This category groups together our posts on a greater purpose in life. By discussing and talking about subjects that could motivate you or ourselves into doing something bigger than just us.
It was a Thursday evening. Exams were arriving, deadlines were approaching, work was due, and for some reason, I didn’t care. Well, I did… but I guess I also didn’t. I definitely did not want to fail my next microbiology test, but I guess what I wanted, what I really wanted, was something a bit more important.
That evening marked my third visit to the hospital in the last two weeks. Not for myself, but for my roommate. Recently being hospitalized for suicidal behavior, she had become a danger to herself and needed temporary twenty-four-hour professional help.
Living with her for over a year now, the room felt different without her. It felt unbalanced, as if the equilibrium that held my day to day life together was suddenly pulled apart.
Visiting her was good. She needed a friendly face and I was more than willing to provide one. And I certainly was not going to allow my friend to suffer alone. So I would visit, we would talk, and I would leave. A simple pattern, but it was not until that evening, that Thursday night, I realized just how taxing it was on me.
As much as I didn’t want it to, my life was continuing without me. It was moving along and I was stuck in limbo thinking about my friend. I care about her, and therefore I feel for her. I want the best for her and that is why I would never hesitate to help in any way I can. Yet my life did not feel the same.
My school deadlines approached at the same speed they always had. They didn’t wait for me or my friend, they just came crashing in. Sadly, I also felt that I had no excuse. I wasn’t the one in the hospital. I wasn’t struggling every day to fight a condition that overrides the brain. No, I was fine, or at least I wanted to be.
I wanted to be the rock that I always dreamed of. The empathetic friend who could care and help others without growing tired. The hero who could save the day and then relax as if it was just another day.
The issue is that doing so is rather impossible. To be empathetic is to feel for others. To take in their emotions and filter them out into a cleaner, purer vision. Yet sometimes the filter needs to be replaced. Occasionally it itself needs to be filtered, and that is always a bit tricky because how do you clean the thing that normally does the cleaning?
I write this piece to not discourage helping others, for that is the last thing I would even want to say, but to instead encourage helping everyone, even the heroes. Even the empathetics who spend their lives helping people. They are great at it, but if you care about them then I bet you would be pretty great at it too.
One person can not help all the time, but by taking turns someone can help all the time. I would not ask my hospitalized friend to help me at that moment, and I would not discontinue my trips and care for her. Yet I may reach out for someone else. A friend who is doing okay at the moment, and once my friend and I are stabilized, we can take turns returning the favor with someone else in need.
Of course, some of us are better at this job than others, but I believe we can all try to help one another. We can all try to show our empathy and sympathy for one another rather than relying on the heroes to do the job for us. Because the heroes are good, but they are not gods. They grow tired, therefore it is up to all of us to keep all of us safe and happy.
What do I do? Sitting in a chair, stuck to the wall. Bound by tradition. Bound by “respect”. Respect your elders they say. Listen to them, maybe you will learn something. The thing is I do listen, but I also listen to everyone else. Everyone has a voice and those who choose to use it should be heard.
I was sitting in the Binghamton University Psychology Department when I heard a whisper. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Stop. At first, I was confused. Was I really hearing that? and if I was who was saying it?
Then I noticed, off of the reflection of a whiteboard, a man turning his head side to side as he whispered a conversation. He appeared to be turning his attention to someone, or something, in the room. Reassuring that thing that he would be done soon, and to stay calm. The issue is, after later investigation, I came to find out there was nothing else. His conversation was not with another person, but instead with himself.
Of course I could not be sure of this at the time, but those were certainly my initial thoughts. Having experienced schizophrenic type episodesin my life, I initially related my own experience with what he was doing. He seemed conflicted and almost scared. I empathize with him. I started reflecting back on my experiences and wondering how severely the illness was affecting him. How was it affecting his social life? Did his family know? Did he have any family?
