A person’s life values are formed in early childhood. As boys and girls grow up, they have a huge influence on the actions of teenagers and adults, reflecting the inner essence of individuals. When making any decision, a person unconsciously wonders whether it corresponds to his moral principles. If the answer is positive, then life becomes meaningful and correct, and if actions diverge from deep-seated beliefs, mental discomfort is felt. Let's take a closer look at this definition and find out what life values are, how they are formed and how to recognize them in yourself.
Concept of value
There is a section in philosophy called axiology, which is entirely devoted to the study of values. Starting from the early stages of its life, humanity has been trying to answer the question of what value is, what is more or less valuable. Over thousands of years, general ideas on this issue have developed. Ordinary consciousness understands value as such a characteristic of a phenomenon as its special significance for an individual, for society or for the entire civilization as a whole.
The study of the problem of values has gone through a long evolution, and today philosophy believes that there are different types and characteristics of them. There is no single point of view on what the nature of values is and whether they can be objective or are always subjective. Thinkers cannot give an unambiguous definition of this concept. In the most general form, philosophers believe that value is a set of spiritual and material objects that satisfy human needs. At the same time, the concept of values is social in nature. Society forms a complex of important objects that contribute to the development of society and the people in it. Value orientation is the most important component in the structure of personality. Through them, a person comes to determine the meaning and value of human life as a whole.
Conditional scale of life priorities
They identify the basic, eternal values, thanks to which a common system of values has been formed for all people on the planet. This:
1. Health. Perhaps this point will be the main factor rated very highly for many. In turn, health can be classified both as a category of spiritual and physical well-being, and as a category of social values. This is explained by the fact that for many of us, various crises, failures and unfavorable situations are a significant indicator for assessing our health.
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2. Family. This is one of the main values in a person’s life. Despite the fact that there are those who refuse to start a family or have a child, and despite the propaganda of same-sex marriage, caring for loved ones remains the main activity of many people on the planet.
What are family values? This is a concept that cannot exist separately from the family, because it refers to various rules, ideals, relics and memories that accumulate over the years and are passed on from generation to generation. And here you can give a lot of examples from life.
For example, old photos and stories of ancestors, aesthetic norms, rules of behavior, ideas about family relationships, traditions and much more. That is, family (or traditional family) values are a set of ideas of each family member about a community united by common interests, in which everyone is able to influence the choice of life goals and guidelines, as well as ways of self-realization and organization of the future.
3. Success in various areas of life and in life in general. With the development of a cultural society, prestigious education, a high position and decent earnings, universal recognition and position in society become more and more priorities. In this regard, success and promising self-realization are those values in life that are held in high esteem by the majority of the population.
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4. Time. Many people consider time to be a priceless resource that cannot be bought, sold or exchanged. And those meaningful spiritual structures that accumulate over time often shape a family's values, experiences, and memories.
5. Finance (money). This is a very important point that every second person appreciates, which is not at all surprising, given the economic situation in the world. For many people, money is a means of a successful, happy existence and full development.
6. Rest and opportunity to travel. It is not surprising that many of us consider this item a priority, because the opportunity to relax and travel not only brings invaluable experience, new knowledge and emotional release, but also contributes to the box of family values.
All of the above points represent core values. In addition to them, there are others that are no less common in modern society: creativity, immediate environment (friends and relatives), spiritual development, freedom, authority, communication, etc.
Life as a value
On the path of its formation, humanity did not always believe that human life had any special significance. And only humanism as a social phenomenon began to consider human life as the highest value. However, even after this many contradictions remained. Since it can often be sacrificed in the name of other values. And people themselves do not always remember that they possess such a treasure. In practice, the value of human life is deciphered in several basic principles. Firstly, if we consider that this is the most significant and important thing in the world, then we must recognize the right of any person to preserve it. And here again the question arises about the villains and their right to continue to live after taking the lives of other people. The second principle is a thrifty attitude towards any of its manifestations. This means that you need to protect your own life and that of others. And people can harm themselves: smoke, take harmful substances, etc. Another important thing is the need to promote life in all its forms and varieties. Here many insurmountable difficulties arise, for example, with meat-eating, because this is also the destruction of living things. If we consider life to be the main value, then it is necessary to live it in some especially worthy way, otherwise it is wasted. This implies the need to develop a meaningful position and build your life on the foundations of awareness and significance. If we consider existence from this perspective, it turns out that people, declaring the idea that this is the most precious thing a person has, do not actually exist in accordance with this postulate.
