Regardless of what breath of life you venture off to, core values will remain an essential part of your identity. They drive your interests, passions, beliefs, and opinions on just about everything. As such, it is vital that everyone understands their core value. No, not just what they are, but rather why and how those specific values are their core ones. Personally, I express my thoughts best through writing, so I decided to choose two of my core values and write about why I genuinely care about these two aspects of life.

Courage is one of my most important core values because it enables me to be more daring and take risks. With this progression, I ultimately end up building my personal development both from a tangible and intangible level. Keeping this core value to heart, I made every attempt to implement courage into my leadership experiences. For instance, there was often complacency and lack of participation from many members in a community service organization called Young Musicians for Voluntary Action that I led. To fix the issue, I drastically increased the number of concerts needed to a member and enforced stricter rules with attendance. Although this choice was audacious and not well accepted by many at first, I knew that it was necessary to remind members that volunteering is not something one can merely half-heartedly commit.

Family is also a crucial part of my core values because I saw in short bursts just what family could represent. Specifically, family consistently provided me with comfort no matter how harshly life treated me. More importantly, my family was an affiliation I would willingly sacrifice anything. As such, I made sure to prioritize time and energy for the family in my spare time over friends or myself. One critical decision that epitomizes my value for family was when I decided not to attend a friend's Bat Mitzvah and instead spend the night with my family watching a movie. Even though I understood that it was a momentous occasion for my friend, my family never had much time to be together in one physical location and enjoy each other's presence. Another experience that shows how the value of family influenced my life is through my tendency to turn to family when I need to talk about my issues. Often, families struggle to be transparent and lack communication, but my family and I, fortunately, are the opposite of that stereotype. From topics like college to more harder subjects such as depression and anxiety, I understand that my family will not judge, but rather do everything to help me overcome.

As basic as the exercise may sound, this activity helped me understand myself on a deeper level. I once thought I knew all of my tendencies and ideas, but it feels as if I just met a new person by really digging in and seeing the inner core of what makes me who I am. Perhaps taking an hour or two of your lives devoted toward a similar activity can have the same effect on you as well.