Core Values

While I was driving home from Vegas yesterday I was listening to this self-help book on CD. I did one of the exercises that is supposed to help you find your core values. Well, after doing the exercise, this is what I came up with as my four main core values:

Achieve
Influence
Learn
To Experience

I think those core values really show what’s most important to me. I love learning, and I’m happy when I continue to learn and progress. I also want a job or vocation where I can influence others for good. It isn’t just enough for me to make lots of money. I’d like to actually make a difference in this world. By being an entrepreneur, I feel like I can have an influence on society and others. Another thing that is important for me is achievement. When I look back at my life, I want to say that I’ve achieved my goals. I want to accomplish certain things, and a life full of achievement is a life well lived. The last core value is one that I’ve thought more and more about. I want to experience life. That means that I want to take full advantage of all the opportunities that I have, and I don’t ever want to regret my decisions or actions. This is the part of me that screams out at me to go after my dreams, no matter how silly or irrational they might sound. This is also the value that tells me to go explore and see the world while I’m young and single.

I just started my new job today with Spintek Marketing, and one of my fellow co-workers inspired me. Him and a friend decided to go on a trip and try to make it from USC, (The Colliseum) to the Colliseum in Rome, Italy without any money. Well, he said that his friend wimped out and went home, but he wanted to go through with it. He had a lot of different, random jobs along the way, but he was successful with it. He spent time in Spain, New York, and a bunch of other places.

While he was telling me that story, it re-awoke the desire in me to go travel and see the world while I still can. Ever since graduating I’ve had a desire to go places and do something, to experience life. I’ve thought of just packing everything up in my car and driving until I find a place that I would like to live. Then, I can live there for a while until I’m interested in moving on. Or, I can do what this friend did, his name is David, and just try to make it with no money or anything. See if I can survive and pay for my trip from getting random jobs along the way. I’m not sure exactly what I want to do, but I really think that I have to listen to this part of me that wants to go off on a trip. It’ll be hard for me to settle down and get serious about my life until I feel like I’ve done all that I want to do as a single guy. So, here are some of the places and things that I’d like to go and see.

Hawaii
New York
Washington D.C.
Florida beaches
Australia
Eiffel Tower
Niagara Falls
Northern Lights

Hmm, it’s actually really hard to decide where I would like to go. But, that’s the great thing about it, I don’t have to have my whole trip thought out. I only have to have one destination in mind as to where I would like to go. Then, once I make it there, I can start thinking about where else I would like to go. Really, I mostly want to see what this country has to offer. I have seen so little of my own country. I don’t have as big of a desire as some people to travel the world, because I really haven’t seen the cool places in this country. I think my first destination is Hawaii, and then once I get there, I can figure out where else I want to go.