Self-development
In fact, all women constantly strive for development. This is how we are built, we always need expansion, development and growth. Be it the development of your body, intelligence, social development or spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is the foundation
It is difficult to build something in the outer world without paying due attention to your inner life. But all other levels should also take place in the life of any woman.
By devoting time to her spiritual life, reading, studying and learning new things, charity, developing on all 4 levels, a woman becomes even happier.
But if a woman strives to bring herself to perfection, to become ideal in everything, to improve in every way, she destroys her nature
It is important to know and understand this. You need to develop your feminine power
We are not like men, but for some reason we strive to develop like men. But there is a huge difference between us. A woman grows and opens up when she is calm, when she feels that everything is all right with her. A man is when he is in action and strives to improve himself. Hormones aren't just made up, are they? Whatever you do, get joy and pleasure from it.
Don’t lose your true values, don’t replace them with false and imposed ones, like a compulsory career, working 5 days a week and other implementation in a man’s world. Do not succumb to life principles imposed from outside if you feel that this is not your path. Be happy in what brings you true joy.
PS Let women truly value themselves, their world, their loved ones and cultivate a loving heart!
Marina Soshchenko
"Mom's Stories"
The value of human life in philosophy
Throughout the history of human civilization, people have wondered what is the most important thing in the world. Ordinary consciousness and age-old wisdom quickly answer it: human life. But philosophers, accustomed to doubting everything, say that there are no objective characteristics according to which existence on earth would in any case be a value. Only religious philosophy believes that the value of human life is determined by its divine origin. People receive it from God and have no right to dispose of it. And secular trends in philosophy and ethics seriously think that a person should have the right to manage his life.
Today, these issues are once again being vigorously discussed and conceptualized with attempts to legalize euthanasia in some countries. At one time, N. Berdyaev wrote that man is the highest value and it is this global value that allows society to integrate into something integral. Usually the question of the value of life in philosophy comes down to the question of its meaningfulness. If a person exists with an understanding of why he is doing this, if he sets some spiritual goals for himself, then his life is valuable, and if there is no meaning, then existence on earth is devalued.
How to determine your own life values
It is very important to understand what is most valuable at this stage of life. My values in life are a guide that helps me make plans for the future and implement them successfully. It can be difficult for people to set priorities correctly; they rush around in search of the right decisions, balancing on the scales of fate. How to determine your values in order to find harmony? The simplest option is the following:
- on a piece of paper, describe everything without which you cannot imagine your existence;
- review the impressive list again, crossing out from it what you can still refuse;
- repeat the previous step until no more than 10 items remain on the list.
If a person lives in accordance with moral principles, respects himself and does not go against internal guidelines, he will cope with any difficulties and live his life happily.
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What do psychologists say about this?
Unlike philosophers, psychologists approach this problem differently. They say that people are all different and there cannot be a single universal measurement of the value of their existence on Earth. In their assessment, people usually base their assessments not on objective characteristics, but on subjective ones. And then it turns out that Hitler’s life has no value, but that of a loved one is very important. Psychologists proceed from the fact that the basic values of human life are the basis for personal development. They influence the orientation of the individual, his activities, social position, attitude towards himself, others, and society. Based on his values, a person ranks needs and builds motivation. They determine the interests, worldview and attitudes of the individual. Recognizing life as the most important value, a person chooses goals and formulates the meaning of his existence. Without this, it is impossible to live productively, develop, or interact with other people. Thus, psychologists recognize the high importance of axiology. Only by realizing that life is the main value can a person develop as an integral and productive person.
