My personal beliefs and values are supported by my dress and body adornment. Sometimes I wear jewelry that represents my individuality and sometimes I wear symbols of my religiousness and spirituality, like a temporary tattoo of an image of a dragon for example. For me it represents freedom, strength, independence and discipline. These values are very important for me. I also wear t-shirts with the image of a tiger, because this animal represents dignity, courage and fierceness and these values are, in my opinion, necessary to survive in the modern world.
I also like to be mainstream, so I wear jeans like many other people of all ages. That is something comfortable and is also, because of its origin, related to democracy and cosmopolitism as well, because when you look a people in the streets anywhere in the world, most of them will be wearing jeans.
Sometimes I wear shirts with buttons, when I want to represent the serious and hard-working side of myself. I think that people believe that a person is reliable, stable, decisive, honest and responsible, if they wear formal clothes. I think that it is a common belief.
For my leisure moments, I can dress alternatively as well. I could use temporary hair color and wear biker boots and leather jacket with Ray- Ban sunglasses, if I want people to see me as a free-spirited and a bit rebellious person, who will stand up for his rights.
This has changed over the years in the was that it dawned on me that I do not have to dress alternatively in order to show that I am an individual. Now, as I am older, I know that my behavior will show who I am as long as I am clean and in order. Cleanliness and orderliness are the values I appreciate. In my younger years, I paid less attention to what I was wearing, but serving in military for almost two years has taught me that content really is over form, but that a person has to be disciplined and ready for teamwork, collaboration and cooperation. I think that there is no place for self-consciousness and that everyone should accept themselves the way they are. No clothes can substitute personal values and beliefs if a person doesn't have them incorporated in their spirit, if they are not part of their being.
The core beliefs and values in my family were and are: commitment, personal growth, punctuality, reliability, self-discipline, stability, success, decisiveness, creativity, continuous improvement, fairness, democracy, freedom, generosity etc. I have already mentioned some of these, and what is common among them is that they are all very important to be a person of high moral character. There are also other values that are less "serious", but equally important like: fun, joy, happiness, friendship, pleasure etc. Both kinds of these values and beliefs are in my family crucial for a person to be a healthy adult individual.
The core beliefs and values in my peer community are individuality, freedom, democracy, friendship, equality, fun, integrity, tolerance etc. The last one, tolerance is the one I notice most of the time, because I come from another culture and everyone treats me as an equal and individual. Actually, we learn from each other. There are students from all over the world, from different cultural backgrounds in my university and we are all friends and respect each other. We have similar taste in music, food and art. We have similar life styles and we enjoy talking to each other about our differences, because, from the anthropological and philosophical points of view, these differences are very interesting. We live in harmony and that is a value that we all appreciate as well.
Member of my peer community are diverse. Some of them are mainstream, some are conservative in the way they dress and the others are trying to be different, they want to belong to such groups as "hipsters", "punkers", "rockers" and others. There are also people who are not very tolerant and are judgemental, but every society has such people. Not everyone can have high morals and not everyone comes from a family that took care of them and tried to bring them up to respect the others and their differences. In my opinion such people are not a major threat, but they might need psychological counseling in order not to accept themselves and the others more openly.
Members of my peer community dress according to their system of values. All of them are individuals and know that they can wear whatever makes them feel comfortable. However, as I have previously stated, being clean is not a choice, it is a matter of personal hygiene and therefore of health. Body adornment is optional. There are people with their body parts pierced, like their noses, eyebrows and tongues. Girls who tend to be popular pierce their belly buttons.
Many people work out in order to be attractive, but I think that it is also important for their health. Moderate exercise is every person's need and every doctor recommends that.
Some members of my peer group have tattoos, and they wear them proudly. I feel that they want to show everyone what they stand for and that they can do whatever they want with their bodies.
All in all, I believe that every person has a right to be an individual and no one should judge them if it does not jeopardize the others.
