My values

Perseverance is related to passion as it is the resolve to overcome hardships, difficulties, or obstacles in order to achieve a goal or an objective.

Perseverance is important because it’s what allows us to overcome the adversity life throws at us. Life can be unpredictable and is full of challenges, trials, and tribulations. Perseverance develops our character and our inner strength if we confront these challenges with our best efforts and grow from the experience. There will be times that we fail despite our best efforts, life isn’t perfect that way. But what perseverance allows us to do is accept failures as part of the learning process, grow from the experience, and then hopefully succeed at the next available opportunity.

I’ve deeply embedded this value in everything that I do which I think has served as the base for my work ethic and resilience that many have complimented me on. There are some times however, that I may experience a lack of focus, drive, or positivity particularly if I’ve experienced a long, negative sequence of events. But I also acknowledge that these are just part of the highs and lows of life and that sustaining such a drive can be mentally consuming at the worst of times. What allows me to overcome these lows however is when I remind myself that challenges are what develops moral character and if I persevere through these temporary setbacks, everything will work out for itself.

Passion is a powerful or compelling emotion towards something such as a person, activity, or group.

Passion is valuable to me because I believe it helps us understand our “why” in life, gives us a purpose, and a provides a deeper meaning to our existence. Passion is what drives people to wake up every morning to provide for their families or allows us to sincerely enjoy the work that we do. It serves as the underlying purpose for our motivations or actions and gives us something to live for. I personally think that people without passions lose themselves and may turn to other negative behaviours such as drugs or alcohol to fill a void within themselves.

Passion is expressed through my behaviour everyday as I engage in an activity or surround myself with people I authentically enjoy being with. Having passion is what can make life so enjoyable and it’s one of the reasons why I hardly ever feel bored at any given moment.  Passion is a value that I may sometimes have excess of as there’s many things that I enjoy but not enough time to fully pursue them all. At times this can be a drawback to my character as well because I find it hard at times to focus and master one passion, skill, or activity.  

My definition of freedom in relation to my values is that it’s mindset that allows you to pursue, develop, and display your inner self, your inner potential, or your inner desires.

Freedom is important to me because sometimes society plays a part in limiting who we are or who can be as people. Freedom allows me to understand this and break through these restraints that we place on ourselves based on our perception of society’s values. For example, years ago there was the notion that women couldn’t be leaders in our society because their roles were to stay home and look after the family. As a result, many women were left feeling powerless in comparison to their husbands which inhibited their ability to do great things. For myself when I competed in highly competitive basketball, my coach told us that as athletes, we should primarily focus on sports while in school because that’s what we do best. He emphasized using education as a means to compete in high level competition. Only recently did I grasp how hindering his mentality may have been on us as student-athletes and may have contributed to some of my teammates compromising their studies which resulted in academic suspensions from the team. Athletics should really be used as a vehicle for students to receive education at a reduced cost in order to develop and explore their intellectual interests. Freedom encourages us to become more than just athletes, more than just basketball players, more than just passive and subservient women, or more than just victims of poverty, but as people that can impact a society on a higher level. Freedom allows us to ultimately be comfortable with who we are as individuals rather than society deciding that for us.

 Recognizing the self-constraints that we place ourselves and is one of the biggest steps to embedding freedom as a key value in our life. When we recognize or feel empowered to become more than who we currently are, that can propel the tide of change within ourselves to reach that next stage of self-development. But breaking out of these self-restraining thoughts can be challenging also even if we’re aware that they exist.  

Freedom reminds me that I can accomplish more than what I give myself credit for as long as I’m open to new ideas. Education can help with this process as it brings exposure to new ways of thinking and critically analyzes behaviours, thoughts, or values that can impede our ability to advance as individuals and as a society. This is why I value education and will continue to pursue it throughout my life. The exposure to new ideas that disrupt previous ways of thinking is something I find liberating and is a feeling I hope many others experience as well.

Empathy is being able to put oneself in another person’s position.

Empathy is important to me because I believe it can solve the root of all conflicts, which is miscommunication. Empathy allows us to feel what others feel and evolve our communication skills by creating a better, more mutual sense of understanding. When we’re able to emphasize with your adversaries, we’re able to better understand their position and thus approach conflicts from a collaborative standpoint that can benefit everyone. Many times we turn situations into a zero-sum game with winners and losers but often this doesn’t have to be the case if we can all improve our empathy. If we can learn to adopts others’ viewpoints more effectively we can better reach conclusions that benefit everyone.

Empathy shapes my current behavior by allowing me to identify the needs of others more easily, which is an essential trait to have in my work with vulnerable populations. Often, vulnerable people suffer from some kind of conflict, whether it be internally or externally. Empathy allows me to better understand their conflict and help them reach a solution that’s best for them. It’s also helped me mitigate conflicts between opposing parties around me because it allowed me to understand both sides of the conflict. I then couple empathy with my value of balance to find a solution that could benefit multiple parties. 

Again, this is value where I strive to improve but one I think I’m naturally aligned with. At times however, I can lose my ability or motivation to understand others’ viewpoints during times of distress which is something I need to work on in order to avoid these situations.                                                                                                  

Balance is the state of achieving equilibrium between two opposing forces, philosophies, or ideals.

Balance is valuable to me because I find it as a good guide when making decisions, making moral judgements, or when self-reflecting. Balance comes from the personal philosophy I have that everything exists in dualities where one opposite opposing concept cannot exist without its counterpart. For example, we wouldn’t have any concept of good without the existence of evil, light existing without darkness, or sunlight producing life without rain. Balance equalizes these opposing forces and use each of their strengths to generate an optimized outcome. Valuing balance allows me to consider opposing perspectives in order to optimize growth as reconciling opposing views produces informed decisions/understanding. For example if one were to  develop rules or policies governing a group of people, it’s always important to integrate the proven, traditional values of the group with more modern, progressive ideas in order to preserve the culture of the group but also to implement necessary change. Another example would be that as a leader, it’s important to uphold order and policy in the workplace but at the same time be cognisant of people’s individual circumstances. When forming teams I personally believe the best teams are made with those who have diverse or opposing perspectives in order to make better decisions and gather information objectively.

Balance shapes my current behavior because I consciously strive to embody it in everything that I do. I find that balance is one of my key values that help me resolve conflicts because it allows me to put things into perspective and adapt to situations where black and white isn’t so clear. Being balanced allows me to look at things more objectively and helps remove any biases I have in search of the truth. To put this into practice in my personal endeavors, I try and balance my love for physical activity with time to grow intellectually as well. With physical activity, I try to balance my physical workouts of pure strength and speed exercises with flexibility, core, and rehab exercises. In academics, I try to balance my understanding of qualitative, social science-related disciplines with effort to develop an understanding of quantitative, scientific-based material.

I don’t believe I have complete mastery over any value as there’s always room for improvement in anything you. However, I do believe that I have become effective in utilizing this value in my daily life and embody it through my actions and personal philosophies.