Artifact #2: Life Values Assessment
Objectives:
- Become familiar with the basic relationship of human values to psychological and philoshopical endeavors
- Understand that values are formed from external and internal drives of an individual
- Explore one’s own value system
Original Post:
Family
Friendship
Integrity
Loyalty
Wealth
Personal Development
Enjoyment
Wisdom
Personal Accomplishment
Community
Security
Service
Independence
Health
Leadership
Prestige
Creativity
Location
Power
Expertness
The first thing that stuck out to me when looking at my top 5 life values in comparison with what I’ve done over the past day was that literally everything that I did, had something to do with the top 5 mentioned. Family and integrity were the two biggest belief patters that I inherited from my family with family being the most important of all. I was taught at a very young age that no matter what happened throughout life good or bad you could always rely on your family for advice or help. For example, this morning I called up my brother a few hours ago to see how everything was going for him and to just talk about things in general. He’s currently stationed in Ft. Benning, Georgia right now as a member of the army so I haven’t been able to see him much. My brother and I have always been very close I try and talk to him at least twice a week. Today, I also went out and had lunch with one of my friends that I haven’t seen in a while. We were roommates freshman year, yet over the past few terms we kind of went our separate ways. It really bugged me that I hadn’t talked to him in a while so I made it a point to see if he wanted to get something to eat and catch up. I value every single one of my friendships which is why its number 3 on my list and I proactively try to keep them all intact whether young or old. This interaction double dips with number 4 on my list as well, this showing loyalty to my friends.
My last two values are wealth and integrity. Over these past 3 and a half years of college my whole mindset was, “ you have to get a good job so you can make more money and be happy”. However, this is the one value now that I can honestly say is no longer valid. Money, although important isn’t everything in life. I was raised in a middle class family and there were times where we didn’t have the money to do certain things yet my parents always found a way to bring me and my brother enjoyment even if it meant giving up that trip to Disneyland due to cost and instead being replaced with a day of fishing. In addition, I would say that this is now one of my current goals in life that I want to continue to pursue. No matter what the money circumstance is I always want to make sure that I find a way to make life enjoyable. This could mean a day on the lake or simply kicking back with friends and watching football. Whatever it is, I want to make sure that I’m bringing enjoyment to myself and my friends around me. Last but not least, is the value of integrity. I try each and every day to hold myself accountable to my conscience and that means sometimes doing things that most other people wouldn’t do in certain situations. For example, yesterday I was at the store and the clerk rang me up for 5 dollars less than it should have been. Most people would have kept quiet and not said a word but that’s not what my conscience told me to do. I pointed out her mistake and she ended up giving me the 5 dollars off anyway because it was her mistake. However, I felt at peace with my conscience knowing I did the right thing. Integrity is trait that you don’t see a lot of anymore and I try and hold myself to the highest standard of that as well.
Reflection:
The life values assessment was such a big stepping stone for me because it made me realize where my values were in life. At first I couldn’t really see the purpose behind ranking my so called “values” and then explaining what I did throughout the day. However, as I was writing step by step of each activity that I performed I realized that every single one of my top 5 values was somehow incorporated with all of the activities that I did over that 24hour span. I realized that at the end of the day, if everything were to go bad these values are what I hold close to and what keep me going. Before this topic was presented I didn’t know where these values had come from but Lewis gave me some insight to this in his article A Question of Values when he states the 4 ways we come to know something are through sense experience, deductive logic, emotion, and intuition. As I went through the definitions for all of these I found that my values came about mostly due to sense experience and emotion. I like to be able to know something is true through experience of my senses and through raw feeling. If it passes these two tests then I consider it one of my beliefs. After making this connection and comparing them to my top 5 values I was then able to understand how they were formed from internal and external forces.
I believe that internal and external drives evolve from completely different factors. After looking at my top 5 values I believe that external drive deals more with of how I was raised as a child. For example, I chose integrity and loyalty to be in my top 5 because as a kid I was taught to always be honest in every situation no matter what happened good or bad. I was also taught to always be loyal your friends and to never break their trust. Because as my dad always said, “it only takes 1 minute to screw up 15 years of hard work”. These traits have been honed into me ever since I can remember and are ultimately the reason why I have as high regard for them as I do. Because I don’t want to let my family down or be seen as failure in their eyes which is possibly why I keep these as such high values in my life. On the reverse note I believe that internal drives are what I want to accomplish based on my own personal beliefs that I came about knowing throughout experiences in my life. For example, family is my number one value because when i’m going through trials and i’m going through hardships and need someone to lean on, my family is always there. The picture below is of my mom, dad, brother and myself and I can honestly say that they are the most important people in my life. Even though my brother is 3 years younger than me and on the completely opposite side of the country, and parents are back in portland I can call him up at any hour and they will always be there when I need someone to talk to. They are the ones who give me the internal drive to keep going when I have nothing else to strive for. They are the ones who make me truly appreciate life in all regards, for I would be nowhere without them.
Future Goals:
I know that as I grow older some of my values will begin to change but I want to make sure that my top 5 always remain at the forefront. These 5 values have gotten me through the roughest life trials that anyone could imagine and there is no way I could ever change them. I will continue to allow these values to shape all aspects of my life and eventually instill them into my future kids one day. However, as they get older they’ll have to derive their own internal drives and figure out what means the most to them in their everyday life and I hope and pray that one of those drives will be me.
Table of Contents
Artifact #1: Lindsey Vonn Out for the Olympics
Artifact#2: Life Values Assessment
Artifact#3: Food As Art
Artifact#4: Personal Adornment Discussion
Artifact #5: The Aesthetics of Horror
Artifact #6: Creative Spirituality Discussion
Artifact #7: Art, Games, and Technology Discussion
Artifact #8: Remixing Google Image Search