My basic values are that I want others to care about me and treat me well. I want good things to happen to those people I care about and I value their opinion of me. I try not to hurt anyone, because that hurts me. Any time I hurt someone I feel badly for some time afterward, depending on how seriously I hurt that person and also on how responsible I was for the hurt. I think it also matters how much I care about that person. It hurts more when you hurt people you care about. I think this all comes from my early education at home, and it is reinforced by several factors. It all connects to wanting to be loved. If you hurt people they will not like you and if you care about someone it causes you pain when they are

Over time, my values have not really changed. What has changed is how and when I apply them, and how I classify what I do. What I mean is best illustrated by examples. When I was ten years old drinking a beer was wrong, and I felt guilty if I sneaked some (it tasted bad too, so that happened only once). The reason it was wrong is because my parents said it was, and if I did it and they found out, they would be unhappy. Even a sip of beer was enough to create a "wrong" action at that time. Now, drinking a beer is no longer wrong, because I am of age, and I make my own rules about beer. However, if I should drink 10 beers it would probably make me sick, and that is wrong. If I drank two or three beers and went to school, that would also not be good, because it would interfere with my learning. If I drank one beer and drove a car, that would be very wrong, and also illegal, because it would endanger lives, mine included. I might feel strange if I drank a beer in the morning and then went to class, because beer is just not a breakfast thing, but it would not be wrong. If I did it often, my friends would probably ask me if I had a problem, and I value that in friends, that they look out for you.

The church reinforced these values, but they said the rules were from God. Now I believed that when I was young, and, in a way, I know it is true, but for a different reason. It is not that God set up the rules that He wanted, but more that the rules that He taught us how to live with one another and be happy. All those rules, in every religion, are only based upon what we need to be happy together. The only one that is different is the one about loving and worshiping God, and even that helps us live well together, because if we love and worship God we will obey those rules, which make everyone happy.

hurt. So that is the negative reasoning. The positive reasoning is that I feel good when those I care about feel good.

I know these are really basic things that babies feel when they are young. I think when we learn how to make ourselves feel good we keep doing those things. Making others feel good makes them like me, so that make me feel good. So I try to do things that make people feel good. It does not always work, because I get angry and I think about myself too. However, when I am no longer angry or I have had time to think about something I often regret angry or selfish behavior, so I try to remember this before I act, and I am getting better at it.

All my other values seem to be connected to how I feel about others and how I want

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Approximate Word count = 1716
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)