When I reflect on my own personal values, specifically on
the three values that I feel are protected, I believe my principle drivers are
influenced by my wife and my kids which motivated my strong beliefs in
education, freedom of speech (i.e. free speech), and now in maintaining a
healthy existence (i.e.lifestyle). The
first two were always important to me, one from being brought up in the
military as a child, then through my service in the Air Force, and then over a
career that has supported our military through my working with organizations or
products that provided support to the military member or their families. Education is also held important to me, as
having a learning disorder which affected my abilities to learn earlier in my
life – now assisted with medication for ADD; I have found the benefits of an
education still open doors and allow us to be better persons, contribute to our
society better, and lead by example in the lives of our children. In terms of my value of the healthy lifestyle
– I have always known its’ importance, but sometimes life changing events come
along that force us to reexamine our values and when we found out last month
that our oldest child was now afflicted with Type One Diabetes, we decided as a
family that our health and well-being just became a leading value in our lives,
as well as one that we were going to change and embrace for the sake of our
daughter, and both daughters as well.
In terms of my own beliefs related to my three values, I
have found my own value in the freedom of speech has allowed me to not only
understand and support others whose values or opinions differ from my own, but
that the strength of our nation is in the fact that our differences give us
diversity and this in and of itself is a strength. This week, as we were discussing our opinions
on negotiations through emails – I realized that while the newer generations
were perfectly content with electronic communication – something I despise
personally – I found myself understanding their points of view, because for
them, they were born into the internet, cell phones, and integrated
lifestyles. For me, these things grew up
as I did, and I have learned to adapt out of necessity to stay competitive in
the job market. For the millennials and
younger generations – these tools were a part of their own childhood and
integrated into their existence, just like any other tool we incorporate into
our lives. Many of the cons of what I
see in Cell phone use, texting, email for negotiations – are all just an
extension of our freedoms of speech, and therefore should be seen as tools of
our freedoms. Yes, there are trade-offs
with replacing verbal communication with electronic ones – but again we are
fortunate to live in a society that gives us the freedom to express our
thoughts and our opinions through these various communication tools.
When I think about my own protected value in gaining an education,
I am reminded too of my time working in Afghanistan and seeing first-hand how
in our modern day and age, people (women) are still seen as the lesser and
things like learning and gaining an education are against the religious views
of the men that were trying to run or ruin the country. Seeing the Taliban keeping the same
opportunities that young boys were granted, in an effort to keep their women
uneducated – only strengthen the resolve of why we were there in the first
place. The value of an education is in
the value of the lifetime that is enhanced by the doors that can be opened and
the avenues the rewards of a good career can bring. I try to instill in my two girls the
importance of learning, and they see every day through watching Tina and I
labor through our MSLD courses the value that we hold in attaining another
degree. While they do not always agree
with our sacrifices, they too understand that we hold them to the same
standards that we ourselves live by as lifetime learners. We also make it an effort to always try to
expose our girls to learning experiences through our experiences every day, or
while on our vacations – as they will learn and understand our world better if
they understand how they fit into it, and what their own values are in
relationship to those around them. I
know many parents do not think an education is a value to be protected, but in
truth, an education is what separates us from the masses – and the educated understand
its’ worth and intrinsic value regardless of what other think. For Tina and I the only con that we sometimes
acknowledge is found in the cost to attain our degrees, but we realize that
nothing good is ever free – we get value of the value we give.
Health is something all of us take for granted – well all of
us that are healthy, regardless if we are fat or not. Our health is something that should be a
protected value – because when we have to deal with a disease or with a family
illness, we are quickly reminded just how fortunate we are in terms of what has
been given to us. Our bodies, like cars
or any other machine requires maintenance and care – I liken this to the saying
that I learned in my Geek days in Computers dealing with the term – garbage in
means garbage out. Our bodies are no
different, bad stuff in, bad stuff out – and while a few days of ill will overeating’s
or death by chocolate are OK, continuous abuse is just asking for issue to arise.
For Tina and I, our final wake-up call came in Avery, our daughter’s
recent diagnosis with Type One diabetes, and almost losing our child when her
body had shut down and she was hours from death. We decided in the hours that she lay there
fighting back to live that our lives were going to be committed to ensuring
both of our girls were going to live a better and healthy lifestyle – and it
would begin with Tina and I changing ours first. Tina has always struggled with her weight,
and I have in my 40’s as my career has slowed down my lifestyle and
activities. No excuse – we make choices
and those choices can and will make the difference. Tina and I have also had a crash course in nutrition
dealing with counting carbs and understanding their effects on our child –
learning that sugar free and diet foods are just as bad as the real ones. Living
healthy must be protected because right now one child’s life depends on it, and
both Tina and I also want to be in the lives of our children as long as we
can. Staying and eating healthy is the
best way to do that.
Each value we hold and keep protected is important not only
because of the experiences we relate to our values – but also because they can
be taken away if we are not careful.
Value are also important in that they define who we are, what we stand
for, and sometimes they define us, when we are not there to do so in
person. We are each held to our beliefs
and our beliefs are also supported by the values we choose. We must ensure that we are align with our
values and our beliefs – and that the two support each other. My value and my beliefs haven’t change since
doing this exercise – but more so since I understand why I hold these values so
important to me – because they also hold value to my wife Tina and support my
two little girls. Randy Pausch talked to
the fact that we must ask ourselves how to we want our kids to remember
us? (Pausch, 2008) We all should strive
to ensure that our values are past down to them and that our values are found
important in our children’s lives because they share our beliefs and hold them
true too.
References:
Gilbert, D. (2016, N.A.). Danial Gilbert: Stumbling
on Happiness. Retrieved from Random House :
https://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/author.html
Pausch, R. (2008). The Last Lecture. New York:
Hyperion.
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