What it is
In ethics and the social sciences, value is the degree of importance of something or an action, used to decide what’s best to do or how best to live. A person’s values “provide an internal reference for what is good,” and they move behavior alongside needs and habits.
The psychologist Shalom Schwartz defines values as “conceptions of the desirable” that guide how people choose and judge.
How it shows up for me
I asked “define value, let’s go deep” one night in 2025, and it sent me down the path that became the Values shelf in this notebook. Writing mine down made them something I could check my days against, instead of something I just felt.