All these thoughts came rushing in, but the most prominent one was whether he was okay or not. As I continued to eavesdrop on his small talk, I increasingly became worried about him. Was he okay? Did he need to talk to someone? Did he want to talk to someone? I didn’t know, and I still don’t.
After my five minutes of analysis and reflection, I decided that I should attempt to reach out. He is a human being, and like all human beings, he deserves love (not the most popular opinion of mine, but maybe I will write a post explaining why I think that).
What made this situation so weird, was that he was not another student. He was a professor. He was an authority figure with a title that I could only dream of reaching. He was, to my emotional self, superior to me.
Our inability to challenge our “superiors”, comes up in a number of issues. One example, outside of the article I hyperlinked above, is commonly referred to as memory banking. This term is used to describe the nearly worldwide education system of teachers telling, and students memorizing. There is little room for questioning or discussion, which leads to a decrease in creativity and an increase in blind faith. It also creates a mindset that teachers, and professors, are above their students. That their thoughts are unchallengeable. Therefore a hierarchy of power emerges, one that has a profound effect on both the students and teachers.
This mindset scared me, but I was not about to let it stop me. As said before, this professor is a person, and like us all, he deserves love. I did not think that I could simply walk up to him and request his deepest darkest secret. Therefore I instead did what any rational human would do, I googled him. Since he was in his office, I was able to read his name off the wall and within seconds I had his bio on my Google Chrome tab.
After reading about his research interests, I had a clear idea on how to begin our conversation. With a bit of hesitation, I knocked on his door and introduced myself. He seemed a bit confused, as I am sure I did too, and we began to talk about his research.
I told him that I was considering switching my major and that I would like a better picture on what he does on a day to day basis. A bullshit excuse to talk, but one nonetheless. After I finished telling him about this, he proceeded to tell me the very thing I asked about. A lot of neuroscience terms I will never hear again, some pictures, a few graphs, and a long awkward silence after he finished.
I didn’t know what to say. Do I ask now? He seems fine. Scratch that, he seems annoyed I am even bothering to talk to him. These thoughts filled my brain and before I could think otherwise, I left.
I didn’t answer his whispers. I didn’t help him. And if anything, I just pissed him off. I don’t like that I did that. That I failed to act. That I allowed fear to consume me to the point I could not complete my mission.
But that is not what makes me the saddest. What makes me the saddest is that I know where his office is. I know his name, and I know his office hours. I could have gone to him today or tomorrow or next week. The thing is I won’t. I don’t know why I won’t, but I know I won’t. I want to, I really do, but uncertainty and fear will not allow me to. I am fighting myself, and in doing so I am failing to help. Failing to do the very thing I set out to do.
Sometimes things don’t have a happy ending. Sometimes we don’t turn out to be the hero’s we always thought we were. I suppose that is something that we have to learn to live with or to fight against. Usually, I fight, but I guess not this time. I suppose even the hero’s fail sometimes. And I suppose even fighters need to lose occasionally.
I may have failed him, but I hope someone else doesn’t. Someone different than me. Hopefully, they can finish what I couldn’t. But it’s that hope that makes us feel better. The process of reassuring ourselves that the issue will be resolved even if we failed. Because then in a way our failure is rather minimal. I failed him, not much else is as objective as that.
I came out of high school knowing one thing, that I should be an engineer. With little thought, everyone encouraged me to pursue this amazing profession. I mean how could they not. With the high pay, huge job market and respected field of study, there was no reason to not be an engineer. Therefore, whether it was my teachers, family, or friends, they all said one thing, engineering was meant for me.
In a sense, they weren’t wrong. I am skilled at problem-solving, along with mathematics and science. The left side of my brain has dominated my intelligence for years, allowing me to strive in classes that some cannot.
At first, it appeared that math and science were the only things I could do well. Yes, I had side skills and intelligence, but none of which were taken seriously in school. Sure, I had a knack for understanding people, but I never took a high school class that gives an “A” for psychoanalyzing my friends. I was good at math and science, and that was all that mattered because it was going to make me a well-paid engineer.
