Recognizing your own culture is obviously a difficult task (we experienced that a bit on Tuesday). However, I think if you take the time out of your day to begin to pinpoint your values and beliefs it can foster a greater sense of identity and also improve personal relationships. In this blog post I'm not going to talk very broadly about my culture but just give one example and see if I might be able to piece together where that value came from. (Quite literally, I am going to figure it out as I am writing this)
So here's one value I have: The worth of things has never been that big of a deal to me. In fact, I think I actively seek out the cheapest option possible. For example, I didn't bring up a mattress with me from Texas so when I went mattress shopping after I moved out of the dorms, I picked out the cheapest mattress in the store without even having to look at the price. Also, the majority of my clothes are secondhand. And, when I was deciding with my roommates where to live last year I didn't care about anything in the house as long as it was below a certain price. I just don't really care about nice things. Of course, my definition of "nice" is extremely culturally based. What I might consider to be nice someone else would think is terrible and vice versa.
But I have no idea where this value came from. I grew up with nice things, my parents buy nice things, and I have the money to spend. Maybe because I was raised in a well-to-do environment I become guilty anytime I buy something frivolous knowing that other people can't afford it? Maybe because I've grown up during a very environmentally conscious era I think twice before I get something new? No idea! But it's food for thought!
(I really figured that one out, didn't I?)
I loved reading how this panned out. It's difficult to say where certain values come from and I can usually never figure it out. I would say I'm almost the opposite. Growing up, my family has always been very careful with money but my sisters and I are absolutely terrible with it. It could be attributed to us not having it growing up so when we do have it, we just think SPEND SPEND SPEND! But I know it's not good to spend a lot of money and I still do it. I'm not in crazy debt or anything, I do it within limits but sometimes I think "is it really necessary to buy all those clothes" and some stupid person in my head becomes louder than the rest and screams "YES!" Anyways, I would agree, being able to pinpoint values definitely adds to ones identity but how people deal with finances can definitely be a tricky one.
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