Unit 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: The One About Prioritizing Values…
Today, my day so far has been primarily about enjoying the nice weather and taking a day to myself doing things I enjoy doing. I played golf in the morning, worked out after that, and now plan on spending the rest of my day relaxing. My activities for the day represent values like health, friendship, and enjoyment. My activities for today match up pretty well for my top 5, which included friendship, and health was also near the top. Some of my values I got from my family were personal development and accomplishment. I was always taught I need to work hard for the things that I want and I continue to implement those values into my life today. I still have a lot of goals that I still haven’t pursued, like finding a career in my field or buying a home in my hometown, these are long term goals that I’m still working towards. I need to finish college and gain some experience in post-college life before I can make serious strides towards these goals.
My list went as follows:
Family. Friendship. Personal Development. Leadership. Personal Accomplishment. Integrity. Loyalty. Wealth. Expertness. Health. Wisdom. Service. Creativity. Power. Prestige. Independence. Security. Community. Enjoyment. Location.
Reflection:
In this unit, I gained experience and more understanding about the values that I believe in and the ones that I practice. It was quite an eye opening experience because I learned that many of the things I do with my time, do not really reflect the things I thought I held a lot of value with. For example, my number one value was family, however, in my day I didn’t do anything that was associated with family. When I realized this, it showed me how big of an impact external factors can have on my own value system. The ones that we believe we hold close to us may not be the ones that we practice on a regular basis.
Overall, the unit has helped me identify the values that I hold closest, but may need to do a better job at incorporating into my day-to-day routine. For example, I could call one of my relatives more often, just to ensure that my family values are not diminished. My cousins and I have been more like siblings than cousins, we were constantly together growing up. The unit has also helped me realize that the values we choose to practice are displayed in our own actions, not simply by saying what we value most. Lewis said, “there is a good deal of evidence that human beings are not primarily driven by genetically predetermined instincts but are rather free to make their own choices.” and this quote really stuck out to me because it is true, every person can choose their own values. There will be external factors that try and shape a person’s values, but in the end it is the internal factors that have the most influence.
Future Goals:
After studying this unit, I have created a couple of goals that can hopefully have a large impact on my values and the way I practice them. First, I intend to lessen the influence of external factors. The only factors that I believe should make a significant impact are the ones I create on my own. And second, I intend to make out ways to incorporate the things I value into the actions that I do. Believing in a value system is one thing, but acting on it is another.
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