I thought this for the first two months of college until I realized how wrong I really was. With taking my first sociology class ever, I realized how relevant those side skills actually were. Not only that, but I also found a passion in the class, I actually wanted to learn. For the first time in my life I actually began learning material outside of the course. I started watching TED talks, reading articles, and getting involved in long discussions with my friends. All of which I was choosingto do.
With little to no hesitation, I added a minor in sociology. I was thrilled. I could now be an engineer that also learned about the things that interested me. And it only took a few months later for me to fully come to terms with what I was discovering. This was something that I had known for many years, but was too afraid to say out loud. That truth was that I was not going to be an engineer.
I denied this because it was complete insanity compared to everything I had been taught. My path was simple, I was good at math and science, so engineering was good for me. It would give me money and I would live a happy life. Yet deep down I knew that I would never be happy making robots for some company. Deep down I knew the things that interested me had nothing to do with engineering, and that these side interests were inevitably going to become my life.
So there I was, first year of college complete with no idea of what I wanted to do, yet very well knowing I did not want to do what I was currently doing. Thankfully, by the end of the year, I was able to discover the right path for myself and acted on it. I am now majoring in sociology and statistics with the intention of becoming a social researcher. With the help of friends and academic advisors I was able to find what interests me, and then pick a career that was both logical and desirable.
For my next post, I will be writing about how I interpret the bigger picture of my education story. Along with a system that I believe will help students decide on a career path that they both want to do and can easily pursue. So feel free to read Our Biased School System Part 2
Have you ever taken a second to question where your daily motivation comes from? Ever considered what makes you wake up in the morning and begin another day? I for one have. And honestly, it allowed me to consider some remarkable information and ideas about how and why we function.
The human race has three known motivations, three driving forces that get us to do everything we do every day. The first is our motivation to live. For example, when one is thirsty, he or she is motivated to drink a glass of water. This motivation is rather simple and seemingly self-explanatory. A species unmotivated to live will simply cease to. So, of course, we are motivated to live because if we were not, then we would not have made it this far.
Our second motivation is through rewards and punishments. We see this in any modern, capitalist business. If one works hard, they get a raise. If one works inefficiently, they are fired. This idea has been implemented into the majority of businesses for the last hundred years.
We also see examples of this in how our government runs. When people follow the law, they are provided with rights, such as the ability to vote, health services, and basic freedoms. When people break these laws, all those rights vanish and are replaced with forceful imprisonment. Fear to break the law has been a tactic used for thousands of years and has been working relatively well.
Economies and governments, around the world, use this innate response to get us to do what we are told. It is the current primary tool within most first world countries, which is not terrible. It is a lot better than using the first motivation, I would not enjoy a world where we are starved for going above the speed limit. This is why I do not totally hate our current system, but I also do not totally love it either.
The last of the motivations is our drive to expand the knowledge and skills of ourselves and our community. In an experiment to test this third motivation, researchers gave dozens of chimpanzees a simple jigsaw puzzle once a day. There was no incentive of any sort to do the puzzle, no food attached, no zookeeper pushing the chimps toward the puzzle, nothing. Regardless, every day the chimps would work vigorously to complete the challenge. As each day passed, the chimps became experts at these simple games. On average, they continually beat their times from the day before as the weeks went on.
These results made a firm conclusion that there must be a third motivation since neither of the first two were being fulfilled in this experiment. They found that we are simply motivated to learn, which makes complete sense. By improving our knowledge and skills we are more equipped to handle any future situations presented to us; as well as giving us something to be passionate about. Right now, I am writing, and you are reading, because we want to be more insightful on our motivations. We want to be knowledgeable people because the more knowledge we have, the more we can hopefully help ourselves and others around us.