What it is
A person’s life values are fate-transforming and fate-realizing factors and directly influence the adoption of all life decisions. They affect all areas of life, including the highest purpose of the individual and soul, relationships with close and superficially familiar people, and attitude towards material wealth.
The diversity of the space of life values is unique to the same extent that each person is unique. It is the interweaving of the importance of the relationship to one or another category that allows us to see the individual pattern of the semantic and value space. Most people use immediate impulses to build a life concept, without a deep awareness of their priorities, which work on a subconscious level.
Frequent painful thoughts, the inability to make a choice, to do the right thing, or subsequent reproaches to oneself for a mistake are common consequences of the lack of a clear position. If you increase your level of awareness and thoroughly understand your gradation of values, then you can avoid a significant share of doubts and difficult choices.
The road is made easier by the fact that the path has already been chosen, even if for the sake of a long-term perspective one has to sacrifice temporary comfort. Thus, a person who puts his family first will not have long doubts about how to react to his superiors’ proposal for a six-month business trip in another country, but someone who does not understand what is a priority for him in the context of his entire life may never decide to make fundamental changes or make error.
The determination of the most significant values is influenced by many factors, both the internal structure of the human psyche and external events in the surrounding space. At first, the foundation is laid by personality traits and the educational system - many values have a biological basis (the need for an active or passive lifestyle, the number of contacts, medical care), and are also internalized from the immediate environment at a very early age.
As you grow older, your core values shape your life experiences and personal emotional experiences from certain situations that shape your overall attitude toward life. As a result, a unique structure appears that separates important things and events from unimportant ones.
When a person builds his life based on deep, true values, he feels filled with energy and happy. The opposite law also applies - the more life deviates from internal needs, the less happiness there is in it; irritability and dissatisfaction begin to predominate in the emotional background of the individual. It is necessary to decide on your top priorities, while not forgetting that the most harmonious life is one in which all areas are developed. Even if a person determines the importance of two or three values for himself, it is necessary to maintain all the others at the proper level in order to avoid imbalance and disharmony of the individual.
Meaning
One way or another, philosophers, psychologists, and ordinary people link two concepts: the meaning and value of human life. Since ancient times, philosophers began to ponder the question of why a person lives. Centuries of reflection have not brought final clarity to this issue. It is recognized that meaning is the essence of all things and phenomena; accordingly, the idea of the existence of meaning in life is generally not in doubt by anyone. However, there is a possibility that a person is not able to comprehend it. His cognitive horizon is quite narrow, and in conditions of information deficiency (and a person does not know everything about life), it is impossible to comprehend the meaning with absolute accuracy. In general, most philosophers and ordinary consciousness agreed that the meaning of life lies in life itself. You need to live in order to live. The variant of meaning as pathfinding is also recognized. A person must look within himself and answer questions about what is most important to him.
Philosopher and psychologist with an amazing destiny Viktor Frankl says that the search for and acquisition of meaning makes a person mentally healthier and wealthier. At the same time, he sees three ways to comprehend life: daily work, awareness of the value of relationships with other people and his experiences associated with another person, and reflection on situations that bring suffering. Thus, to find meaning, a person must fill his time with work and caring for other people, and he must also be aware of experiences and learn from them.
Steps
Part 2
Assess value alignment
- 1
Rate how your life matches each value on a scale of 1 to 10.
For example, let's say you value artistic creativity. You can give yourself 10 points for this item if you make art, study it, visit local museums, and have a couple of prints that you like. However, give yourself 1 point if you only have a couple of books about art and that’s where your relationship with it ends.
Start at the top of the list and work your way down. Consider how each value is reflected in your life and how thoroughly you follow it. If you feel that this value is being fully expressed, give yourself a 10. However, if you do not see this value in your life at all, give yourself a 1.
- 2
Using a scale of 1 to 10, determine whether your profession aligns with each value.
For example, let's say you value helping people. If you work for a local non-profit, you can give yourself a 10 on this point. On the other hand, if you don't interact directly with people at work, give yourself only a 3 (which may make you feel unsatisfied).
