Free «Self Values and Attitude – Reflection Paper» Essay

Values and attitudes are the important concepts in an individual’s life. Our comprehension and perception of self and a growing awareness of us as unique entities play a significant role in shaping our behavior and interactions with others. Our choices in our lives as well as decisions making regarding others have value and play an important part. Value is shaped by bio cultural factors, personal interpretation of the self, personal idiosyncratic traits and life cycle periods of crisis. Belonging is shaped by physical or cultural traits and a growing awareness of self as similar to others. It determines our actions, how we handle situations, and the belief system in which every person lives by. I believe everyone has their own value priority (Whitehouse, 2009). I think of myself in terms of my importance to my family and to who I am culturally consequently, the priority important area of my life has to do with the roles I play in my family, and the cultural and ethnic factors that have influenced my values and attitudes.

Through communication with my family in different experiences, I learned that, helping others is one of the importance values. I come from a big family in Hong Kong. My grandmother has ten children and they are all married. Therefore, I have more than twenty cousins and more than half of them are older than I am. I was raised in a traditional Chinese family where being close to your family is very important (Grobman, 1990). We all help each other with financial, psychological and physical problems. Two of my uncles are gamblers. I remember the whole family was once helping them to pay the debt. My parents emphasize family keeping a strong kinship contained the power in interpersonal relationship. They taught me to help others and to not look for repay. I learned how to be concerned when other individuals are in trouble. It influences me to do the social work.

My uncles once ran away to other countries to avoid debts, so I am growing up in a diversity cultures family. My family members are in Indonesia, Malaysia, America and China. It is difficult for our family to communicate well; I sometimes am in the role of the interpreter. In addition, I left Hong Kong to study in the United Stated a few years ago. These experiences help me to communicate with diversified cultures. Therefore, I am an open-minded to all cultures and willing to make friends all around the world.

Besides, cleanliness is one of the important values that I acquired from my mother. My mother always emphasizes the cleanliness and accuracy. She cleans the house daily. My mother mentioned that a clean environment will provide us with more pleasure, comfort and freshness. She also tells that it is the key to a healthy lifestyle. I keep my room tidy and clean because this is what my family taught me (Dane, 2012).

When I was young, my parents taught me to respect others, especially elderly people. They believe all people deserve respect. When I was young, parents hired a maid to take care of the housework, and they treated her like our family. They taught me to greet people before they do so. Respect for other will bring happiness to people around us since it is vital in solving problems and conflicts. Respecting other people does not necessarily mean that a person has to pull out his or her feelings, opinions and ideas. On the other hand, when performing respectfully, we should not only openly express our opinions, and also encourage others to do similar things so that we can understand one another. By respecting other people, we appreciate their personal qualities, achievements, culture and status.

Additionally, my mother always emphasized on the importance of interdependence in the society. I can now agree with her than no one is self sufficient. Human beings depend on each other for survival. Therefore, we have to help others whenever we can since tomorrow we might need the help ourselves. This gives the reason why there is a doctor, a teacher, a police woman and a street cleaner in every society. For example, we all need the street cleaner and the shoe shiner to live comfortably. Every single person in the society is important (Kristian, 2011). Therefore, every individual in the society is important and should be valued.

My personal value and attitudes make me feel comfortable and acceptable when encouraging the discouraged and correct those who are wrong. I have high self esteem as I know I am important to myself and to the entire society at large. People need me as much as I need them. I have to show respect to the people, and I deserve respect in return. There are several values, prejudices and stereotypes that may influence my work as a counselor. First and foremost, as a Chinese, I feel uncomfortable when dealing with Africans. There is this stereotype that Africans have lower IQ. This may make me judge them even before offering my advice (Grobman, 1990). This can make me understand what I want to understand instead of what the client wants me to understand. Consequently, it might lead to the wrong interpretation of what they want and what they deserve in response. In order to avoid prejudging Africans on the stereotype that they have lower mental ability than whites, I have to equalize all clients. In fact, am trying my best to have African friends so that I can understand them and share with them. This way, I will handle them as I can handle Chinese.

Language is another value that can influence my work as a counselor. It is sometimes hard to communicate with people who are not native Chinese speakers. Their grammar and sentence construction is different from mine. I can sometimes misinterpret what the client is saying. Additionally, not all clients who come and ask for my help will speak a language that I can understand. Considering the large population of foreigners in our country, any person from any tribe can come from my help. I fear the Arabs as my father told me that, they can bewitch those they are not in good terms with. This is dangerous as it can make me handle anyone using Arabic with prejudice. To curb this barrier, I have to learn as many foreign languages as possible. In case a client with a different language approaches me, it is important to use an interpreter to avoid misinterpretation (Kristian, 2011).

I value cleanliness as my mother taught me to do so. It becomes hard for me to tolerate shagginess and poor personal style. An abrasive personality creates communication tension between me and the client. In fact, it creates an abrupt dismissive, angry or condensing tone towards the client. I have to do my best to avoid this since clients come from different foundations (Whitehouse, 2009). This is why I try to ignore the dressing and the personal style of the client. I try to take the poor personal groom is as a result of problems which have brought the client to me. This makes me listen to the client with an aim of helping him in a difficult life situation.

Non-verbal signs are different in every society. As a counselor, this is a value that can greatly influence my work. A client can use a non verbal sign differently from how I know it. This may cause miscommunication. The client may use facial expression or gestures as a way of appreciation, and the same gestures and facial expression mean an insult in my society. This might annoy me and make me treat the client negatively. In order to avoid this during the next visit, I have learned to ignore all non verbal expressions and kindly ask the client what he or she intends to tell me. This way, I avoid misinterpreting the clients (Beebe et al., 2000).

In conclusion, values and attitudes are the important aspects in our lives. Human beings are products of environment. We learn values, attitudes and morals from the society. They mold us to become who we are in life. Values are very important because they mold our attitudes, behaviors and decisions. These values and attitudes play a vital role in our day to day life. They influence our social life, behavior and perspectives. I have learned a lot from my family members and parents. Respect, cleanliness, insufficiency of a human being and valuing all people are examples of what makes me the person I am. As a counselor, I teach the society these values and attitudes and their importance. I feel comfortable in this work as I know am important in the society. However, language barrier, prejudgment, and stereotypes may influence my work negatively. I avoid them by treating all clients equally. I also learn different languages, and non verbal cues to be in a position to deal with different clients from different societies.