Therefore, with all of this in mind, I wonder why this isn’t our motivation in society? Why do we rely on rewards and punishment, rather than having people simply fulfill their desire to better themselves? I believe the answer to these questions is outdated.
A separate experiment was later carried out, which can be seen as the battle of the second and third motivation. In this experiment, participants were provided with a box filled with tacks, a candle, and matches. The participants had to find a way to keep the candle lit as it stood off the ground, only using the materials provided. One group of participants were given the same amount of money no matter how long it took them. The other group was told that they would be paid twice as much if they performed in the top twenty-five percent. The results found that the group given no additional reward did much better than the group with a reward.
Now, if you have not already figured it out, the way to solve this problem is to realize that the box containing the tacks can be used as well. So, the participants had to light the candle and tack the box to the wall and then rest the candle in the box. This made the experiment difficult since the tools were not obviously presented. When the second experiment began, the box was left out and explained as a fourth item. This time, the group with the incentive outperformed the other.
The conclusion drawn from this data is that rewards and punishments work better for simple jobs. This makes sense, as we tend to get tunnel vision when we are pressed for time, rather than having all day to carry out an action. The thing is, a hundred years ago, tunnel vision was okay, jobs were simpler back then. In the early 1900s, roughly five percent of jobs used cognitive thinking skills. Now, around thirty-five percent of jobs use those skills, and it is only uphill from here.
Being in the middle of the digital age, the human race has never needed to be as creative as we are now. Jobs are requiring outside of the box thinking, and our current business structure is not built for it. This system uses a form of motivation that is becoming increasingly counterintuitive.
So, which system is better? What structure could allow for the betterment of both laborers and the businesses themselves? And I’m going to do something a bit unconventional here, I’m not going to answer this question. I can not think of a solution that does not require ideal situations or one that is remotely feasible in this day and age.
This is why I will leave you with a question with no answer. Rather than writing a solution I do not totally agree with, or one I do not totally understand, I would like to hear your input. So, please feel free to contact me at [email protected].
It had to have been around mid spring, I left a routine therapy appointment and just kept staring up at the treetops lining my way home, immersed in thought. Throughout the course of the session, I tried to recount the parts of my life that brought me the most joy. As I thought about this I realized that there were things I loved doing, such as writing and playing music, yet I never made any time for them. I wondered to myself “Why? Why have I not been seeking out the things that I enjoy?”. I soon realized that most of the time I am not putting active thought into improving my life, but instead am sitting idle and letting life pass me by. It was then, on that walk back home from the therapist that the importance of self reflection really hit me.
Around two years ago I became dead set on becoming a clinical psychiatrist. Following that decision I began constructing a plan on how to get there, I laid out all the steps early on and stayed true to them for quite some time. Plans change. It is not in the nature of life to be predictable, there are always obstacles that go unaccounted for. It is when we come to face these obstacles that self reflection is most important.
I should probably clarify what I mean by self reflection. I use this term to say “Using full concentration to look into oneself in order to discover personal motivations and to answer questions that could not have be answered with simple or casual thought.” I find myself reflecting on life constantly, but what is interesting is that much of this time spent reflecting is not done consciously. Most of the time I find myself really digging deep is when I’m listening to a powerful song, or when I’m out taking a walk. These times of effortless deep thought are vital to mental health, and to making important life decisions, however they are not what I really want to focus on here. Instead, I want to focus on the deep thought conjured up by conscious effort and determination.
We are the sculptors our our own lives, and much like nature itself, our lives are very fluid. If we have the will, and the resources, we can mold our lives into any shape that we find fitting. It’s a tragedy when one decides that they will be complacent to the ebb and flow of life, they will let their life be molded for them in any way that life takes them. I allowed my life to be molded for me for a long time. I created my plan of action and made no effort to change it, no effort to account for the slings and arrows of life.
