On Facebook, Tim Lee proposed I do 30 Days to a Better Man.  These seem inexpensive and moderately challenging enough for starters.  So for 30 days I’ll be blogging daily, which is more frequent than I’d like, but so be it, if that’s what adventure entails!  Hope I keep y’all interested.

For Day 1, the assignment was to define my core values.  To know myself lets me reason why I think or do certain things, and ensures that I am aligned with what is true and good.  It helps when the world fogs up your perspective.

So here are my 5 core values:

  • Family
  • God
  • Absolute truth and integrity
  • Progress
  • Being loved and paid attention to

Family.  Playing Wii Sports with my parents (and thus rofling) is the best thing in life.  And when I think about the things my parents endured for my sake (like the hardships of immigrant life that I won’t mention now), I hesitate none to putting my family before my closest friends.  I also think about having my own family: a good wife and a yard full of kids… which I have no idea when it’s happening.

God.  I believe God is the most important thing in anything period.  Without Him, life is merely a flicker that comes and goes with no purpose (read Ecclesiastes much?).  And like I said, a man without a purpose is the very definition of futility.  In a way my personal knowledge of and experience with God is the reason I have any hope in humanity.  Also, the few times I’ve felt entirely whole, fulfilled, and right was when I’ve had powerful encounters with God.

Absolute truth and integrity.  I believe it is always better to speak the truth than lies.  So I try to never lie, no matter how inconvenient or painful.  This also somehow extends to other aspects of integrity.  To puzzlement of many, I stopped illegal downloading.  It’s actually not hard to distinguish absolute right from wrong.  Certainly there are issues that are not black and white, but I wonder if we excessively extrapolate the gray to convenience our desires.

Progress.  It’s why I’m looking for adventure; why I began running; why I’m practicing swimming; why I wrestle with chemistry; why I read things I don’t care about; why I do things I don’t like.  It’s not that I want to enjoy them; I just want to be a better man.

Being loved and paid attention to.  I’m like a pet: sticking my head in awkward places and begging, “Love me!”  It’s this neediness that drives me to be so darn adorable and cute (yeah I say so myself).  It also drives me to be funny and make others laugh.  It would sound noble to claim my core value is being cute and making others laugh… but it’s actually about the attention.  It sounds selfish and crude to say it like this, but I think it’s more accurate and truthful (and not necessarily malicious).

There you have it!  All in all, a good way to start off a series of adventures: to know what makes me who I am, before I can make me more.

Simeon Koh