The Value of Values

This is such a hard topic to talk about because I never stop to think about this. What do I really value and hold close to my heart? Values mean standards or ideas which most people have about the worth of good qualities such as kindness, freedom, mercy, respect, and love. Your core values are the things that are most important to you in life and influence the way you act, the choices you make, the way you spend your time. The first thing I value, and that comes to mind, is the relationship I have with many people that contribute to the many aspects of my life.



My best friend and I

The relationships that I value the most are the ones with my boyfriend, best friend, and fraternity sisters. There are a lot of things I have learned about myself through the interactions I have had within these relationships. My boyfriend tends to do a lot of self-reflection, which even though it gets annoying after a while, it allows me to realize how important it is for me to sit back and look at how I’m living my life; see what’s missing and what’s working for me. I value this relationship because I feel very comfortable going to him with any problems or issues that I have. I feed off of his positive attitude when I feel the worse, I take into deep consideration his advice, and I really admire his ambitions in life. Now with my best friend I have learned the most. Although I am always the one giving her the shoulder to cry on she does not realize how much of an impact that has had on me. She has struggled on a daily basis with a lot of family drama, but despite her battles it has made her into a very dependent and courageous woman. Those qualities have transpired onto me. My best friend means the world to me. We have seen each other go through one of our toughest times in life, we go on the craziest adventures together, and we have each other’s back no matter what. My fraternity sisters are what bring joy to me every day. As girls we can always talk about everything for hours and enjoy each other’s presence. They create that balance between my busy schedule and the stress that comes with life. Relationships like these are what I value the most in life because they have and continue to shape the way I act and think.

              I also value trust. Two people who have established trust can create more value in their relationship as each has more access to the other’s resources. One can compensate for the other’s weaknesses and each is more free to focus on the things they are personally best at. Two people who work together well will be more able to connect with a third person, and so on. Contagious trust can build fantastic creative communities. Similarly, once distrust is established between two people, their energy gets channeled into defensiveness, which reduces openness, and further diminishes trust, in what can be a vicious circle. Trust doesn’t just happen. It arises from the way people choose to interact. Trust in relationships should not be left to chance. It helps to follow certain practices to maintain and grow trust. One of the stronger principles of humanistic psychotherapy is the observation that love is a verb, not a noun. It is an action, or rather a series of actions, that we do – it is not some magic feeling that we have. This also applies to trust. Trust is created – or destroyed – by our actions. The simplest and most important of these is our ability to keep the promises we make.