What a wake up call it was that day walking out of my therapists office realizing that during all that time I was making no effort to fight my depression at all. It had never dawned on me that the plan I had set for myself was not concrete and that I could actually revise it to account for my own mental health. If I had taken the time to sit, to think, and to open myself up to new possibilities not only would I have been less depressed in that time, but I would have achieved my goal more efficiently as well.
I think reflection is great for mental health but it’s also great in terms of productivity. Life becomes a lot easier if one sits down to ask, “Are there things that bother me? Can those things be fixed?”. In my car the rear-view mirror began chipping away, and although functional, it drove me fuckin’ mad. To end my insanity I just had to buy a replacement online. I did a twenty minute installation and voula, my driving experience improved tenfold. This is a minor example, but it shows that there are so many things in life that cause such minor annoyances, and we never realize that there’s a fix until we really sit down and take the time to think about it.
The beginning of the day is the hardest time for me. Depression seems to thrive the more one has to think about the future, for me that’s thinking about the day ahead. I fight this, however, with some effortful thought. I think on what I would enjoy the most that day and how I can get it. I reflect on times that were good and remind myself that times can be good again. As I dig deeper into myself I come to understand ways to improve my life, and through those improvements life becomes a little more bearable. What I’m saying here is, sculpt your life, all it takes is a little time and a wish to move forward. After you’ve done this, sit back and take a look at your sculpture again, you just may find it looks a little bit better.
Just do it! Yes, you already know what type of post this is. Buckle up for yet another motivational speech on how you should follow your dreams. And I know you have probably already heard this a million times, but this time it is coming from me and honestly, it’s important to hear.
So where was I? Oh yeah, just do it! I swear it is that simple. I am a firm believer in doing what we set our minds to. Not only does it build reliability and trust between people, but I feel it will also lead to a more motivated individual. By setting a goal and not allowing the million excuses that we are capable of creating get in our way, we become more encouraged for another goal since the one before actually paid off.
I suppose you could see it as either a negative or a positive loop. When we set a goal and do it, it encourages us for the next. And so around and around this positive loop grows. Alternatively, if we set a goal and don’t carry it out until the end we may start to feel that we wasted our time. For instance, if one wants to lose weight and sets a goal to work out every morning for thirty minutes, the negative loop begins on that sixth day when they tell themself they’re too tired. Feeling guilty all day, they then have a bad night’s sleep, wake up tired again and the excuse repeats. Circling lower and lower, just as positive loops form, so do negative ones.
This is why when we set goals I really can not exaggerate the significance of carrying that act through. Goals, in other words, are personal promises and just as when you break a promise with someone else, you lose trust in yourself as the promise is broken. Not only that but goals and motivation can also make your dreams come true. You can actually turn the “someday” into today.
Here’s a personal example: Last year I was majoring in industrial systems engineering. I found the major to be a good fit for my skill set, as well as a safe major to choose. The likelihood of me getting a job once I graduated was very high. Yet there was a problem, reducing costs in a factory is not my dream. My dream is to help people. Not in the sense that I wanted to be a therapist or a social worker, but instead that I would work to improve the lives of thousands through societal change. I have found problems within our society as a whole and wish to help change them for the better.
Now at first, the dream seemed like a fairy tale. The magical Jake West will float around and spread his pixie dust on the world until all of the sadness has vanished. I will not deny that at first it was a fictional story, one that had little practicality to it. A story that was simply a thought, and nothing more. Then, in one moment, no different than the moment before, that fairy tale became a reality. One day I decided I had had enough pretending like I would be okay with simply working for a paycheck. One day I made my decision, I was going to try to help the world.
Getting right to work, my first thought was what I wanted to do, followed by how I was going to make it happen. By visiting six different academic departments and switching my major more times than I can count, I finally created a plan that was logical and ideal. I am currently a major in statistics and sociology with the intention to become a social researcher in an effort to bring about political change. I knew what I wanted to do, and I made it happen.
