Sociological Mindfulness

To myself this was a very easy reading. I feel as if I already knew all of this information that Schwalbe was discussing. Yet I think the purpose of this essay is to remind the reader of past information we have already learned. Its hard to argue that most of what he is saying is common sense, we have been taught ever since we were little to be respectful of others and treat them the way that you would want to be treated. Thats basically what this essay is saying. However Schwalbe seems to have thrown in a few twists by including the wealth factor as how people are sometimes lazy and dont want to add more rules to the way they think. I personally don't blame the average person for not wanting to add more rules to the way they think.

Schwalvbe uses the average person to take the blame for the mistreatments of others. Yet I think we should look more at the demands society places on us. The individual isn't the one to place the blame on, it is more of society and the way that it is run. What he disincludes in his essay is its okay to be a little selfish and think about yourself. In society today you almost have to in order to make yourself and your loved ones available to all the opprotunites that are possible. My mother tells me everyday how fortunate I am to have so much recourses available to me. I theorize that since my mom was selfish by using her rescources to make a better life for her and I, that in the long run its made me think of the bigger picture, and has made me want to go out and help the less fortunate. Yet if she was as selfless as this essay suggests, then I might have never learned about the less fortunate in the first place.Thus diminishing my dream of reaching out to aid others.

Is Scilence Itself Akward?

Today we started of class in scilence. It was the first day of a new class and not a ton of people knew each other, and its interseting because when people don't know each other they tend to keep to themselves and not talk to anyone. Yet in our minds we constantly try to find a way to start a conversation with someone we don't know. We try to find similarities between the person and our selves so that we can relate to them, become more open. This is the way we think and tend to act. It is also partially due to students being trained to sit and wait for the teacher to talk beacause that has been the rules for students ever since way back in grade school. However, I do not believe that this is the main reason why people found the scilence to be awkward. I believe that the main cause of the awkward scilence was that it was the first day of our new class and we rely on the teacher to be the first one to talk. Because if they don't talk then we are taught to think that we shouldn't talk at all either. Yet this only explains the scilence portion, the awkward part is created when we fail to find a similarity between other people and ourselves. We fail at this because we assume that we are not allowed to talk at all if the teacher is talking, and how can we ever find similarities between us to relate to one another if we think that we are not allowed to talk? I have two electives, this class and film. On my first day of film I realized that I was one of the last ones to come in. I noticed that some people were talking because they already knew each other. Yet when I took a second look I noticed that almost half of the class had yearning look on their face, almost as if they were going to die if the class didn't start soon. This was because they are dying to talk, they want their voice to be heard, and for some people the only way they can think to talk out loud is if the teacher calls on you or asks a question. This is the way people are taught to think , any slight change in the way they go about doing things seems unrealistic to them. So they just keep to themselves waiting for an opprotunity to approach them when in turn it really should be them who creates their own opprotunity.

Myself

I am a 17 year old junior who loves water polo, and aspires to become a doctor. Most of my family are in the Science/Medical field and they inspire me to do the same. I love my science class and am one of the few who actually love chemistry. Yet on the weekends I love to spend time with my friends and have tons of fun with them. I cant wait to become a senior so I can go back to Boston for college, where I originally came from. The biggest influences in my life are probably my mother as well as world idols who have changed the world based on their view of how the world should be. Demonstrating that one person can make a huge difference if given the opprotunity. My goal in life is to help the less fortunate and hopefully discover ways to help aid diseases with no yet found cure through my medical dream.