The Quirks of Life

A couple semesters ago, I had a teacher bring up the idea of counterfeit forms of worth. These are items/standard/expectations/basically anything that we base our worth as a human being on. We discussed a few different things we place our value on. I've since noticed more forms of counterfeit worth, all of which I have held at least for a time. We can place our value on physical items, such as how much money we have or make, the grades we receive, our style , our home, and our beauty . We can also put our worth on how many friends or followers we have, how many likes we get, or how many compliments we receive. We can also place our worth on the quality of our relationships. On how hard we work or how talented we are. Or, in my case, how perfectly I hold up to the harsh standards I set up for myself. Thinking of all of these makes me feel like I'm clawing my way desperately to the top, unable to distinguish myself amidst all the clutter, and certainly unable to surface. Am...

As a student studying human development, I am often found in a class discussing the age old battle of nature and nurture. For those who do not know about this theoretical crusade, I will explain. In the 50s, there was a man named Watson who said he could make any child become what he wanted by changing his or her atmosphere (we all wonder at the state of his children). His argument was for NURTURE. He said that a person's environment determines who they are. Later, we had others come along who believed what makes a person (their choices, thoughts, etc) is their genetics. They argue for NATURE. Somewhere during the beginning of class, I realized that what I thought was an archaic argument is actually still raging on today.  By the end of our class discussion, it dawned on me that this war of words and ideas is based on the question                                        "Who a...

I was in class this week, learning about family paradigms. To be honest, I was a little bored, but as I've thought about what I learned, I've seen some amazing parallels to what I've been observing about life.  I never knew there were so many ways to define a family until I took this class. There are four “paradigms” that families typically fall under: the closed  family, the r A n d o m family, the open family, and the synchronous family.  Each family is characterized differently based on their attitude toward rules and how those rules come into being. Here’s a brief overview: The Closed Family. This family is defined by tradition. They love rules from a distinct authority figure and hate anything new from outside influences. They may not be the most welcoming and will probably not take change well. Think ‘The Croods’. The Random Family. Far away from a closed family, the random family is defined by individualism. They are go-with-the-flow and have no ...