Personal Essay: The Importance Of Personal Values

Personal values are the very things we stand for, the code of conduct and morals we live by that guide our behavior and actions. Often, our personal values shine through in our decisions and personality. People are not born knowing their personal values, but they are influenced by individual cultures, personality, and surrounding events and people, and we are happier when we uphold these values. Through self-exploration and examination of strong influences in my life, I have discovered many values I hold close, among them are individuality, love and empathy.
Individuality is a quality that should be protected and valued. Individuality makes everyone unique and when it is not embraced, quality of life, and happiness plummet. This idea was taught

Humans also thrive on love, whether that be the love they feel toward people, the love they receive, or the love a person feels for their passions. Love is one of the most important things and most important feelings, it drives each of us in some way or another. You truly learn to value love when you find it after coming out of an unloving place. After coming out of my last relationship, there was an intense pain as I realized just how abusive an unhealthy that relationship was and how lucky I was to have gotten out of it. Now, being in a healthy and loving relationship, I've learned to hold onto this love that I have. The same can be said for the love a person feels for their passions. It is often the case that a person can't focus or give themselves entirely to a project if there is not a part of them that is passionate about the topic at hand. When they finally are immersed in something they love to do, looking back on that lackluster project, it seems impossible to go back

There was a time in my life where empathy, while it was still a part of my personality, was not as prominent in my life. It wasn't until my sophomore year of high school when my orchestra conductor, Walter Muelling, started teaching at my high school, that I realized the value in being empathetic. Over the course of the two years I was able to bond with him, he taught me that allowing yourself to be an empathetic person can bring great happiness into your own life and open your life up to many people and experiences. Now, being an extremely empathetic person, both by choice and nature, I have found that so many people have found themselves to be very comfortable around me, and that has brought me so much happiness and opened my life up to so many new