The Next Generation

What are our human expectations, what are our limits?  Can one person change the world and make a difference to the billions of other people out there?  I believe this is possible by great means, one person can have enough power to make a difference, but they have to be committed and never give up.  The small group of people from the news article “The Next Generation” made a difference and are continueing to do so, and it begins with the want to make a change.  You may say donating a few dollars isn’t going to save the world, or are uncertain what that money is going to, but every donation to a poorer country makes a great difference, and believe it or not, but it saves many lives.

We are more capable of things that we could not imagine and we do not need to be a superhero to be able to do that.  It is because of doubt that most people do not follow through and extend there power to its full potential.  All it takes is time and commitment to change a person’s life and that makes all the difference.  We need to understand that it is up to us to make a difference, it’s not going to happen for us.  There are no limits to what we can do as far as I am concerned, you can see that by just looking how far we have come in this world and how adcvanced our society is.

This link leads to a site that shows just how easy it is to help people out and make a real difference.

http://www.freethechildren.com/getinvolved/buildaschool.htm

Jackie Chan, this video may seem irrelivent to you, but ijust chose it to show how much of a difference one man can make.

Self Concious And Doubt

  Doubting your decisions usually turns out poorly, sometimes, however, it works well.  If you have a decision to make and feel slightly towards whether or not to do it, you should do what you think is the better decision and not doubt yourself.  Usually second thoughts can lead to procrastination, which I believe to be the worse choice to make.  Don’t doubt your choices and never doubt your beliefs, those make you who you are and questioning them makes you question yourself.  You should be behind yourself completely at all times and follow through with what you want to do.  Why do people doubt themselves?  Usually when a decision becomes so closel to right or wrong, either choice you make might seem like the wrong one so you doubt whether or not to do it.  People also doubt themselves because their self-concious takes over and tells them they might be doing the wrong thing or not acting how they should.

   In Hamlet, Hamlet faces self doubt several times throught the whole story.  He doubts whether or not to believe the ghost and trys to prove it for himself, causing more trouble and conflict.  His doubt caused his procrastination and, sadly, leads to his death.  I believe the smartest thing to do is to not doubt what you do and go with what you feel is what you normally do.  It might be hard, but there is always a better decision and it’s up to you to make it.  Don’t hold back, it often leads to more mistakes, it never hurts to go for it and do what you think is right.  Everyone doubts themselves at one point or another, even after they make the decision they may still doubt themselves, but once it is done you should accept it and think about how it was the better choice.

Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=L_katrlLcyQ This clip is fit for this post because it shows how easy you can doubt yourself and what happens if you do.

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/self-doubt/ Some neat quotes on self doubt

Hamlet and Me

   I can not say that I am similar to Hamlet in many ways, but it depends how you look at it.  I can feel a connection in some areas of Hamlet that include some of the feelings he gets about losing someone.  I never have lost someone like he has, but can imagine the pain that he may have felt.  Then to have family betray him and his girlfriend leave him because of ranking in wealth and position.  I do not personally have that sort of connection, but it is easily imaginable how painful it is and do not think I would be able to handle it.  It is difficult in a way to relate to such a topic because it is so extreme and happened in a time when things were different. 

   I can understand what Hamlet is going through, but I can’t conect to it as well as someone who has been there and experienced it.  I have felt pain in losing someone, but not as strongly as Hamlet has and I cannot act the same way as he does.  Even though it is a story I know people have gone through such pain and some people cant handle it as well as others, but it depends on the circumstances of how you should act, and in Hamlet’s time, that seemed as an acceptable thing.

Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=hNVS59BF-vo It’s hard to connect to Hamlet due to the time and place, but it’s easy to understand what is going through his head and how he feels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet This site describes the setting and time of Hamelt showing why it might be hard to connec to.

Procrastination: Ups and Downs

   Does delaying the decisions that we eventually have to make allow things to become easier or more difficult.  This is another topic that goes both ways.  Holding off on certain decisions make things better while they also can make some things worse.  A decision, even small like whether or not to study for a test can cause problems.  You know you want to study, but you hold it off because you do not know what you want, then you end up cramming and possibly failing the test.  Some things just can’t be held off longer then needed or things become difficult.  People often hold back on feelings and that even makes things worse, such as not telling someone you like them, if you wait too long they might be taken and that even makes it hard for them.

