Personal Values Development Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Personal Values Development Paper - Essay Example The importance of making the right decisions about association is tremendous. Many of us received childhood warnings from our parents about being careful to avoid getting mixed up with the wrong crowd. While we may have shrugged off these admonitions as typical parental over-protectiveness, they were really on to something. Our values have been shaped largely by these kinds of choices, and we are surprisingly dependent on the people and events in our lives for our moral compass. Like anything else, we learn right from wrong largely by observing how others behave and react within certain situations, and the repercussions of those reactions. That is not to discount the effect of trial and error. To be sure, the extent to which our personal ethical guidelines are relaxed or stringent, well-defined or vague, is also the result of the repercussions we have incurred due to the choices we have made in our lives. Our value systems are largely the product of a confluence of the countless times we have gotten burned or been rewarded, or seen others get burned or rewarded, based on our actions. However, learning by example is much easier and less risky than learning by trial and error. While this learning is likely to be revised over time as it adapted within one’s workplace and elsewhere based on certain criteria and decision making factors, it remains the single most important basis and foundation for my ethical standards. Among the people who have most heavily influenced my value system are my spouse, my siblings, my parents, and my friends.