Ideally, to be satisfied in life and work, you need to express your values through your profession. Consider how your job or profession reflects each value. Give it a 10 if you think everything fits perfectly, or a 1 if it's the opposite.
- 3
Look for values that you are not currently expressing in your life.
Make a list of values that you want to add to your life. Use this list as you begin making changes.
After you evaluate your career and life, identify the values that are important to you but that you do not adhere to. These are areas you can work on to help you feel happier and more fulfilled. It will also help you find more meaning in your activities.
Advice:
ask yourself why these values are not being expressed in your life. Is something bothering you? Do you feel like you can't express it? By identifying obstacles, you can remove them.
Part 3
Incorporate values into your life and career
- 1
Imagine what your ideal life would look like.
Think about who you would be if you fully represented your values. Where would you live? What kind of work would you do? How would you spend your free time? Make sure your choices are consistent with the personal values you have identified.
For example, perhaps you decided that in your ideal life you would help people get in shape through dancing. You probably imagine yourself living in a big city on the coast, teaching dance cardio at the gym, and going to the beach with friends in your free time. Also, you have several pets because you love animals.
Advice:
Try to imagine your ideal life to understand what you want most. Then find ways to make those images a reality.
- 2
Identify careers that align with your personal values.
This will help you find meaning and purpose in life. Consider what types of tasks you might perform on a daily basis, what environment you'd like to work in, and who you'd like to collaborate with. Then find a job that reflects those values.
For example, let's say you want to help people in your community and do projects that impact it. In this case, you can work in a non-profit organization or in government and political office, become a social worker, or work in the field of urban planning or public health.
- 3
Make a list of actions you can take to start living your ideal life.
Brainstorm
Over time, you will find that your life is more in line with your values. The speed of this process is entirely up to you.
to identify 3-5 things that will help you live your best life. Break the list down into steps that are easy to follow. Then choose one thing to do today. As you move forward, choose one small thing at a time and do it to align your life and career with your personal values.
Target
Awareness of the meaning of life and one’s own basic values helps a person set life goals. The human psyche is structured in such a way that only actual goals can serve as motivation for activity. Therefore, each person, at his own level, answers the question of why he lives. And usually this answer is linked to universal human values. If you ask the average person what is most important in his life and why he lives, then most likely he will answer that the main thing is family and loved ones, and he lives for their well-being and happiness. Thus, the goals and value of human life interact closely with each other. The most common goal is to create a family and continue the family line. This goal is dictated by biology and society. This goal is not truly relevant for every person, which is why people often get divorced and sometimes leave behind the children they once seemed to want so much. Sometimes a person sets a goal for himself, and when he achieves it, he feels disappointed and it seems to him that life has lost its meaning. This often happens to older people who have achieved socially approved goals: education, career, family, but have not listened to their true desires. Therefore, the meaning of our stay in this world is precisely to understand what is necessary and valuable for you and how to achieve really important goals.
Motherhood
Motherhood is one of the most amazing roles a woman can have. Being a mother is happiness. Even if it’s not always easy, even if you have to live and endure a lot. But this is where a woman develops and grows. In motherhood, she reveals her best character qualities. As she realizes herself in motherhood, a woman sees her weaknesses and begins to understand where and in what direction she should move in the future. Motherhood develops a woman much better than any business training or any other personal growth training.
Being a mother does not necessarily mean giving birth to a child. But be that as it may, we need to strive to develop maternal qualities in ourselves and grow in this direction. Take Mother Teresa for example. This is undoubtedly an example of a woman who was the mother of all living beings. A woman who cultivates maternal feelings in herself has a very big heart, she feels with all her being that there are no other people’s children, and every living creature wants to call her their mother.
