Me, Myself, and My Values - Mostly Just the Last One

Values

Dictionary.com –

10. values, Sociology . the ideals, customs, institutions, etc., of a society toward which the people of the group have an affective regard. These values may be positive, as cleanliness, freedom, or education, or negative, as cruelty, crime, or blasphemy.

11. Ethics . any object or quality desirable as a means or as an end in itself.

Wikipedia –

A personal and/or cultural value is an absolute or relative ethical value, the assumption of which can be the basis for ethical action. A value system is a set of consistent values and measures.

Urban Dictionary – (Values and Choices)

The stupid name for sex ed that 'tries' to trick teens into thinking it's not about sex. when it really actually is.

Teacher: Okay class, we're going to start values and choices today!

Student: Isn't that another name for sex ed?

Teacher: NO!

As you can see, we have a lot of definitions for values or a value. Of course, some of them – like that from good ol’ Urban Dictionary – aren’t quite correct. I’ll admit, I chose the Values and Choices definition because it was funny, but the original definition for “values” from Urban Dictionary talked about values as a set of beliefs which politicians try to avoid speaking about in specifics. Why might politicians find values a touchy subject? I see three possible answers.

1)      Politicians don’t have values. They are politicians.

2)      Politicians don’t want to speak about their exact values for fear of losing votes

3)      Values are, by their nature, abstract and difficult to really nail down on a case by case basis

Now, contrary to what public perception may lead you to believe, I think even politicians have values. So that leaves the second two. The important one for our purposes is the third answer. Values are abstract and difficult to perfectly describe or even apply on a case by case basis.

Keeping that notion in mind, I’ll tell you about my values (or what I’m pretty sure are my values).

My Values

After sitting down and thinking about it for a while, I think I’ve managed to pin down my values.

Honesty, hard work, perseverance, humility, caring for others, friendship, knowledge, logic/reason, aspiration, and excellence are all things I value very much. I’m going to try and group them together and address each group in no order of importance.

The first group of my values is comprised of hard work and perseverance. I think these are two values that define who I am, and I hold them dearly because from the time of my birth my parents and my educators have been teaching how important hard work and perseverance are. It makes no sense to do anything unless you’re going to give it your all. It also doesn’t make sense to start something you aren’t going to finish.

The second group of my values circles around social interaction. Honesty, friendship, and caring for others are important to me. These values all go hand in hand. I care about my friends, and good friendships revolve around honesty and trust. If I can’t be honest with myself or my friends, then who can I be honest to? If I don’t care about my friends then they aren’t my friends. I believe a good friendship revolves around caring for someone, being honest with them, and sharing oneself with them. As far as caring goes, you don’t need to be friends with someone to care about them. As a fraternity, we engage in activities like service and the Rivalry Run that are designed to give back to our communities. It is important to realize that as college students, and as fraternity men, we are exceptionally lucky to have what we have; and that it isn’t a chore to give back. Allow me to digress a bit and provide a societal observation. American society, in my opinion, has forgotten what it means to give. So many people have so much but only want more. There is a lack of care for the plight of others that is alarming. Anyways that’s slightly off topic and for another discussion.

Moving on, the third set of my values is knowledge and logic / reason. I guess this really boils down to education, but I value knowledge, and I value a logical approach to problems. Perhaps this is partly because I am in a major that’s foundation is the scientific method. I’m not knocking emotion, but when it comes to decision making, I think it is important to reason through things rather than to choose on pure emotion.

The final set of my values is aspiration, excellence, and humility. These values are linked to the reasons I became a PhiGam. I personally set high goals, and I expect to reach them. I found that everyone I met around FIJI was just like me in this regard. They set high goals, and they strove to reach them. Excellence and aspiration go hand in hand. If you aspire to greatness, and approach every day in the pursuit of excellence in whatever it is you’re doing, you can achieve your goals. But where does that leave humility? I think achievement is nothing without humility. If I were to do something great in hopes that others would congratulate me, then I would miss out on why that achievement really was great. I think I’m a fairly humble person (a statement that sounds not-humble…I know right?). I’ve always been a bit awkward at receiving compliments, and I think it is because often I’m being complemented for things that I don’t feel are that great. For instance, I’ve been on dean’s list every quarter I’ve been at OSU. Not to say that isn’t great, but that is something I expect myself to do. Why should something I should be doing be that exceptional? Perhaps I am my own harshest critic, but it’s the way I’m wired. That said, I don’t think that such goals exist in a bubble. It would be unfair of me to push my standards for myself academically onto judgment of someone else. Not everyone is great at everything. As long as you’re meeting or exceeding our own goals, then you’re doing a great job as far as I’m concerned and you should be commended for it.

Well, I hope I’ve been clear enough for you guys to get a good idea of what my values are. I look forward to your comments and blogs.