Values?!

            After reading Da Chen's book Sounds of the River and attending Mr. Chen's talk at the Convocation Festival I have come to realize that Mr.Chen and myself share some values. Through this assignment I have come to define values as something that is important to one, like your priorities. Your values are what makes you who you are. In life you have big values, like your faith and your family, and then you have the values that branch out from these, like your respect for others or your honesty.

         From Mr.Chen's talk... the three primary messages I took were: 1)The importance of one's background and culture, our background and culture are part of who we are and ultimately our past is a big part of our future and who we become. 2)Another important message I took from Mr. Chen's talk is the importance of perseverance and hard work. In the river of life we need to take obstacles as detours to our goals. 3)Finally the last of the most important messages I took from his talk was his contagious hope and attitude towards following your dreams... no matter how hard life hits you and how many doors are closed it is one's attitude that determines how far in life one will go.

       After evaluating my own definition of values and considering Da Chen's values I conclude that a person's values are more than their personality traits, it is the things that are important to one - one's priorities. This being said, the values I chose for my Circle of Life are split into two categories, the main values and the minute values. In my Circle of Life my main values (faith, family, and education) are what shape my minute values (honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, respect, friendliness, obedience, perseverance, etc.). My minute values are by no means minute in importance, but I believe that these values are defined by my main values.... the ones that are most important to me. In addition, the minute values are in no particular order and are all an important part of who I am and who I want to be.