Action Post #1

Values Activity:

My three most important values:

Part A)

• I believe that everyone should have the same opportunities and rights.
• I believe it is important to feel sympathy, care or concern for others.
• I believe it is important to experience close, ongoing, relationships with others.

Part B)

• Equality
• Compassion
• Friendship

My three least important values:

Part A)

• I believe it is important for people to be able to explore the unknown and test limits.
• I believe it is important for people to voluntarily do what is expected of them.
• I respect and value people who have the ability to influence others.

Part B)

• Risk
• Responsibility
• Power

Do you agree with the results? Do you think the statements are good descriptions of the values? Do you think there are some values missing?  What do your 3 important values mean to you?

To a certain extent I agree with the results. I think that Equality, Compassion, Friendship, Risk and Power were all good descriptions of the values, but for Responsibility I think it needs to be specified that it isn’t just what is expected of you from others, but also yourself. I think Responsibility is being able to hold yourself accountable for any situation regardless of whether the outcome was expected of you or not. In reality, responsibility is very important to me, but the statement didn’t settle with me properly. Doing what is expected of you could also be very negative – this could be an example of setting roles, depending on the surroundings. This could be what society expects for you, and their standards, so I said I didn’t agree with the statement. Responsibility is important, I just don’t think the statement was a good description. I believe the activity covered most of the important values. Other than that, the activity accurately described what is important to me. Equality, Compassion and Friendship are also very important aspects of my life and I wouldn’t be who I am today without them. They are the values that create a sort of peaceful and loving community and environment. I also value relationships and understanding of one another, which are portrayed in my top values. Equality is important to me because I believe that everyone deserves the same opportunities of one another regardless of who they are or their background/history. Everyone is equal. Compassion and Friendship are also very important to me, because they signify understanding of one another, showing a willingness to take other people’s view into consideration and really build relationships, which is very important in life.

Can you describe a situation where you put into action one or more of the values most important to you? What was the result?

In my past action project the most important values were compassion and equality. The goal of the project was to create a better understanding of the living environments of people in poverty, erasing the stigma and working to help them out in their day-to-day lives. Understanding that no matter what eco-social stance you are in, everyone deserves the same opportunities and chances at life. It was a really great result. I got so much positive feedback from family and friends and they all wanted to help out with my project by contributing. It was a really positive experience.

Imagine some future situations where you could put your values into action.

Equality: Participating in activism movements to stand up against discrimination.

Compassion: Someone experienced a very traumatic experience and I offer to help and listen to understand what they are going through to help them in the best way possible for them.

Friendship: I find people who I have similar interests in in any activities and develop friendships with them.

The global goal that aligns the most with my values is equality/no poverty, but since I did an action project based on these last semester, I think that I want to take an approach towards really working with the environment this semester. I do believe that the action I was most passionate about was my global goals from last semester, but I would like to try working with Climate Change/Life on Land. I have been really intrigued by the idea of trying to make my own changes to with my contribution of helping the environment. I have an idea to be able to create my own garden, in which I can decide what plants I can grow and what goes into my plants. There are many benefits to growing my own foods and plants in my own garden. I won’t be contributing to the fuel process from delivering mass amounts of food from very far away to travel to my local store and I can decide to avoid using carcinogenic pesticides and fertilizers. I also believe that growing a garden will be a great experience for me to carry on outside of SR class.