Category: Unit 02

Of the activities that I have done today, I can see a somewhat connection between that and my “most important life values”.  Today, all that I have done is homework. I am putting all family, friends, enjoyment, etc., aside to get my homework done.  I do not see how doing homework directly reflects my top values, but I can see where it may indirectly reflect them.  One could argue that by finishing these homework assignments, I am internally thinking about my life values of security, wealth, and enjoyment for the future. One can also argue that my family value can have an influence on whether I decide to do homework or not because they taught me that it was bad not to do well in school.

Of my life goals, there are some that I have not pursued yet. These goals include raising a family of my own, and having a career that can support my family and that I enjoy. First of all, what stands in my way of having a family of my own is that I have not found that significant other to call my wife yet. I also do not have a job yet so I have not been able to accumulate much wealth or financial security. I know that when all things fall into place, I can pursue these life goals and hopefully create/achieve new ones.

For this week’s discussion, we question  ‘”what values are” and how “Personal Values” are developed within each individual.  To me, values are a person’s principles or standards of behavior. It is one’s judgment of what is important in life. It is also the important and lasting beliefs/ideals shared by members of a culture about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Values have major influence on a person’s behavior and attitude and serves as broad guidelines in all situations.

In H. Lewis’ “A question of Values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices That Shape Our Lives”, he states a theory that “individual human beings are programmed into their values…by social pressures” (pg. 8, Lewis).

I agree with this statement because we start forming values in our childhood. First we learn to appreciate things that fulfill our basic needs, but we value especially those people that provide them to us. Their behavior towards us then becomes the main reference of what is valuable. Thus, our character and personality are molded/programmed through the attitudes and behavior of the people who raise us. We learn to value the substance of everything they say and do, and what they don’t say and don’t do. This strengthens our overall formation of values. By the times we become young students in school, we start feeling social pressures and the pressure of values that are different from ours, as we relate with other people. This then tests our values taught by our parents, as we start to question whether or not the values we learned are values we want to keep or not.

Through more life experiences, we then develop “basic ways we come to ‘know’ something” (pg. 9, Lewis). The ways we do this are through:

“

1. Sense Experience – gaining direct knowledge through our own five senses
2. Deductive Logic – subjecting beliefs to a variety of tests that underlie deductive reasoning
3. Emotion – feeling that something isn’t right
4. Intuition – the unconscious but nevertheless most powerful part of our higher mental processing capability.  “

And with this basic model, we then create and develop our own values.

 

-Related text: Lewis, H. (1990). A Question of values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices That Shape Our Lives. Axios Press.