetic influence of the form of value system is just one part of the whole story, and I think the environmental effects will also affect the value system for the person after birth. The best example is that people from the same family will share similar values which is caused by the environment influence. However, there are examples that the brothers who are separated in different families will also share similar values. It should be the case that the value system is influenced by both genetic effects as well as the environment effects. We can find support from the article, which is Lewis stated that “Perhaps we are not driven by immutable instincts. But we might still be controlled by the influence of genes on our underlying personality” (Page 8). This means the value system is driven by both instincts and also environmental aspect. By thinking about the idea of how the value system forms will help me get a better understanding of what we are as human beings, and what we should do with our lifetimes.