As you can see, my top five values (in order) are: Family, Health, Friendship, Wealth, and Enjoyment. I know that these five life values are the most important to me because everything I did today fell into one of these categories.

Family: I come from a rather large family with two parents and three brothers. They are all very important to me so I maintain good relationships with all of them. Today I called home and talked with my parents for a while. I also talked with each of my brothers today via text message. My brothers and I have a group conversation that we keep going throughout the week.

Health: Besides my family, health is the most important thing to me. Almost everything I do goes towards being either physical or mentally healthy. Last night I slept a little over nine hours because I could tell that I was on the edge of getting sick and I knew sleep would help me. I then woke up in the morning and went to the gym. Not only do I go to the gym to stay physically fit but it really helps me mentally. It allows me clear my head and stay focused throughout the day. In addition to all of this, I generally eat very healthy.
Friendship: Since today was the semi-finals for the NFL, I watched some of the football game with my friends. This was a lot of fun and taking time out of my day to do things like this helps strengthen the bond with my friends.

Wealth: I think my motivation to become wealthy came from my upbringing in Southern California. Although this does not mean I want to become wealthy so I can buy a bunch of fancy things. I want to become wealthy so I can get out of “the rat race” of work and do what I want rather than having people tell me what to do. I want to be able to spend my time as I wish as well as help people who were not as fortunate growing up as I was. Today I worked towards achieving wealth by studying multiple hours. I study numerous hours every day so that when I graduate, I can take the skills I have learned and apply them to the workforce.

Enjoyment: Finally, enjoyment is essential because there is no point of working hard if you cannot enjoy yourself. Today I got enjoyment by watching some football with my friends. After watching the football game for about 30 minutes, I went back to continue my studying. I now plan on going out with my friends tonight so that we can have some fun.

I think the biggest belief I learned from my parents is that hard work pays off. Growing up, my parents always told me that I should work hard in everything I do. I took this advice to heart and have applied it to a variety of things such as high school sports, college academics, and summer internships. It is difficult to determine if any of the belief patterns that I have learned from my family are no longer important. Growing up my parents instilled some core principles such as hard work and integrity and then allowed me to develop my own values. The biggest goal that I have for myself that I have not yet pursued is that one day I want to start up my own company. The reason I have no yet done this is because that I feel my time is better spent studying for school. By studying hard and getting good grades, this in turn will allow me to do better when I go to start up my company. So although I have not directly started towards achieving my goal, I have started to develop the building blocks for my company by learning all I can right now in school.