Values
As we have already understood, the meaning of a person’s life is linked to his goals, and they, in turn, correlate with values. Important objects are guiding beacons along the path of life. The main values of human life help a person choose the vector of life movement. They are a kind of core of consciousness and worldview of the individual. At the same time, society strives to develop in people certain universal values that are necessary for society to function effectively and self-preserve. Each era develops its own set of socially significant values, but some universal, universal human values remain: freedom, peace, equality. But each person, in addition to this, forms his own package of important objects, it is their presence that indicates the maturity of the individual. These are called individual values, and they primarily influence a person's daily actions. As they say, your own shirt is closer to your body. There are different types of values, classifying them on different grounds:
— By the degree of versatility. In this case, we talk about universal, group and personal values.
— According to forms of culture. On this basis, material and spiritual values are distinguished.
- By type of activity. In this classification, many types are distinguished, including aesthetic, religious, moral, existential, political, legal, and scientific.
Basic values of human life
Basic values are understood as categories of universal human values that are of undeniable importance for all people, on a planetary scale and at the individual level. What is important is the value of your own life, love for any of your manifestations. This entails taking care of physical and spiritual health, the ability to set priorities and, first of all, ensure your survival. In many ways, this most important point is regulated by the instinct of self-preservation, but only on the physical level, psychological sacrifice is increasingly manifested among people and has a detrimental effect on life and mental state.
As a social being, humans tend to value relationships as well as their quality. The need to be accepted and appreciated contributes to survival and better implementation in life space. Next after the importance of social relationships, or instead of them, can be considered the value of family relationships, including the parental family and building one’s own.
Intimate relationships and romantic manifestations can also be attributed to this point. By developing this category, the value of love for children and the need for their presence appears. Here several additional aspects can be realized at once, for example, the realization of one’s social function, purpose, ability to transfer knowledge, etc.
The importance of native places, those where a person was born, grew up, and spent most of his life, can border on patriotism. In the global understanding, the place of our birth and upbringing directly shapes our personality - it is there that we can feel accepted and understood. In your homeland and among people with the same mentality, it is easier to adapt and breathe easier, there is an opportunity to show all your capabilities brighter and more multifaceted. Many cultures have preserved traditions of maintaining connections with their native land, out of an intuitive understanding of the importance of the amount of energy a person receives from their familiar space.
Professional and social activities, realizing oneself as a specialist or achieving new results in one’s hobbies is becoming an almost necessary factor in the modern world. This touches on the fear of death, which will occur without material support, and the desire for development and recognition, as the main driving mechanisms of human activity. Such strong factors ultimately force many to prioritize work, resulting in a serious bias in one direction.
Inseparable from the value of work is the value of rest, which allows you to restore resources and switch. During rest, a person can discover a new vision of a past situation, feel the taste of life, and realize impractical but spiritually significant desires. All this ultimately allows you to harmonize the rest of your life.
Spiritual and material values
The most common way is to classify values according to the form of culture. And traditionally, all values are divided into material and spiritual. Among the latter, moral and aesthetic ones stand out. What values of human life are the most important? Here opinions are usually divided; some believe that without material values a person is not able to think about the spiritual. Materialists believe that existence determines consciousness. But idealists think exactly the opposite and believe that the main thing is spirituality, and a person can refuse material wealth in the name of high goals. Psychologists also talk about the existence of spiritual materialists who believe that everything in a person’s life should be in balance. Each person considers something different to be material assets, but in general this includes well-being, the presence of real estate and other property. Their peculiarity lies in the so-called alienability, i.e. they can be lost or wasted. But spiritual values are inalienable.
What does old age treasure?
Actualization values also gain importance - but until about mid-life. Then their graph reaches a plateau, turning into an almost flat line, and further growth, although there is, is not very noticeable
The reason, researchers believe, is that by midlife, most people find themselves too preoccupied with rather practical matters. Conventionally speaking, going to a museum or library for beauty and knowledge that has no immediate practical use is a luxury permissible only for those who do not need to rush to other places and on more pressing matters.
