The V-Word!

A friend’s recent Facebook post about considering values to embody, rather than resolutions to make, for the coming year took me on a search. In the search, I found a wonderful list of values, enough for every day of the year, if one is so inclined—everything from abundance to depth to zeal.

The list of 374 values is on Steve Pavlina’s website. Pavlina is known for his work in personal development and his book Personal Development for Smart People. His blog has a great variety of reading material. One is How to Cook Brown Rice, right next to How to Make Money from Your Blog. The list of values is one of the treasures, however.

Sometimes naming specific values is hard to do. I kept thinking of actions or resolutions when I was trying to frame which values I wanted to come up with for the year. I commented to The Facebook friend, Jennifer Wilson, a personal life coach, with three that called to me: calmness, cooperation, and creativity. I was primarily thinking of my job as a high school English teacher in picking those three, but they are values important in all areas of my life. They make me happy.

In fact, I like this list of values so much that I plan on using it for some class assignments. The ideas are just germinating, but I’m thinking of PowerPoints and stories and poems and newspaper articles and all kinds of writing/visual projects we could do with these. As I write, another idea occurs to me. I’ve been trying to create a blog that gets some notice and readership. I’ve been focusing on poetry and other writing, but maybe I should try a teaching one.

I suddenly have grand visions of making a side-living (such a thing?) by creating a site like Carol Hurst’s children’s literature site, which I used to read all the time when I was teaching that subject.I have always been good at making lesson plans and assignments. What if I started a site with ones I could share with other teachers? I could even offer a service of creating lesson plans for a teacher who wanted a specific unit.

So . . . I’m off again! Cooperation and creativity are soaring. But I somehow think I should have chosen “focus” instead of “calmness.”