Controlling Your Own Destiny

Today in class Ms. Fainman told us about a student who told her that her parents were choosing her major. This went along with the article we read about a Chinese mother who was quite controlling and powerful in their child's lives.

I responded by saying that I thought that this was wrong, and that kids should for certain be the ones that are deciding their major.

Her rebuttal was that a 40-year old has more worldly experience than a 16-year old. I agree. In fact, that's part of why I have this opinion in the first place.

How do you get experience in the first place? By doing things! By succeeding, and of course, failing. People change careers. People switch majors. And I feel that this is not at all a problem, if the person reaches the right major them eventually. If a parent chooses their kid's major, and doesn't let them change, and tells them what career to have, then they are taking away something that could potentially be a major source of happiness (if, of course, the chosen major is not what the child wants to do.)

Now, financially speaking, doing what you want to do can also have benefits. In classes where I enjoy the subject, I am more inclined to improve and learn. With that in mind, is it not logical to believe that one who is enjoying their profession would be more inclined look for ways to get better?

In today's competitive world, it's no longer good enough to just get a degree. That's not what you need anymore. In today's world, you need motivation. You need to have a fire under your [explicit]. You need to get better, and once you've gotten better, you have to go back to the drawing board and keep improving.

Thus, I feel that a person who handpicked their field would be more inclined to keep their job, get promoted, and or become recognized in their field than someone who is just in it because of their parents.

American Culture

Throughout the week in Sociology, we have learned about culture in other regions.

We saw a series of memorable videos about problems that can happen when people go to other nations with their own specific cultures. My favorite was the one where a British man is eating with a group of Chinese people. In England it is a custom to finish the entire plate of your food; in China, if you finish your food that means you aren't full. This is made worse because the food is an eel, something that the British man finds repulsive.

In America, we are a competitive group of people. We like building things- as kids, we build with LEGOs and Lincoln Logs, and as adults we build with stocks and factories. Capitalism has become a part of our way of being, making us aggressive and always on our toes. Some might view this way of life as greedy, and one could defend it by saying that we just want to put food on the table.

Today in class we watched a video with Oprah where she visited Denmark, a socialist nation. It was almost like an advertisement for the country, which seemed like a great place to visit or live in. But I personally would feel like I wouldn't even have a reason to work with a 50% income tax. And I imagine a lot of Americans would agree with me, as American culture is all about independence, competition, and of course, materialism (the tiny apartment in Denmark was the definition of not being materialistic and still being happy.)

Clearly there is no way to quantify happiness. We will never be able to truly know if they are happier than us. But what I know is that I'm proud of America, and that if I were born and raised and accustomed to Denmark's ways of living I'd be just as proud to live there too. It's all relative- a good example of this is the kid's room in Denmark. It was tiny little room, and I imagine a kid from America would cry and refuse to live in that thing. But "Denmarkians" don't know any better (Danish people, I know) and they have nowhere else to live besides that teeny tiny room.

Culture Conflict

This summer I experienced an issue that was caused by two different cultures. I worked at a summer camp, and each cabin had a separate small room for the staff members. There was a bunk bed and a cot, and the cot was where the oldest counselor would sleep (there were two counselors and one specialist in each cabin) and it was a sign of respect to the oldest counselor, or a kind of privilege.

The problem here was that our specialist was from Israel, and he didn't really care about or understand the culture we had at our camp. He was the oldest out of us three, and thought that because he was the oldest, he should get the cot. (Note: I was the youngest and a first year counselor. There was no way I was getting the cot.)

So these two went on and on, arguing about how they thought things should be. In the end, they made a compromise- they would switch after half of the summer was over, so they'd get even amount of time on the cot.

In the end though, the oldest counselor got the cot for the whole time because the specialist didn't seem to care after that fight. This was a firsthand experience of two conflicting cultures, the camp culture vs. Israeli standards. It's a good thing that this argument was over something really stupid like a cot, and not something serious, because they both were stubborn and weren't going to change their minds.

Do Nothing

This week I was given a challenge that required me to test my patience and put me out of my comfort zone. The challenge was to do nothing for ten minutes.

I am a pretty self-conscious person. I can't say that I don't like attention, because I do like certain types of attention. If a teacher points out something I've done in front of the class and says it's good, I like that kind of attention. If I tell a funny joke and people laugh, I like being noticed.

But in this case, I was supposed to just stand there and do nothing. You see, this is not the kind of attention I like; this is the kind of attention where people can judge me for how I look, and how I act. In the other cases, people were focusing on something I had created, something I was proud of or worked hard on. In this case, all of their focus goes on to me, myself, and I.