   On the other side, holding things off may come in handy and benefit greatly.  Sometimes luck plays great effect in this, like signing up for somethingn you dont want to do, you want to back out, but decide to wait, and then they end up not needing you and you still look good for offering.  Sometimes you do certain things you dont want to, but hold back and things resolve themselves.  This isnt always the smartest thing to do, but if you get lucky it can save you doing something you don’t want to do. In Hamlet, written by Shakespear, Hamlet holds off his decision of what to do about his father’s death, and it leads to his death.  He holds back too long because he is not too sure about what is going to happen, and it does not benefit his situation at all.  Waiting on certain decisions can be good or bad, you need to think deeply about each decision.

Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=U921abH7jIk He makes a good point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination For those of you who don’t know what procrastination is.

Predictable Feelings

  One of the biggest things in all of everyone’s life is related to relationships and love.  Relationships can make people happy, and unfortunatly, miserable.  Can relationships be predicted, do you have the ability to know what couple will last and be able to read the signs that show whether or not someone likes another?  Many relations can be predicted, but some arent so easy.  When people first start out, some people wonder why they are attracted to each other and believe that it will not last, but in the end lasts forever, while other people may see a perfect couple who do everything together who last a week.  Every relationship is different, but if you see someone doing something completely wrong or ignoring their partner, it isn’t bound to last for long.

  Some people know what to do in a relationship and that causes it to last much longer then some people expect, but do we want to know what is going to occur and call every move.  Some people do want to know, while others like life as a suprise.  So some relatiponships are easily predictable and people can understand what will happen, but many others can say that they do not understand what will happen and things come completely unexpected.  As much as we do want or even don’t want to know what is going to, its not up to us.  We can think we know what is going to happen and sometimes things do not turn out the way we expected, but predictability is not always something people wish to have and finsing out once it happens is the best answer.  

Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=4DC4Rb9quKk This music video by Chris Brown involves one girl, a nerd and a jock.  Who do you think will get the girl, and what makes you think that.

http://meganelle111.learnerblogs.org/2008/04/21/march-10-human-relationships-are-they-predictable/ This, accidentally, is Megan’s blog post, but it shows that relationships may be both predicatable or not.

Human Instict Vs Reason

   We recently did debates in class and I was given the instint being stronger then reason partnered up with Brandon.  We put up a strong debate and proved how instinct could be stronger then reason, even though it may not be a good thing.  We showed how the human’s basic instints overpower their reason in many cases.  Such a case would be a reflex where you drop something, such as a knife, even though it is dangerous to catch, you go for it anyways.  we were put up against very good comments on how reason is used to make the important decisions, but luckily for us the debate was to prove that instinct is more powerful then reason and we showed instinct to come out first.  Survival instinct is another proof[ that overpowers reason.  We will do whatever possible to surivive and may not even stop to think of it.

   In the debate I believed what I was defending and that made things come easier to mind.  It was easier to prove that instinct comes naturally before reason, because for most it seems like a fact.  Sometimes we are not given time to think things through and we just go with what we think is rightm and this may be good or bad.  It makes things easier, but may cause us to say the wrong things or act how we normally would not act.  Our reason controls us from doing things that we just want to let out, and without our reason chaos would take over.  In the end, however, a great deal of our toughest decisions come from our instinct taking over.

Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=eplEdTE8RHo This video plays quite quickly, but after watching it several times you may start to realize the goalie throws his arms in front of his face to try to avoid getting hit by the ball even though he has very little time to think about it.

http://www.tvfactual.co.uk/human_instinct.htm I used this site’s information as part of my debate because it shows the different and main types of human instincts.

Orwell’s Decision: Right Or Wrong

   In the short story, Shooting An Elephant, a man of authority is out into a situation that pressures him into a decision that he didn’t want to make.  Orwell, the main charactor, was on watch to protect the people at his command post somewhere in Africa when an elephant came rampaging through the village.  Orwell was informed of this immediately and sent for an elephant gun in means of defence.  He did not plan on doing this, but in case something went wrong he would have it ready.  The elephant came through one of the streets, stomping and killing one of the men, once down it walked a short distance out of the village where Orwell followed it.  On his way he realized that almost the whole village had followed him to the elephant and they were pressuring him to shoot the elephant, even though the elephant had calmed down.  After a while of thinking, Owell could not dissapoint the people so he took aim and fired several times killing the elephant.

