Good Values

Growing up, we all heard about having good values. Our interpretation of this usually tends to be along the lines of having strong principles or high standards. Recently, I thought about people’s values and it came to me that it really is more about what we actually value. The same as the value of a dollar, what worth we give a particular attribute. What do we value as a group or society, in others? How do we reinforce these values so that others will want to emulate? Remember, It’s not only what we value but how do we show that we value these things. If you look around, it seems that we give more value to a person who can throw a basketball through a hoop than one who may be dedicating their entire lives to help others. We pay millions to the basketball player and tend to ignore the school teacher who educates our children. We know the words of the songs of singers who have beaten their girlfriends, abandoned their children and are overall people with skewed values. We worry more about how great our children can be at sports than what kind of human beings they are growing up to be and how they will contribute to humanity. We make people the captains or leaders based on how they perform in a game physically, rather than how they perform as human beings. We overlook and ignore the mistakes of those who are popular and famous. We condemm those who are not for less.
We are responsible for what our children decide to put their efforts into. It is what we reward them for and reinforce, that they will strive to do more of in the future. You have the power to send a clear message to your children and the world. Make sure it's the right message.

My message:

There is a girl on my daughter’s soccer team who is neither the best player, nor the most athletic but her hard work and determination has won her the starting job and made her the most admirable. She never gives up,  plays hard and always shows good sportsmanship. The soccer will end and the athletic skills will diminish but her character and strong values will be with her forever. She is the person I would want as a leader and in my mind, she is the captain of our team.