My Values for 2018

I'm back in Los Angeles, returning to my job as an RA before the semester starts on Monday. During our January training sessions, the speakers encouraged us to reflect on our work in the past semester in order to move forward with new resolve. One professor gave a talk on resilience, that is, the very quality found in people who keep going and continue to live their lives despite all odds.

Resilience is not easy, often because we, as individuals, are conditioned to compare ourselves to a normalized ideal of what success and a good life is. This normalization is the site of violence - making people suffer because they feel inadequate for not fitting into the dominant mold. We can see in children, teenagers, and adults that the overwhelming pressure to fit in does a horrible disservice to individuality, crushing the very traits that make us so beautiful and fragile as human beings.

As an RA, this pressure manifests when one technique or personality fits the job, and so we flock to it. For example, many of the RAs are extroverted, and although I love people and I love to talk with others, at the end of the day, I prefer the quiet solitude of my little room. As an introverted RA, I have had to fight the internal and external pressure to fit in, and find ways my personality belongs in the role.

The opposite of fitting in is belonging, and that is what I am called to cultivate as an RA. In a world where love is deemed unprofessional, I choose love every day in my work. How blessed I am to live in love.

We made a list of our values for the second semester by listing qualities we admire in our best friend, our worst enemy, our family, our job. Once we had listed ten to fifteen terms, I chose six I wanted to focus on in 2018. Here they are:

1. Spontaneity: This was my New Year's Resolution for 2016, and I acknowledge that while I will never be a spontaneous person, I value flexibility and adaptability in my every day life. It is so hard for me, but so important for my job, my majors, and my mental health. The opposite of certainty is openness and curiosity, and I believe I can use these qualities to achieve a greater spontaneity.
2. Community: From my staff as an RA to the dance majors to my friends and family to my choir members, I am a part of so many communities, and each adds to my life. Last semester, I learned that leaving an old community that is no longer healthy is also a part of how I view this value.
3. Tenacity: I never give up, and I never give in. My work ethic shapes how I live, and I value those who reciprocate to match my own effort.
4. Intelligence: I value intellectualism, and I want to make my intellectual encounters intentional in 2018. To me, this means selecting activities in my free time that cater to my hunger for knowledge, and seeking friends that challenge me to expand my horizons, not to stay within them. I want to play my violin and study languages in 2018, and I want to ensure my communities support my intellectual journey.
5. Love: I love deeply and with great loyalty, and I want to carry this forward as I meet new people this year. Sometimes, I get stuck in the idea that I have already met everyone I will ever love, and this is proved wrong time and time again. I want to be open to loving relationships with the people around me, because my work and my majors call for love every single day.
6. Integrity: I have always valued authenticity and honesty, and I cannot stand hypocrisy, but I never considered the value of integrity until recently. Integrity involves doing what you say you're going to do. I aim to live a life of integrity, and I want to continue to ensure the communities I surround myself with also follow their word with action.

Rather than resolutions or goals, I want to focus on these six values in 2018. Come December, I'll reevaluate, see how they worked, and decide what values I will carry forward. Life is all in flux, and I am trying to wrap my head around this glorious instability.