Kind of hard to read on this picture but here is my rankings for values:

1)Wisdom

2) Personal Development

3) Integrity

4) Health

5) Friendship

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6) enjoyment

7) family

8) wealth

9) independence

10) creativity

11) loyalty

12) security

13) service

14) community

15) leadership

16) personal accomplishment

17) prestige

18) location

19) expertness

20) power

This assignment was extremely difficult for me because I feel there are several things in the second half of my list that I could have easily put in the top five. Whether it’s because of the mood I’m in right now or this is truly how I rank my values, I’m not sure, but alas it’s what I have and I’m okay with it. I think this list was difficult for me because I feel that some things like power/leadership, and community/service could be considered pretty similar. But I am confident that I live my life based on these values and this order. I strive to be the best person I can be, and this list reflects that, in my opinion.

What I did today does accurately reflect my core values, maybe not in the best way, but still reflects them nonetheless. I spent a good portion of the day doing readings and homework for summer classes. I think this reflects the first three values on my list. I am always eager to learn, and that is reflected in wisdom and personal development. And since I am doing this work and putting a lot of effort forth, I think that shows my integrity. I spent a little bit of time at the gym today as well, and that shows health is important to me.

I believe that to some extent, my values were passed on genetically. However, I think some others of my values were a product of my upbringing, the environment I grew up in. I think that while my beliefs are different from my family’s, I think we all value similar things. We all find it important to seek knowledge. Knowledge about people, things, places, etc., are all crucial in understanding our world, and having that wisdom will make for a more fulfilling life. I might have my family values a little lower than my family would, but I think that family and friendship are similar; my family helped me get to where I am, but I think going forward, friendship is equally, if not more important. I love my family, but sometimes it’s hard to read them and I think that it’s time to live my life. I don’t mean that to come off the wrong way, but family just is not as important to me as it is for some.

I don’t think there is anyone or anything that is in control of my thinking. I learn by experience, and I live my life according to my values and beliefs, which have been reinforced through experience.

I have many goals for myself: to continually be a better person than I was the day before; to travel as much as I can; to learn as much as I can; to make lasting friendships and meaningful relationships. I don’t believe there is anything standing in my way of achieving any of these goals. They are all ongoing, and I don’t know that there is a clear line that will dictate when I’ve accomplished those goals. But if I were to be on my deathbed right now, I would consider my goals fulfilled. I like to read every day, and write when the mood strikes, and both experiences allow me to learn about the world around me and learn about myself, thus making me more aware and more knowledgeable, and thus better. I have been fortunate enough to travel to various places on the globe, getting new cultural and geographical experiences. The friends and connections I’ve made have been substantial, and I truly believe those around me will continue to be so. Maybe it’s naive, but life’s too short to worry otherwise.

After reading through Lewis’s article this week, I think that our values are determined through instincts, our surroundings and personal choice; I do not think that genetics plays any role in determining our values. As children, we learn a lot through what we see. Whether we see our parents interacting with others or grandparents teaching us about life, we develop our thought and beliefs systems based on our own personal environment. We learn right from wrong, good from bad, left from right, and so on, and we develop a set of morals based upon these teachings. Then as we move forward through life, we learn how to act and we learn how to react act based upon what we’ve experienced. In classrooms, we learn about the world around us. All of these experiences give us a foundation for our value system. We see, hear and feel things throughout life, and these sense experiences help us going forward because we learn how to react.

The four basic ways we come to know something that Lewis writes about are the ways I believe that we do come to know something. For me, I think that when I see something, or experience something, it gives me a reason to believe something is the way it is. When the experiences is positive, I react a certain way, and if the experience is negative, I react another. I think that the sense experience, for me, is the predominant way for me to come to “know” something. It’s not to discount any of the other three ways, but the one that I lean on the most. I would say that deductive logic would be the second most popular way for me to know something; I would throw the science part that Lewis mentions later into this group because I base a lot of what I believe and see in the real world from scientific fact. I would also say that intuition is a part of the deductive logic because our subconscious ties things together and makes us feel certain ways. I don’t place too much stock in authority or emotion because I like to make up my mind on my own, and I tend to be pretty logical and not led by my emotional response. I think emotional responses are oftentimes dangerous because we create a fantasy based on how we feel, and that doesn’t necessarily make something true. We may have strong feelings toward a person or toward a situation, but that does not mean it is accurate or right.

Our instincts are combination of several responses to a certain experience; we react to something because of intuition and deductive reasoning, and our sensory experiences to a similar situation, and thus it is a significant factor in our values.