Love, bubs and life on our little farm

Week 2 challenge: Go through the process and define your top 5 core values including ranking them.

 I have been thinking about this challenge all week. I find I am a little Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde between my working week and my family-centred weekends. My focus and priorities tend to shift between the two personas. But I think I have covered both my "lives" in these values.

Please feel free to add your own values in the comments if you want to play along. There is no right or wrong. I am sure regular readers of my blog will not be surprised by my list - I think I am fairly open and predictable in how I try to live my life. And I totally understand that these values may not suit others, but I have tried to explain my outlook/backgroun on each of my 5 core values.

1. Love
2. Health
3. Success
4. Empathy and Compassion
5. Environmetal awareness


1. Love: Not an uncommon value, I know. But it is most important to me to have love in my life - love in all it's forms, the love of a life partner, the love of a mother, the love of having children, the love of being a sister and the love of friends. I think anyone that has lost family or seen people grieve the loss of someone they love, will believe my conviction that little else is right with the world when you don't have people to love and love you. Being a trillionare would be pretty empty without feeling that you are special to someone. How do I live my value? Well I don't sweat the small stuff with those that I love, I am quick to forgive and forget, it isn't worth the effort to dwell. I choose to try and embrace those around me warts and all.

2. Health: Life is precious and I subscribe to the theory that your body is a temple. I refuse to have a body that is unhealthy in ways that I can control. I exercise, I never eat fast food, I do not drink soft drink, I feed my family healthy balanced meals, we do not buy chips, lollies or chocolate. I live rurally and I spend hours outside being active breathing fresh air under a clean sky and close to bare earth - good for every part of my body. I can't stop myself from getting many illnesses but I can control these things and I live my life accordingly.

3. Success: This is not as materialistic as it sounds, I promise. My husband and I are both ambitious people who thrive on challenge and hard work. I feel  rewarded when I am achieving in my career. It is hard to explain but for my mental well-being I need to be working and good at that work. It makes me content and content is all I need to be, to choose to be happy.

4. Empathy and Compassion: I try to live my life without judging people as much as I can - hard but practice makes perfect I tell myself! The best way to do this is to try to understand other people - a little empathy goes a long way. I felt that Compassion was similar enought to be combined as a value- in particular I live with compassion for animals and their voiceless plight. I stop for injured animals on the side of the road - my blood boils that people will hit native animals and not even stop, as if their lives and their suffering is worthless. Don't even get me started on how upset I get over animal cruelty stories. I take rescue animals into my home - one of my horses is an ex-starvation case, my cat rescued from death row, our chickens saved from culling at a battery hen farm. You gain when you give. And giving time costs nothing. I volunteered for years with a mobile soup kitchen, offering a listening ear to those who just wanted to chat - I learnt how quickly you can fall in life and why it is so important to look at people with an open mind and heart.

5. Environmental Awareness: It is a value that needs work in my life but I do try to embrace it as much as I can in my everyday life. I do not believe that we should live our energy heavy life without trying to lighten our footprint. I avoid turning on air conditioners - it pains me hearing how little thought people have on how environmentally unsustainable this style of living is. Our home is built with thick insulation, ceiling fans, cross breezes, and wrap around verandahs to keep the hot sun off. Modern homes are too often built practically eaveless with useless windows and no cross ventilation - that is not the right design for our climate but is "stylish". I recycle everything I can. All of our food waste is composted - I have never lived without a compost bin and being at other people's houses where food goes into the regular bin always shocks me as I am so used to composting! And my biggest pet hate of all - people who throw cigarette butts on the ground or out car windows - uuurrrrghh!!!