Personal Narrative Essay: My Values in Life

Values represent what is most important to us (Burnor, 2021, p.8). Three values that I consider to be important are honesty, equality, and health. I find that each value I listed is different but, in some aspects, they are interconnected. Each requires us to find ways to either work or fight with our minds. Honesty is a value that requires our candor. For most, it’s a difficult thing to do. One might say “lying goes against my morals” while another thinks the complete opposite. We are sometimes thrown into situations where we cannot be truthful to ourselves or others because it may lead to new issues, for example, offending another person. To me, equality requires honesty. We must be honest with ourselves to ensure equality for those around us. Would we ourselves want to be treated unequally? Lastly, health. Health is by far one of the most crucial values one can uphold, but it is also by far the most difficult. Just like equality, health requires our honesty and truthfulness towards ourselves to ensure that we remain in good health. Many find ways to excuse things that damage our physical or mental health by justifying it in any way possible.

I try to live by the values I listed, but I do not think I follow them as much as I should. When it comes to health, I try to find ways to excuse unhealthy eating habits, find ways to avoid exercise, or avoid doing things that could potentially help strengthen my mental health. Recently, though, I have made some changes to myself. I have begun juicing, incorporated cleaner foods to my diet, and have started going on my daily walks again. When it comes to honesty, I find that I am not in fact as honest as I should be, but I do feel as though I have made progress! As for the last value I listed, I do in fact live by it. I try to be fair to those around me, and live by telling myself that I am no different from anyone else.

I think I have learned a lot from today's exercise. As I worked on this assignment, I made time to reflect on myself and the values that I follow and the ones that I do not. As I read through the different values, spirituality and religion reminded me of my prayers, so I made time to pray as I worked on this assignment. It required me to be honest with myself and realize that I had been struggling with it, but today's reading felt like a friendly reassurance and reminder to do so. This exercise made me reevaluate some things I do with my everyday life. Looking over some many values made me question my life. If I were Gyges (Burnor, 2021, p.5) and had an opportunity similar to his, would I make the same decision? Am I able to judge other people's choices without knowing why they made them? What I might view as bad might be viewed as good in the eyes of others. Overall, I think this exercise helped me learn to not frown upon other people's values, and to try to incorporate more into my everyday life.