Category: Unit 02

My Ordered List:

Family–Security–Loyalty –Friendship–Integrity

Enjoyment–Health–Personal Development– Personal Accomplishment–Location–Prestige–Wealth–Independence–Leadership–Wisdom–Expertness–Community–Service–Creativity–Power

Since it is currently Saturday afternoon, I haven’t done a lot yet today.  Doing this assignment however, counts toward personal accomplishment, and independence. I have the freedom to do this assignment whenever and wherever I chose and do it on time.  I haven’t had the opportunity today to demonstrate my top 5 life values, but that doesn’t mean I don’t on other days.  I live apart from my family while I am here at school, but I keep regular contact with them. In fact more than likely I will speak to family today!  It is very important to me to have close family and eventually a family of my own.  Considering family is my number one, I believe I inherited a lot of patterns from them.  Growing up surrounded by loving parents and family encourages me to act the same and pass along the love to my own. Besides family, friendship is greatly important.  Sharing life experiences with people close to me is something I cherish.  Good friendship is loyal, secure and enjoyable. I am loyal, honest and trustworthy towards those I care about (well I always try to be honest and trustworthy).  My best friend and I have been best friends for close to 21 years now- that’s loyalty.

A lot of the things on my list pertain to my life when I ‘grow up’.  First and foremost I want to get set in my career.  Have the security to be able to support and provide for my family and myself.  That will be huge personal development and accomplishment as well as show independence.  Location is midway on my list as well because it s important to me to live and work close to home now.  Wealth isn’t extremely important; it’s more of an added bonus.  I’d love to have nice things and be able to vacation and not live paycheck to paycheck.  But things like enjoyment and location are much more important.  I’d rather love what I’m doing and live comfortably than hate it and be rich.  All of these things will come in time.  I have to first finish my Bachelor’s Degree then finish all of my certification courses before starting my career.

 

The topic of discussion this week is “ A Question of Values”.  How did they come about? What do they mean?  From the opening section, the point I grasped about values with complexity and quarrelsomeness comes down to individuality.  I think depending on how you were raised, what religion you practice, where you went to school among other things greatly influences our beliefs and values. In my opinion genetic instincts have very little to do with values and beliefs. The quote “perhaps we are not driven by immutable instincts…alternatively, by peer pressure, by the relentless demands of the society in which we happen to live” makes great sense to me (pg 8, Lewis).  It applies to my opinion about how values come about.

If I were to define values, it would simply be ideas or thoughts with great importance to a person.  Ideas and thoughts are subjective to that person and therefore not everyone shares the same.  I think values reflect what someone thinks or knows is good in the world, or right.  Whether it is trust, honesty or loyalty etc.  Some people may value a lot of the same things but carry them out differently, or their IDEA of that value is different.  It is a very blurry subject and I can see the complexity.  The fact of knowing something arises an entirely different dilemma. The four basic ways of how ‘knowing’ comes about mentioned in the article seem reasonable to me.  I began to think about the things I claim to know and why I think I know it.  Logic mostly, I am a logical minded person. Secondly, emotion.  If something I or someone else has done that made me angry, or sad then that to me is wrong and cruel.  Therefore I form a value based on how I think and feel.  I value other people’s feelings; it is of importance to me.

I believe I have good morals.  My behaviors reflect “the ‘good”, the ‘just’ and the ‘beautiful’” things I believe (pg 7, Lewis). I act the way I do because of they way I was raised, the lessons I learned, the experiences and feelings I went through. They all taught me the good, the just and the beautiful.  A combination of the above gave me my values.

 

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