Paul in Qatar and I had a personal encounter recently that started badly and ended wonderfully, and the core of it came down to the issue of acting in accordance with your values.
Do you really know what your most important values actually are? (you’d be surprised how many people don’t)
I wish I WASN’T true to my values. It’s cost me so much in financial success over the years. When I think of all the lost money, well it makes me sick. And while I can’t take it with me, I sure am not enjoying anything while I’m here here. 
Possibly the greatest Username/Post combo of all time.
Lack of impulse control, mostly. Followed by lots and lots of repentance and guilt.
Sometimes, though, it’s because I haven’t realized the possible/probable consequences of my actions/words, and wind up doing something that I thought was perfectly acceptable but winds up having results that are contrary to my value system.
I have essentially no “values” so whether or not I act in concert with them is not a logical question. Or I guess you could say that whatever I do is ipso facto aligned with my ‘values,’ by the simple fact that I have done it.
The fact that I have acted in a certain way is all that is meaningful.
I like the honesty in the poll. I think it’s probably about right. The personal gratification and lack of impulse control, I mean.
Usually only when extracting information to defuse ticking time bombs. Occassionally, when forced to do so by the terrorists who have kidnapped my family.
Technically wouldn’t that option cover all the rest, too? Even money you need is for gratification.
Still, I got what you meant, and chose that one. I’m a bit of a pleasure junky, which is why I stay away from even alcohol…
My big downfall is love…or at least something I call “love” when I’m in it. I’ve got a bit of a co-dependent streak that causes me to abandon reason and gleefully give up everything I believe in the moment someone shows me some attention. I’m working on this one.
Stoid:
You forgot “laziness.”
Also, “cowardice”.
Good point.
Personal gratification is one of my values.
Yep, everything I do is to make myself happy either in the short or long term or at a minimum less badly. I debated between I never act outside of my values but decided that for what you’re asking I don’t have any values.
I’d like to think I’m pretty darn good at consistently acting according to my values. Like Stoid, I definitely feel right is right regardless of whether I have ideological differences with someone. I would say I have a pretty high commitment to what’s actually true vs. what I would like to be true. I’m very forthright about my own flaws and not ashamed to say when I’m wrong. I am more interested in where the evidence is than being right.
However, when I do stray, it’s generally to protect my ego - not because of arrogance, but because my ego is kind of a fragile thing. I am one of those who just wishes everyone would get along, and when people are mean to one another or I perceive them as being mean to me, I get hurt, and then angry, and sometimes lash out defensively.
The most incredible and important thing I’ve learned over the past five years of (insert any number of negative nouns here) is this: none of it is personal.
Whatever people say or do, no matter how it looks, good or bad - it’s not about you. It’s about them. Same goes for your own behavior, of course. If they are mean to you, it’s not about you. If they are nice to you, it’s not about you. If they hate you - not about you. If they love you - not about you.
And then you flip it over, and find it’s all about you: are you pissed at someone? It’s about you. Do you love someone to pieces? It’s about you. Are you reacting in some way you would rather you weren’t? All about you.
We are all just working our shit with ourselves out via the relationships we have with others, but the “shit” itself is all contained within, which is where it will it will do its work, good or bad.
I have known this intellectually for a very long time, but I didn’t ever really feel it until the last few years. Once I did, it took away a lot of pain and anger. Not all of it, I’m human, I react, but I get over it incredibly fast and I don’t hold on to anything.
You may find it resonates with you as well. (You and I have dovetailed on a few similar topics, which is why I thought you might find it helpful to consider this.)
I went with never but that isn’t quite right. In an effort to be polite I’ll bend things a little if I’m the guest of someone else.
I can’t pick an answer, but the closest is NEVER!
And that is because one of my values is to greet human limitations (others’ and my own) with acceptance and compassion.
So one of my values is moderation, but I will sometimes overindulge in sweets. In a way, that’s violating my values due to impulse control, but it’s also within my values because I embrace the imperfection of every human.
I even fail to exercise compassion and acceptance of human imperfection (especially my own) relatively frequently! But I also accept *that *as part and parcel of being human.
But to answer more in the spirit of the question, I’d say lack of impulse control and ingrained habit are the chief reasons I act outside my values.
Same–I could have a lot more freakin’ cash right now if I took every opportunity to cheat the system that I’ve had over the years.
I tend to be too honest. I have a hard time lying and I believed that the truth mattered and that I needed to be honest. Someone pointed out a lie I made a few weeks ago and it’s been driving me crazy ever since. Did I lie? Did I misspeak? Did he mishear me? If I did lie, did I do it for a legit reason that I now can’t remember?
I recently went through a nasty divorce. I told the truth and I was punished severely for it. My ex lied through his teeth and was rewarded. My family and friends were nearly begging me to lie and I refused. I wanted to win and would do almost anything to have won, but I just felt that if I lied, no good would come out of it.
Sometimes I’m lawful stupid, honor before reason.
(And while I am generally honest, I do have things where I am more secretive and… not completely truthful. But at those times, it’s like George Costanza said: It’s not a lie if you believe it. So I’m honest enough to say that sometimes I’m a big fat lying hypocrite.)