There are certain values that are more important to me than others. It took me a good few minutes to come up with them, as I had to think back and see how they took part in my life.
Accomplishment, Close Relationships, Compassion, Cooperation, Creativity, Growth, Honesty, Inspiration, Meaningful Work, Respect
These values are those that I care about most.
All of these are pretty important to me. The most important, however, would probably be inspiration.
I’ve been struggling, for lack of a better word, with depression for years, and inspiration is what gets me up in the morning (I am also really not a morning person). Whether is inspiration to clean my room, take a walk, get work done, or whatever, it’s something I need. I honestly wouldn’t be able to get out of bed without some sort of inspiration, and some days, it’s very hard to find any.
I think that meaningful work, also falls into a similar category. Inspiration to do meaningful work. And what I’ve found, that has helped me a bit, is that meaningful work to you might be completely different to someone else’s meaningful work. Someone else might not find writing a poem productive because it’s not work work, but if you’re the one doing it and you feel it benefits you, then why can’t it be meaningful?
I was asked to rate the list of values I previously chose as the most important. In general, I try to live up to these values, from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree). However, I’m a little unsure as to how the statement was worded. “I try to live up to these values.” I think I would put 5 for most all of them. For the values we value most, shouldn’t we be striving to live up to them?
I was also asked what the last topic that someone asked for your advice on. My parents were packing for a trip and my dad asked whether or not his shirts and pants went together. The advice I gave wasn’t spectacular, but it was honest, and that’s what was needed. And I really value the close relationship we have because I’m able to say, “no, that looks bad–try the shirt with those pants instead,” knowing that my suggestion was respected whether or not he took it or not. And that’s about a third of my most important values list right there.
I talked about stereotype threat in a previous blog post. And when I think about these values, I think that when/if I do recognize I feel stereotype threat, I can use them to my advantage. As I said previously, I’m not very aware of stereotype threat’s effect on me. That might just be because I just don’t pay attention, or it’s subconscious.
I was talking with my dad once, and he pointed out that I’m rather introspective. I hadn’t really thought about that before, but I realized that was very true. And that can be both a good and bad thing. I think now that I know that stereotype threat is actually a real thing, I’ll be able first, identify when I feel it, and second, be able to alleviate it with my values.