Monday, March 05, 2007

Soul-searching sun

It’s been nearly two years when I last time reflected on my personal values. Lately, I’ve feel that something in my value system is not right, not up-to-date. People might think that values are something that stays the same throughout one’s life. I agree. But it’s the priority order of values that might change as we go through the storms and blissful moments of our lives. I believe this is what has created the confusion, now that I’ve been going through as shaking experience as Sri Lanka can be.

Previously, in fact as long as I’ve been aware of what values are, I was wondering why most of the people had family as one of their key values and I didn’t. Of course my stormy family history with parents’ divorce and all the repercussions of that had its effect but deep inside I’ve always loved them. Also my sister’s and brother’s families are part of mine. Still, I thought family as a value will never be important for me. Now, however, I’ve not only come into terms with my parents, but learned to love them again, even more than I used to as I was a kid.

However, there’s one more development coming into this equation. I used to be a person who just couldn’t live alone. I thought I value love and affection just for the sake of it. I thought it’s the feeling of being loved by someone that truly matters to me. And it is. But yet again, my time far away from my love has proved that it’s not the physical presence and proximity that I so deeply value. Paula has become part of my family, and I’ve proven to myself that there’s more to it than sheer longing for proximity or affection. Soon we will have our own family, that is part of the bigger family around us and that, my friend, is something truly important for me.

Without further a due, here are my top five values revised and re-prioritized:

  1. Close Friendships
  2. Family
  3. Positive legacy
  4. Growing wisdom
  5. Enjoying the moment

My definition of a friend is “someone who is ready to take a bullet for you and for whom you would do the same thing without hesitation”. I cherish the presence of my most important friends and want to be an integral part of their life, as they are mine.

Family I already explained in depth before. In conclusion: In my family we enjoy mutual, unbiased, and truthful love and take care of each other no matter what happens.

Positive legacy means that during and after my time at the face of the earth, I want people, communities and world to develop in a positive way because of what I started.

Growing wisdom translates to building on my strengths, knowledge and passion in order to constantly search for further development and life wisdom.

Enjoying the moment means that I want to have a freedom to choose how I spend my time in order to live life to the fullest every day.

Finally, for those who are really interested about values and their unsettledness, here is my previous list of values from 2005:

  1. Close Friendships
  2. Making a difference
  3. Love & affection
  4. Enjoying the moment
  5. Personal growth.
To sum it up: The key value is still close friendships. Family has stepped into the picture and “eradicated” love and affection like mentioned before. Making a difference has translated to positive legacy as the means of fulfilling my life vision have become clearer. Personal growth has crystalized into “growing wisdom” and enjoying the moment has stayed the same.

posted by Tomi Astikainen @ Monday, March 05, 2007

1 Comments:

At Tuesday, March 06, 2007, Blogger Annika said...

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond imagine. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We were all meant to shine - as children! It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same."

Impatiently waiting to see you in Finland soon! :)

 

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