Fortunately, I chose a place to stand for ten minutes that people would just pass by me without noticing. Tons of people went by me in the wood commons. I didn't even get laughed at or anything of that sort. Most people didn't even notice me! It was a huge relief.

The biggest challenge was actually standing there for ten minutes without thinking. I like to think I'm not a boring person, and if I can be thinking deeply I can entertain myself. However, I was not supposed to be thinking about anything at all in this situation. So I was bored out of my mind! I checked my phone for the time constantly (which I guess broke the rules, but I didn't care) because I was waiting for it to be over so I could do something again.

Doing nothing can potentially allow you to put yourself out of your comfort zone and into the real world. For me, it definitely made me uncomfortable. But it is not something I would want to do again; if I had hypothetically gotten a higher understanding of the world around me, I'd be more inclined to do this again. But nothing of that sort happened. In fact, nothing happened.

Freud

This week at school was a good week at school because it wasn't much of a week of school at all. Having two days off in the middle of the week and then having to go back on a Friday is both awful and awesome. It's kind of like tomorrow (this is being written on Thursday) is both a Monday and a Friday. I'm coming back from two days off, but getting ready for two more days off.

This Monday in class we were given a post-it note that told us what we were to read about it in our textbooks. Although it wasn't as good as having two snowdays, I was happily surprised to get Sigmund Freud. I was in psychology last semester and he's a really interesting person.

Considered the father of psychoanalysis, Freud talked about the importance of our subconscious thoughts and how they affect our every day lives. He believed that each person had an id (representing primal instincts and evil thoughts), superego (representing kindness and empathic thoughts), and the ego (the happy medium that is affected by the other two). A good metaphor for this that I learned in psychology was to think of it like a cartoon.

In lots of cartoons, the hero or some character will be faced with a decision. On one shoulder stands a demon (id), and on the other stands an angel (superego). In the middle of course, is the person himself(ego).

What does this have to do with sociology? Well, if we believe Freud's theories, then when looking back on someone's actions, we have to not only look at the obvious motives, but we also have to think about someone's innermost, deep thoughts. It's fun to try and predict what someone else is thinking, but as Freud points out, it's not easy at all.

Abandon Ship!

Today in class we ran a simulation, where a group of 16 people were in a sinking boat and had to decide who to keep and who to kick off.

I played the role of a Nobel Prize winning writer. I knew that I was going to get kicked off, and I was. This was because... well, I don't know why I was kicked off! People just picked whoever had a title like "Super strong man" and "Athletic dude" because that is what they valued! Even though I was 39 and able-bodied, I got kicked off when a pregnant woman and a couple of other woman were still aboard! No offense, but they just weren't as good of options as I was!

I didn't even try to stay aboard because I knew I'd get kicked off. A group of a few girls just kept yelling and screaming, and everybody voted off who they wanted to vote off. And I knew they wanted me gone. I was #6 on the list of people to vote on, and because of that, I was a prime suspect. The last person on the list was a poet; if I went, he should have too!

Anyway, if this were real life, I would have put up a fight. I would have been active in the debate and I wouldn't have gone down. But this wasn't real life, and people's real personalities outweighed the character that they assumed. Unfortunately, the simulation was just that, and not a perfect representation of what would actually occur.

The Sound of Silence

Silence. In a library or a classroom during a test, silence is ideal. Whether you are reading a book or marking a Scantron, you're going to want to be able to think. In fact, any noise-makers in this situation might receive a violent "Shh!" or get their tests taken away. In this case, everything is best when muted.

On the flip side, in social situations, silence is a sign of social ineptness, a conversational faux pas. If you can't come up with anything to say to a person, it says a lot about your relationship. Either you have spoken together so often that you have run out of things to say, or you just don't know what to talk about. Maybe you are just meeting this person, maybe you are in a bad mood, or maybe your friend is the one who lacks the social skills required to maintain an actual conversation.

Regardless, society generally views an awkward silence as a highly negative situation, something that only comes about when someone really messes up. If Jimmy tells a great joke, and Sally follows up with another knee-slapper, everyone in a close vicinity will laugh hysterically. But as soon as Billy tells a real stinker, it's as if nothing had happened before it. Because when Billy created an awkward silence, he completely killed the mood. And you know Billy will never hear the end of it.

I have been Billy many times before. Being the person who creates an awkward silence is an awful experience. In order to reverse the effects of an awkward silence, it's likely that people in the conversation will ask simple potential conversational starters... Things that generally would be laughed at, but necessary at this point to get a conversation going again.

Silence, like many other things, is viewed differently in different situations. We view people who talk in libraries as disrespectful. We view people who talk during tests as cheaters. But when we are being social, silence is something that should be avoided. Silence is a perfect example of something that could have a stigma in one situation and could be desired in another.