Happiness Except the Simple Harmony

¶ … happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? -- Albert Camus

My Values

If "having values" was a value and "analyzing one's values" was considered a sport, I'd be an Olympic athlete with a purpose. That being said, it was an arduous task to narrow down my core values. After much deliberation, I have narrowed it down to what I affectionately term the "spectacular six" values for personal success:

(1) Honesty, (2) Integrity, (3) Equality, (4) Introspection, (5) Humor, and (6) Respect for Others. Despite being a self-proclaimed grammar geek, I believe the foregoing sentence violated a few capitalization rules. However, since these are my values, I deem each one important enough to be considered titles in their own right or possibly even proper nouns.

These values are not listed in any particular order of significance except for one: the catch all. Respect for Others is listed last because even before I knew what a value was, I knew the Golden Rule. Moreover, I have a philosophy that we could attain world peace and end hunger and starvation and possibly even stop global warming if every human being lived and died by the Golden Rule.

Sources of My Values

The Golden Rule certainly comes from my mother who probably repeated "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" to me when I was in vitero. When I wanted to disinvite my best friend to my seventh birthday party because she made fun of my shoes, my mom reminded me that I should treat people with kindness and asked me to apply the Golden Rule. It seemed that even as I aged and the issues became more serious and complicated, my mom's answer still entailed an application of the tenet in "Do unto others." To her credit, such an approach generally works in addressing what to do in a relationship issue.. Now, if everyone employed this simple tenet all across the globe, then we would see a revolution of thought and, hopefully, enter an era free of prejudice, racism, and bullies -- just to name a few.

Honesty and Integrity are values that I believe would help foster trust amongst human beings at all levels. In developing these values, my family reinforced the notion of honesty. In fact, growing up, if I did something wrong such as sneak out of the house in the middle of the night or cut fifth period for a week in a row, my punishment would be double if I lied about it; however, if I was honest, I could generally plea my case down and be off restriction in no time due to good behavior. Integrity to some is defined as the ability to do the right thing even under unfavorable conditions. I linked these two values together because they are probably the most difficult values to live by on a daily basis. Indeed, it is often very difficult to be honest with oneself, but to do so is the right thing thereby demonstrating integrity. The times when it is most difficult to be truthful -- whether to oneself or to another party -- have been the times in which I have generally been challenged and have grown tremendously as a person. Therefore, I thank my parents for instilling in me the notion that telling the truth even under unfavorable conditions is the right thing to do.

The notion of equality came from several different sources ranging from watching movies depicting inequality to having a cousin who had to fight to gain access to her same-sex partner of ten years when she was admitted into the hospital to attending a school where many of my classmates lived in migrant camps without running water or restrooms. When I see inequality in the world, I am visibly moved and affected. The only thing that makes me feel better is knowing that in America, we do value equality and many groups have been able to attain equality under the law on a collective level as well as respect on an individual level.

Introspection is a value that I deem extremely important and I believe it comes from a variety of sources from my parents to Oprah Winfrey and her progeny. My parents repeatedly advised me that it is alright to make mistakes as long as we reflect upon them and find a way to learn and grow from the errors of our ways. Furthermore, I have a closet addiction to watching self-help shows, buying self-help books, and following self-help websites. Inside of me is a budding psychologist who finds great pleasure in finding out the real emotional process behind a decision or a conflict.

Moreover, given that we live in a complicated and sometimes cruel world, a sense of humor is critical in order to survive and enjoy life as a journey even in its most trying of moments. I believe this value comes from all of the adults in my life whom had an interesting perspective and whom did not let life's obstacles defeat them. The one thing they all have in common is a healthy sense of humor; and, I've seen this humor amongst them help build solidarity and trust even in the most trying of times.

Revision of My Values: Criteria and Decision-Making Factors

My values are typically ones in which I have had for a very long time. In fact, I only recall changing one of them and that one is the recent addition of "honesty." Forever, I assumed that integrity subsumed honesty and that was enough. This was until last year when I discovered that my so-called better half could not have been spending the weekend with an old friend because in the obituary page that Saturday morning, I saw his friend's picture. I was crushed and had to wait until my ex-came back from his weekend with his "old friend" in order to confront him regarding his dishonesty. He tried to deny it all with more lies until I showed him the paper. As such, I have added honesty to my list of values. I do my very best to be honest to others and like the Golden Rule says, then honesty should be given to me.