Your personal values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work.  For the greatest level of internal serenity the  way you behave should be in accord with your values.

When others believe your behaviour is wrong and ask you to change,  assuming your behaviours are consistent with your values (i.e., your integrity is intact) there is a problem.

Behavioural Issues

I heard an interesting story the other day about a frustrated mother attempting to stop her nine year old daughter from lying.  After one confrontation the daughter demonstrated an amazing level of maturity.

“Mom”, she said “ The issue is not my telling lies, rather its the fact you don’t want me to”.  Out of the mouths of babes.  What the young girl was questioning was why she needed to adopt her mothers value.

Tell the Truth

Truth telling is generally accepted as an intuitive value that should be commonly held.  Yet frequently people lie to avoid embarrassment or confrontation.  This is generally considered acceptable.

For example, I can’t make the party because I have an appointment might be an excuse you use to avoid attending a party even when there is no appointment.

Who is Right

Behavioural expectations can often be subjective and mostly based on the expectors value system.  This can cause conflict and stress people by expecting them to shift their value system and conform.

Often majority rules is used as a justification for this.  Polite society must have some boundaries.

There is no definitive answer to the issue of different perception of values and their associated behaviours but it helps to recognize this ambiguity does exist and needs to be dealt with.