Values

Do you know what is valuable to you? Do you always know how valuable something is to you, so you can consider what to choose? Is that value always constant or does it fluctuate? Do you have conditional values? Or holy values, which always stay at the top? Or can you put them into perspective according to the framework?
This is not a simple subject. Often we are not conscious of those values, unless on a moment they seem suddenly important. We can be so different according to the situation, the framework in which it characterizes itself. Nevertheless we think often we know exactly what is worthwhile to us.

Is love valuable to you? Then the question raises what love means to you? Is one person more valuable then another? The media like to tell us so: they call the senior man and politicians “the important men”. Or do you find everyone equally important? The highest placed as well as those at the bottom of the ladder, or the diseased, handicapped? What gives value to man, according to you? What he or she does or just the fact he or she are human and are able to think, feel and act the same way as you do?

Do you regard yourself worthwhile? It is connected with self-confidence but it is not exactly the same. Do you regard yourself less worthy compared to a lot of other people? Compared to people in your neighbourhood, or do you compare yourself with the giants or with your favourite? Why are you less?

Is beauty a value to you? If you look around, you will notice quickly that beauty is not a priority. Also the question arises: what is beauty? Is true fidelity important to you? perseverance, adaptability, finishing what you started, honesty, true sincerity, pity, sociability, having friends, money, comfort, work, and so on? The list is endless and clearly it is not the same to everyone.

Do you find it difficult if somebody else is judging a value differently? Do you find some values obvious? Which ones? How do you react if people don’t give the same score to your values, or even find them unimportant? Is it not a basic right to have ones own quotations? Or is your opinion that the culture defines the values, or the religion? Do you want your values to be guarded with violence? Or do you let others free to choose their own values? A lot of values are already guarded with violence in our society, in the form of laws. Conjugal fidelity has been it, but is now not anymore, dedication in the army still exists as a guarded value: desertion is punished by death penalty, to give just an example. Who may judge which values will be guarded with violence?

Not only laws changes, we do as well. Are your values still the same as years ago? As last year? After a deep conversation? After experiences, or a life story that touches you deeply, or even a novel or a movie? Are you in evolution, in movement, or do you want your values never to be touched? Or are you not conscious of the subtle changing’s in your data base of values?

© Copyright Johan Framhout 2009