And finally, the dynamics of the attitude towards the basic values of existence are very eloquent
They are of great importance during adolescence and young adulthood. Then their importance decreases noticeably
Understanding the value of health and life, we at the same time begin to clearly realize that it is, alas, impossible to keep them intact, psychologists explain. But closer to old age, this value increases again: approaching the last line, we begin to value more what we have been given. It is worth noting that the study does not claim to be universal. The patterns he identified can be largely explained by the specifics of the culture and way of life of Brazil. And it is possible that in other countries the results would have been different. And yet, it is useful to keep in mind the dynamics of changes in attitudes towards certain basic values over the course of life when planning your future.
1 V. Gouveia et al. “Patterns of Value Change During the Life Span. Some Evidence From a Functional Approach to Values". Online publication on the website of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin dated July 17, 2015.
Basic spiritual values
The formed complex of spiritual values testifies to the maturity of the individual. This set allows a person to break out of bodily limitations, gain freedom and take responsibility for his life, its goals, and its meaning. At school, many wrote an essay “What is the value of human life?”, but at this age a person can only begin to think about the vector of his development, and sometimes he does not even begin. A formed worldview, according to the observations of psychologists, usually appears by the age of 20-30, although for some it is much later. Recognition of spiritual values as determining ones in life is a prerequisite for gaining freedom. This type of values usually includes moral and aesthetic values as the most important. In addition, freedom, love, peace, life, justice, are called universal spiritual values.
Moral values
Morality is extremely important in human life, it is what makes an individual a person with free choice and responsible choice. Moral values help a person regulate relationships with other people and society. The measure of these relationships is good and evil, and a person decides for himself what he personally considers good and what not. For each person, the set of moral commandments may be different, but there are basic postulates that are the same for all people. They were formulated in religious codes and have undergone few changes over the millennia. However, these values may change depending on the group or professional affiliation of a person. For example, the set of values of human life in biomedical ethics will be interpreted primarily from the point of view of the relationship between doctor and patient. Universal moral values are patriotism, duty, hard work, honor, integrity, and philanthropy.
Aesthetic values
If morality is associated with the assessment of life and its phenomena from the point of view of Good and Evil, then aesthetic values are a consideration of the world through the prism of the Beautiful and the Ugly. The purpose and value of human life are often linked to identifying, experiencing, and creating beauty. Everyone knows F. Dostoevsky’s phrase that beauty will save the world. And people really often strive to make the world around them more beautiful, more harmonious, and see this as their goals and objectives. Philosophers identify the following values in this subgroup: beautiful, sublime, tragic, comic. And their antipodes are the ugly and the base. Aesthetic values are associated with a person’s ability and desire to experience deep and vivid emotions, the ability to sense the harmony of the world, and the ability to perceive shades of feelings and moods of other people and their creations.
Health as a value
A person who treats himself responsibly, understands that life is an important value, and he is obliged to preserve it, thinks about his health. But not only the people themselves, but also society is interested in ensuring that people do not get sick. In axiology, it is customary to distinguish three types of health: moral, physical and mental. Saving each of them is part of the meaningful existence of the individual. Health as the main value of human life is studied by a special branch of philosophy - bioethics. Within its framework, health is conceptualized as an absolute life value. The goal of a person is to maintain health, since it is a condition for achieving all other values. It’s not for nothing that there is a phrase in the Russian language: “If we had health, we’ll buy the rest.”
Love as a value
In philosophy, love is understood as a specific moral and aesthetic feeling, which is expressed in a disinterested desire for a chosen object, in a readiness for dedication, in responsibility towards this object. This is a multifaceted and diverse feeling; it can be felt for the Motherland, people, animals, for some types of activity, for nature. Love is one of the main values of human life, as it is associated with moral and aesthetic experiences. It may be the purpose of existence.
Problems of values in the modern world
Sociologists note that today there is a process of devaluation of universal human values. There is a blurring of ideas about what is important and what is not. There is also a problem with the value of human life, which is associated with the growth of conflicts that result in people dying. European society seeks to spread its values to all world cultures and this leads to intercultural conflict. Today in Europe the process of democratization is reaching its climax, individual values are beginning to prevail over social ones, and this is shaking the system that has been developing for centuries.
