Day 28: What are your deepest values?

The Mission Statement:  Day 5 (based on Creating a New Mission Statement from the New York Times)

The quest for the personal mission statement continues with today's question: What are you deepest values?

Before I answer this question I thought it best to first see exactly what values are.  A Google search brings up the definition "a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life."  

Mindtools.com says that "[w]hen the things that you do and the way you behave match your values, life is usually good – you're satisfied and content. But when these don't align with your values, that's when things feel... wrong. This can be a real source of unhappiness."

Okay.  I think that makes it pretty clear what values are.  So now what are mine and which of those are the 'deepest'?

Well it seems like it's time for a list...

• Honesty and clear communication
• Freedom of expression - particularly through art and entertainment
• Maintaining a healthy body and mind
• Close and loving friendships
• Striving to make the world a better place, in particular working to ensure that everyone's basic needs are met while leaving enough for the future (I probably could have just said sustainability right?)

This is one of those things that could be twenty items long but I thought the top five would do.  I'd put integrity, making space for adventure and a quiet down time as a close six, seven and eight.  Ok...maybe those would fall under the umbrella of a few of those top five items.

There are two more days of questions remaining and I'm beginning to wonder just how I am going to boil this all down into a succinct and meaningful mission statement.  So far though the process has been good.  I find that many of the questions are about things I've not thought about all that much, though it seems when I do a bit of digging the answers are there.