Values and Habits

 Googling "values", I get articles with titles such as "Core Values List: Over 50 Common Personal Values" or "39 Core Values -- and How to Live by Them" or "Examples of Core Values: 100 Powerful Principles".

The Mind Tools Content Team defines values:  "Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work."

The above definition suggests that values are a kind of internal compass that is used to guide behavior.  But this definition leaves an opening for the idea that a value is "how you characterize what you have already done" because it leave s out the method by which that "value" is arrived at.  This means that the value we choose to characterize a behavior is idiosyncratic.  But this also means that someone observing another's behavior can characterize that behavior as originating from another value.

In general, it seems that when someone says, "my values", they generally mean, "my habits".

This makes sense to me because when a habit is violated, one feels uncomfortable, which can provoke anger, anxiety, even fear.  These are emotions provoked when something personally important is threatened, and "importance" is bedrock to the idea of value.

When we talk about "community values" it becomes even more likely that we are talking about behaviors, shared behaviors, expectations for behaviors, or interactions that fit expected patterns.  A close-knit community is one whose members know each other and know what to expect from each other, can be said to have "shared values".  Even a caste or class society can be said to have shared values if the different classes or castes share the same behavioral expectations.