Values to Actions

How should you live? What do you stand for? Determining what is important to us can be difficult and then there is the greater challenge of putting our words into actions. The most important task is to figure out what we value. Values can be divided into two categories, terminal values and instrumental values. Terminal values are the things we want to achieve in life, such as, having a family, making a sum of money, etc. Instrumental values are more about how we want to live our lives, such as, being honest, humble, loving, etc. Terminal values are nice to achieve. It feels good to achieve our goals. But the feeling we get from achievement doesn't last and goals can be susceptible to many outside forces. And we know that suceess and achievement goals doesn't automatically make our lives meaningful and happy. However, instrumental values are about how we choose to face the world and this we can control. We have the power to choose how we face each day. And ultimately, our life is made up of those daily experiences.