Objectives:
- Become familiar with the basic relationship of human values to psychological and philosophical endeavors
- Understand that values are formed from external and internal drives of an individual.
- Explore one’s own value system.
Artifact:
My activities today reflected my top values at a considerable amount. One of my good friends that I haven’t talked to in a couple of years just got engaged, and so I got in touch with her and gave her my congratulations, and received an invite for her wedding as well. I also worked out and ran two miles and I’ve also started the P90x workout, in addition to my workout that I’m still maintaining. One of my biggest goals short term is to achieve a perfectly fit, aka a ‘six pack’ body. I’m overall a health minded person with an average fit body, but I’ve always to be the best I can be physically and also I’ve been told throughout my life that my kind of people (Indians) aren’t capable of having such an ability, and I would love to prove everyone wrong one day. That is one of my driving motivations for me to attain that kind of body, and I hope to accomplish it in the near future. I know I have the capability to do so; but my biggest issue is food. I usually will eat something in the moment that I will regret later on; it usually is a result of my momentary urge and peer pressure because if my friends are eating when we’re out, I’d want to eat too. However, I’m starting to control my mindset and I hope my resistance will pay out. I know we were only supposed to select the top 5, but if I were to include wealth as well those six ideals would be goals I’d want to accomplish one day. No one is perfect; but if I could attain the best levels of these 6 values I would feel accomplished and satisfied with my life.
My family is very high standard, and one belief that I inherited from them is the ideals of karma, and to treat everyone how you would want them to treat you. I always grown up treating people even better than I would myself, and I am always respectful to everyone I encounter. However, a trait that my parents endure that I don’t bestow on me anymore is to always help others no matter what. I used to be that kind of person but I felt that I was constantly taken advantage of and being granted by some, and being disrespected in any level is my biggest pet peeve, especially if I had done nothing to deserve that. I always try to be good to be people, but now I like to take karma in my own hands, in that if someone isn’t good to me, I won’t be good to them as well. I’m aware of the “eye to an eye makes the whole go blind” philosophy, but I just feel like a lot of good people taken advantage over and are mistreated for being too good in this world and it hurts me to see that happen to others, let alone myself. So overall, my motto is to still to treat everyone how I would want them to treat me, but if I get treated bad I’ll be the same as well. I’ve been blessed to attain the values from my parents that I have today, and I hope to use them to make them proud.
If you would like to read more on this artifact, please click here.
Reflection:
Looking back on this assessment, I’ve noticed that my day-to-day thought processes doesn’t completely reflect my values. I haven’t spent as much time with my family as I used to, I don’t keep in touch with my friends on daily basis, and at times I have too many commitments/necessities to get through to truly enjoy the life I’m living. However I know that at the end of the day, these top 5 values are ideals that I truly strive for. Lewis states “instincts are “dress[ed] up with the term values, so that we can pretend there is a measure of choice in the process” when it truly is an ideal that we are ingrained to, and his claim on values is very accurate to say the least (Lewis 7). Even though I don’t spend as much time with my family, when we do get together, we end up having a really good time and we attain a lot of memories from it. The picture below is of when we were at a resort in India this past summer, and I still remember this memory just by looking at this picture. From my Personal Values blog, I wrote about how individuality is masked by generic societal expectations, but after this assignment, I feel that I now have a more defined outline on my values which has helped me identify myself better, which is important for me as I continue to develop myself.
Before I completed this activity, there was a gray area in my mind on my values and how it related back to me personally and characteristically. As a result, I had a very tough time ordering these values and placing them in the arrangement that I’ve placed them in now. However, because of this, I thought about and reflected upon each activity and how it affected me in my life, and went about placing those values in that particular list. Therefore this activity helped me connect the dots from human values to my psychological endeavors, which has shaped me in becoming the person I am today.
Future:
I believe that as time progresses, my commitments will change and my values will follow. As life throws obstacles into my pathway, I feel that I would change myself in order to accommodate the situations I would encounter, and this would affect my character as well. However, I will strive to ensure that I stay commited to my values. I would love to be well off, successful and happy, just as much as everyone else. Yet there are many ways to get to the top of the mountain, and I hope that my values today will guide me in having a better lifestyle in the future.
Source: