2. Family ISN’T Always Family BELIEFS AND VALUES can change Beliefs and values are very important in someone’s life. Throughout life situations these beliefs and values may be challenged. A belief is an idea that one holds close to them and a value is something that is important. They vary from person to person and usually these values and beliefs come from one’s surroundings, how they were raised and through life situations. There are many beliefs that I hold close to me. Examples would be culture, faith, education, experience, and the list goes on. I was taught these things by my mother and she passed them down to me, although, some beliefs were made on my own. These beliefs guide my life in the sense that decisions that I make are mostly based on them. I always go with my gut feeling or first choice because that is what I have learned through my beliefs. It all comes from experiences that I have endured. There is one specific event that I went through, that challenged my values of family and trust at the same time and it made me rethink my values and beliefs. There was this man who was close to my family for all of my life, so I automatically think of him as my family. He was always around so it was easy to consider him one of us. Recently, he started to take interest into my mother but he was still family to me so I did not think anything of it. He was the type of person to do anything for my brothers and me. One day, he even surprised me with a car that he had but would never use, and knew that I would make a great use of it. Back to my mother, she never thought of him as anything besides a friend/family so she declined him, of course this made him upset. I do not live with my mom so when he had given me the car, I drove it back down to my dad’s house in Virginia where I lived. So, because my mother had declined him, he had gotten so mad as to drive all the way down to Virginia from New Jersey to take his car back from me. He never told me that he was coming to get the car, I found out on my own when I went to take the car to work and it was gone. I had nothing to do with what was going on with him and my mother so it really bothered me when he took out his anger on me. I was very hurt by this, and even more hurt when he lied about it after I already knew that he came and picked up the car. This event in my life really challenged my views because I trusted him; he was like family to me. After it happened, it became really hard for me to trust anyone. It made it difficult to trust people, including family (which made it worse for others). I know that I should not have let him challenge my values like he did, but it was a hard situation to recover from. Nowadays, there is no relationship with him. My whole family disagreed with what he did to me. To this day, I still do not understand what his purpose was for taking his anger out on me, but it is not for me to understand. This whole situation taught me many things but what I got most from it is do not depend on anyone for anything, get everything on my own if I can. Values and beliefs are what my life is primarily based on. Every action that I make comes from a beliefs or value that I follow. It is normal for either of them to be faced throughout my life and I expect that. It is also understood that a belief or value can change completely. There are beliefs such as religion, that are sort of forced upon one based on parents and backgrounds but they can change. I do not appreciate the situation that happened to me, where my values were challenged, but I am thankful that I was able to get through it and still keep the same values in mind. I believe that my values of trust and family will never change completely. My beliefs and values are what make me who I am today. I am a better person today