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.

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We should make some research on the personal evaluations and beliefs which have great impact on our daily life and decisions we made every day. By making some study and surveys of our human values, we can hold our life in our own hands instead of living our lives with confusion and muddle. Moreover, by making some research of human values, we can have deeper understanding of how to get along with others and how to see the world. And I believe that the research of human values will make great contributions to the development of the society.

During my holiday, I go back to my hometown with my fellows and meet my parents and many relatives and friends. As family is the root of my life, I cannot help thinking my parents and relatives every day when I am in America. Family and parents are the most important part of my life because it is my parents and my hometown that make who I am. I will never forget my hometown and my parents no matter where I am. As it is very hot there, I go swimming and eat some delicious dinner with my friends. As the old saying goes,” When we are at home, we depend on our parents; when we are out of home, we depend on friends.” Friends are also an essential part of my life. Since the days I entered kindergarten, I realize the importance of friends. My friends are honest and helpful. Whenever I need friends, they stand right by my sides. When I want to cry, they let me cry on their shoulders and encourage me to face the difficulties. Sometimes, I will go to gym in order to improve my body and make me stronger. Health is very important for us. Though we do not realize the importance of health when we are children, we begin to keep close eyes on health when we grow up. At the evening, I listen to music and do some reading. I think reading can improve our wisdom, which is very important to us. We can get more knowledge by reading and be more careful when we have the same problems with the books. Wisdom is to us what water is to plant. And I also write diary before I go to bed. Not only little nothings of daily life are included, but also some novels and articles which are written by me are included in my diary. By writing, I develop my creativity. I think only when we are creative, can we make more inventions to improve our daily life. And creativity can make me happy and I think happiness is very important. Thanks to this assignment, I have deeper understanding of values and I really think it is essential for us to learn more about values.

• Family
• Friendship
• Health
• Wisdom
• Creativity

Security

Personal Accomplishment

Independence

Community

Personal Development

Wealth

Integrity

Leadership

Loyalty

Prestige

Service

Expertness

Power

Location

Reflection:

    This unit was really fascinating on me because I am always interested in seeking on my value or principles of my life. In order to be psychologically and philosophically become familiar with the basic relationship of human values, I tried to talk with friends, observe my surrounding area, and reading books and articles. I realized that each person has their value, and it just depends on the size and terms of its value embodied, because different people seeks to accomplish their values in different ways. For example, a beggar’s fallen perhaps make some other people learn to appreciate and understand the impermanence and love of life; a dying people appease his/her family as long as he/she was alive. Furthermore, I understand that value is sort of a life standard forcing us to do what follow your belief. Like the article says “Although the term value is often use loosely, it should be synonymous with personal evaluations and related beliefs, especially personal evaluations and related beliefs about the “good”, the “just,” and the “beautiful,” personal evaluations and beliefs that propel us to action, to a particular kind of behavior and life.” (Page 7) Value is about what you believe in, it should help people to standardize their actions and behaviors.

    Also, I understand that value is formed because of internal and external drives. Individual values are formed because of many reasons, such as individual’s physical and mental condition, age, experiences, education status, family influence and different hobbies. Refer to these reasons, some of them are from internal and some of them are from external. Therefore, people in various environments have different values, and those values are formed from internal and external.

    My top 5 values are: family, friendship, health, wisdom, and creativity. I always put my family as my priority consideration when I make any big decision relating to my family. I really appreciated that my parents brought me to this world and gave me excellent living standard and education opportunity, so they means everything in my life. Since I was a child, I liked to make friends because friends are kind of my family only without genetic connection. Of course, health is the most basic element supporting you to accomplish your values, so it is significant for me. Also, on the way of seeking success, wisdom and creativity are important because these features make you pay attention on facts. Like a Chinese old saying, wisdom is wealth.

Future:

I personally believe that my values will still not change too much in the future. I am not meaning it will not change since I believe nothing in this world wouldn’t change. For values, I think it likes half water and half ice. You put water into the glass then the water looks like glass, you put water into a bowl and it will looks like a bowl. Same as our values, the “shape” of our values are constantly changing when the environments we involved are changing. However, it sometimes also like ice means that it does have it own shape inside. Although I do have lots of ‘water’ parts in my values, I already developed a relatively strong ‘ice’ part inside of my heart. Based on the past experiences, I think I can confidently believe that my values will lead me to the place I want.

Reference

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