Phase 0 - Week 7 Cultural Blog - Values
Sunday, July 12, 2015
“Try not to become a man of success but rather a man of value.” - Albert Einstein
This week, we are tasked with exploring our personal values and relating them to advice and stereotype threat. As Einstein points out, our values—rather than successes—are what drives our happiness and understanding them is an important key to understanding what makes us happy in life.
Some of my most important values include: family, humility, integrity, helping others, ambition and personal growth. I often find myself relying on these values when asked for advice. For example, I was recently asked by my friend John for advice on relocating for a job. We weighed out some of the pros and cons, such as being further away from family, more money, growth opportunities and having to live in a new place. While we worked though his new problem, I realized that I was advocating for the values that I hold to be important, such as family and personal growth. However, for his happiness, it was more important for me to help him talk through the values that are important to him, such as faith, adventure and status.
While it is important to understand our own values, it is also equally important to be cognizant of the values of those around us. Buy knowing this, we can help mediate stereotype threat; not only does it remind us of what’s truly important to ourselves; it can also help us relate to one another and overcome stereotypes.
In the coming weeks, this will be extremely important for all of us to understand as we will be jumping into an immersive, fast-paced and stressful environment where our success will be dependent on our ability to work with and support our fellow Fireflies.