   Many people are put into decisions which the right decision is difficult.  People give into pressure even if it forces then to do the wrong thing.  Orwell could not let the people leave without a show so he did what he knew was wrong and gave in, and then convinced himself that it was alright.  Overall through my life I have not given into peer pressure easily, I am fairly good at telling my friends no when the decision they want me to make is wrong or not something I would do.  I can say that if I were every put in a similar situation I would be able to say no and even walk walk away with hundreds of people standing in the way.  I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do something that I believe is so wrong, killing an elephant is, in my opinion, a terrible thing to do. 

Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=zwSqUqOn9Ok Orwell under went peer pressure, as many teens do each year.

http://www.kidshealth.com/kid/feeling/emotion/peer_pressure.html If you learn how to avoid it, it won’t happen to you.

Human Qualities

   As we know people can be assumed to be many things, but human qualities are the main traits used to measure your identity.  Your characteristics are what show people who you are, and its up to you to show those characterictics.  You need to show people who you really are in order for them to know you.  Some people can share the same human quality, but that puts them no where close to being the same as you.  One trait can be shared between two people, but those two people can use it to their own way.  This can be showed through a physically strong person and a mentally strong person, both qualities can be classed as strong, but are put to used in seperate ways. 

   Humans become unique throughtout their qualities and those are what give us our identity.  We are born with all equal traits and characteristics, but those traits are shaped as we learn from our environment and family.  Our traits become our qualities and we are the ones to control what happens to who we are.  I can be friendly, but it is easier if I grew up around friendly people and my parents taught that to me as a child.  We are shaped mainly by who we hang out with and the society we are in, and how we act reflects on our qualities.

Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=4GHvuLwCIt4 This video works wel by showing how Superman uses his abilities to do good, it is how he was raced and shows his caring qualities, while other people such as Lex Luther use there power for evil.

http://wblrd.sk.ca/~elab30rcts_dev/in_search_of_self/human_qualities/admirable_qualities_student_page.htm Many people may interpret the advice given at this site, but I beieve they are trying to show it is how you use your traits that make you who you are.

What Makes You You

   How can someone judge on what makes you you, it is very similar to labels in a way that appearance determines a great factor of it.  Can you take a look at someone and not give the smallest judgement on what they are like, it is near impossible.  If you see a 200 pound man bulging with muscles, it is doubtful your first impression of him will be emotional.  So how do we measure identity?  This is an extremely hard task to do without getting to know someone first, measuring somebodys humor cannot be done without talking to them. 

   So as much as looks play an effect on who you think someone is, it cannot be done until getting to know them first.  Looks are often the first thing considered when meeting someone, and that causes a first impression, good or bad.  Then once you begin to hang out with somebody and get to know them you will learn more about them and might even think their looks are completly wrong for what you assumed.  Personality, even though it may be the most important, is definetly not the most used way of getting to know someone, first impressions may come from appearance or how high his voice is.  Take a minute to talk to someone, it is the only way to get to know them. 

Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=zYkv9I96AGg If you pay close attenion to this video at approximately 1 min and 30 sec you will see a huge football player being very emotional, so does being huge make him a real man or does crying make him a baby, appearance plays a huge role in what makes you you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emotions This link leads to a list of emotions, only to show that emotions are a huge part of who we are, but they go underestimated.

Labels And A Person’s Self Of Sense

   What are the influences on identity?  Who is to say what descirbes you and who you really are.  Everyone can say what they think of you, but what makes it true?  Everyone has a different perspective on what someone is like and even the things you call them.  Someone who thinks I am funny could have a different description of funny compared to someone who doesn’t even know me.  Are my jokes funny, or is it the way I say them.  People have different perceptions on what the meaning of a certain trait is.

   Hearing what people think of me can mean different things depending on who says them.  A friend may call me weird and it will not affect me, but hearing it from just anyone could hurt.  A label that I am called may even shape how I see my self, making my self consious or confident.  Some things that people say do not affect me, but other people may care about what every single person, stranger or not, thinks about them and that shapes who they are.

Video At… http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZP1USaPMXpI

Is this video funny, well to some it may be, perception plays a huge role on labels and this video can show how I could be found funny by by jokes to one person or talk funny to another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_john I chose this link to show how people such as Elton John are judged by there personal life and become labelled.  Many people think differently of John because of his sexuality, but if we did not know this more people would focus on things such as his music.