This week, we were challenged to explore our Moral Values, and to complete the Self Puzzle.
My Moral Timeline
One community that I have been a part of for all of my life is the rather large community of Great Britain, which is governed by laws. These laws are in line with a lot of our own personal moral values, and are what is considered right and wrong in our society. I got all my big, important moral values and personal ethics from the law of the land – do not steal, do not be violent, do not evade taxes, obey road signs, etc. I think I took a lot of my more subtle morals from my Mum, Nan and Grandad whilst growing up. The moral community of my immediate family during this time was a very formative experience. School was my next big moral community, which included all of the usual classroom-based moral values such as “no talking”, “sit still”, and “put your hand up if you want to talk”.
College softened some of these as the atmosphere was more relaxed, but around that time the moral community of friends came along, and introduced things like peer pressure. My moral code at that time was shoddy, and I would think nothing of staying out way past the time I should have been home, under-age drinking and drug-taking. I grew out of that stage eventually, and shortly thereafter I met my soon-to-be wife. She has taught me how to be more forthright and confident, and has lead by example in being assertive and trustworthy – her strong moral fibre has undeniably been a good influence on me. A big moral theme for me is to treat other people as I would want to be treated myself. I’m not exactly sure where or who I got it from, but it seems fair to me, it makes sense in my mind, and I live by it. I would not like people hitting me, so I don’t hit other people. I would not like it if I was called names, so I do not call people names. I ask people if they need help, and thus expect people to ask me if they need help.
Moral Proverbs and Sayings
I tend to say that “It’s not the end of the World” when things go slightly wrong. It is an over-exaggeration that makes light of little problems. I am not sure where I first heard it or who said it. “How are you?” is one that I say a lot, because I always hope that people around me are alright. My son has picked up on it and he often asks everyone how they are as well. I also say “All’s well that ends well”, suggesting that I value a positive outcome over a troubled process. I got this from a teacher who would utter the phrase after someone struggled to understand something in class but eventually “got it”. My wife taught me that “If you can’t change something, don’t worry about it” – before I met her I used to obsess over things that I couldn’t change, and her relating this saying to me helped me in numerous ways that I cannot ever repay.
I say “Everything is relative” quite often. Usually this is in relation to body heat, when a warm part of me touches a cold part of someone else, and I say they feel cold, to which they reply that they do not feel cold, and then my saying comes out. They only feel cold to me because I am warmer. It could be translated to other areas of life, for example, personal wealth. I may not feel rich, but to someone with less money than me, I am rich.
My vision of the good life
My ideal world would be very similar to the world we live in now, only with 500% more understanding and tolerance, and absolutely no violence towards our fellow man. We wouldn’t need armies, or soldiers, or weapons that can melt the skin off of babies from the other side of a large body of water. Everyone would live in harmony, or at least try to.
Relating to a story that a taxi driver (who just happened to be African) told me recently, I cannot for the life of me understand how people can judge someone and make hurtful comments based solely on the colour of their skin. We are all humans at the end of the day, and those customers that got into that taxi and upon seeing the colour of the driver’s skin immediately compared him to the brutal Ugandan warlord Idi Amin, well, they absolutely disgust me.
The central virtues of my life
My central virtues are pretty much in line with the majority of people in this country. I don’t consciously try to break any of the laws of the land, and I adhere to my own personal ethical practise, which is that I do unto others as I would have them do unto me. The seven virtues that I feel are strongest in myself are patience, curiosity, prudence, diligence, courteousness, tolerance and creativity. I feel I am very patient, as I understand it can be difficult and time-consuming for some events to occur. Rather than get annoyed, I am good at tuning my brain into something other than the wait. I am a curious soul, and I love getting to know other people in a one-on-one setting, as well as learning about (and sometimes obsessing over) things that pique my interest. I am prudent, in that I like to be cautious and vigilant at all times.
Diligence is an important one to me, and as you can probably tell from my writings here, I like to be thorough and persistent. These words are carefully chosen to represent me and my personality on these pages. I value courteousness, as it is the key aspect in my personal motto as seen above: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. It is also reflected in my central virtue of tolerance. I automatically treat people with a certain level of respect, and I expect it in return. I like to be creative, and over the course of my life I have had spells where I just draw and draw and draw. It seems to come and go in cycles. I remember I enjoy it and get so far, but then I remember I am not good enough to make a living from it so I stop. Why that realisation stops the juices flowing I am not sure.
Obviously there is a flip-side to this, and while I can’t really call them virtues because by definition “virtues” are good, the negative traits I wish I didn’t have are jealousy, contrariness, procrastination, cowardice, pride, excess and, on rare occasions, outright belligerence. I do get jealous very easily – especially over things I feel I lack. I can be wilfully contrary sometimes, in that I take up a devil’s advocate stance sometimes just for the sake of keeping a discussion going. I am a procrastinator, but I’m not as bad as I used to be. Videogames, the ultimate procrastination tool used to be my favourite hobby, but nowadays I prefer to read books and websites and watch videos that teach me things rather than waste my life playing a videogame that simply numbs my brain. I am a coward – self-concern often overrides my desire to help people with my actions or even say the right thing. I am getting better though, and I challenge myself to leave my comfort zone often.
I have selected pride to have a negative meaning in this instance, as I do feel egotistical and narcissistic sometimes. This is linked to cowardice, in that I must protect my sometimes inflated sense of self no matter what. I am improving in relation to my various excesses, in that I do not play endless hours of videogames a week now and I feel I have control over my emotional eating. My belligerence manifests itself on rare occasions when I feel I have been wronged, or if someone says something that is absolutely untrue and unwarranted about me. What other people think of me is important to me, even though I know it should not be. When someone has an opinion of me that I feel is untrue, I feel anger flow into my fists and my heart beat in my chest. It does not happen often, and I have great control over it as I never act upon it. It used to make me feel shameful afterwards, but I have come to realise that even though I can’t control it happening in the first place, the fact that I am able to stop it from controlling me is a virtue in itself.
