Core Values: A Winsome Look At Our Silent Puppet Masters

Be careful of your thoughts, for they produce your words. Be careful of your words, for they will be backed up by actions. Be careful of your actions, least they become habits. Be careful of your habits, for they built your character. Be careful of your character, for it is you. This is good, but where do we get the thoughts that turn into words? I've pondered this for some time. I hope this pondering here helps you to understand the answer to this question.

I have a tendency to engage by mouth before my brain is fully functioning. Well, honestly, that is not true. What is true is that I believe that honestly is the best policy. I believe that one of the biggest signs of maturity is the ability to take the truth without having to have it flavored or mixed with sugar. These are two of my core values. Although, the result of having them is that I have fewer “friends?” and that I make people mad at me, I just can't see why I should change. It matters not how much they impact me socially. It mattes not how many times my wife reminds me to mind my manners. I keep on being me. I value maturity over social acceptance. I think they should grow up. The idea that I should accommodate their immaturity conflicts with how much I value maturity. So, I become a social outcast for the sake of my core values which I can't even explain how I came to process.

Our core values are what we live by. Our core values are what we cherish. They are the unseen puppet masters of our lives. Our core values are the principles that we truly value above all else, that is why we call them core values. Let me give you a couple of examples to help see how they affect our behavior.

While serving as a group leader, I was forced to confront one of my values, beliefs, I had been taught for years in my church. I had supported this belief and encouraged this belief. I had taught this belief and the reasons for it. I thought it was mine, but I learned it was not.

It happened on a Saturday morning one summer. I was the leader of a group of men and boys who had spent the previous day fishing only to catch as near to nothing as you can. So, the group decided to go swimming in a nearby river.

While I did not condone mixed bathing, it seemed OK since this was an all male group. Being relatively new to the area, I did not know the location we were going. I was bought up swimming in a local rivers and creeks. It never occurred to me that there might be females. I did not know that this place was a large public swimming and camping site.

I did not discover this until we arrived and the boys had jumped out and were running towards the water and all those scantily clad females. What was I to do? I knew what “hell would be paid” if I forced the men and boys back into vehicles. But, if I really believed mixed bathing was such a soul destroying thing, I had no chose but to do exactly that. Of course, I did not. What a surprise. I learned what one of my core value was not and learned that I had one I was not aware that I had.

My wife and her sister where raised in the same household, with the same parents. I say that in case you are young and not use to the time when this was the normal home lifestyle. Despite the uniform upbringing, my wife got into more trouble than her sister because she could not keep quite. And, because she thought that some things were worth getting into trouble over. She did disobey, but she did it fully understanding the risk-reward possibilities. Her sister on the other hand, willingly conform her conduct to that expected or managed someway to get her sister to receive the blame. These two people obviously valued the principle “Do what keeps you out of trouble.” differently. One obviously valued the principle “At all cost, don't get caught.” a lot more than she valued the principle “Don't lie.” Maybe more than she valued her sister.

Even though they had the same upbringing. The same rules where enforced for each. Yet, they had different core values. “Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.”¹ The same can often be said of our core values. They seem to be populated automatically for us like spell check in auto-correct mode. They are learned, often without us even realizing it.

Just as the child learns to talk by interacting with others, it also learns many of its core values by its interactions with others. This is confirmed by observing that a child knows when it is loved. It does not have to be told, in fact, saying it a million times will not convince the child of something contrary to what it knows from observation and interaction. The child has learned what love it and that it is either to be treasured or devalued by interacting with its surrounding. So, we acquire our core values. Our puppet masters.