I feel as though many of us look at this career issue the wrong way. I see a majority of students picking a logical career and then finding their purpose within it. I propose that we find our purpose and then make it logical. Without purpose, no job is logical. Without purpose comes lack of motivation for that job, and personally I do not care how much work you put into a career you have no interest in, if you do not care about your job, then the business will not care about you.
I do what I set my mind to because if I do not, then I will never do anything difficult. I will never reach for the stars, because unless I try it will always seem impossible. This is why I will say one last time, just do it. Understand that a dream is possible if you believe it is possible. Yes, you will probably have to modify this dream. Yes, you will probably have to compromise. Yes, you may get paid a whole lot less, but I truly believe it will be worth it.
At the end of your life, you are not judged by the money you make, or by the number of wins you have. You are only judged by yourself. You judge how you lived your life and what you succeeded in, that meant something to you. Pursue your dreams because if you do not then why would you have them in the first place.
I woke up feeling amazing. Taking a deep breath, I let the fresh Alaskan air fill my lungs. Hearing the crackle of a nearby fire, I knew breakfast would be ready soon. Unzipping my family’s four-person tent with a smile, I stepped out into the sixty-degree wilderness. The sun was bright, the clouds had left the sky, and the river continued its hectic, yet organized pursuit downhill.
I was on my family’s Alaskan white-water rafting trip. Finally basking in the sunlight, my year of nervous anticipation seemed well worth it. Preparing to start another amazing day, a sense of peace fell over my body. I believed at the time it was from the fresh air or the feeling of the wild. But no matter the reason, all I cared to know was that I simply felt better and stronger with every day that passed. And when it finally ended, the trip left me with a feeling of true happiness, a feeling I lost touch with a few months prior.
Integrating back into normal upstate New York society, I steadily began to lose my high spirits and drive. I felt myself returning to a passive, empty state. The feeling that my naive mind had thought I had overcome.
Returning to my normal schedule, I went to visit my psychologist. I visited her every week to discover the source of this feeling of emptiness that slowly ate at me. She was alright. Mostly focusing on childhood issues and daily inconveniences, you know, the therapy things, we would get nowhere fast as the minutes rolled by.
That day we spoke about my emotions throughout the trip. I explained how I felt like my old self. For those five days, I returned to my cheerful self and badly wanted the feeling to return. We shared thoughts and possible reasons and explanations, nothing really stuck.
After the session, that same night, I found myself up late pondering the simple question, “What changed? What had changed since the trip and where I was now?” And that’s when an idea struck me. Only a guess, yet enough to give me hope. Other than the obvious lack of excitement in my daily life, I realized a difference in my diet.
My mother was diagnosed as a celiac ten years prior to the trip. Since space on the raft was limited, we only packed gluten free food. Therefore, for the first time in my life, I was not eating gluten. On top of that, I remembered how my mother felt prior to her diagnosis. She described a feeling as if she were slowly dying, and eventually went to the doctors assuming she must have a form of cancer. They quickly ran tests and determined she had Celiac Disease. This meant that any ingestion of gluten acted as a poison in her body. I believed this could be my solution, so within days my blood was being tested to possibly cure my growing feeling of emptiness.
The results came in a week later and my problem was cured. I instantly stopped eating gluten without a single complaint. Everyone was surprised with how well I was dealing with the situation, but what they didn’t realize was how thankful I was for it. Within days I felt my body regain strength and drive. I felt amazing again, like I had on the Alaskan river. I felt in control. By the next week I stopped going to the psychologist and started living my life with my head up again.
There are still times I feel empty like before. I feel as if whatever eats at me isn’t completely gone and never will be, yet now I have the strength to control it. Whatever sadness I thought was beyond my control could now be tamed.
From this experience I learned to never give up. I learned that there is always a solution and that I just need to continue looking for it.
I also learned the value in things. Little problems don’t affect me like many of my peers. I’ve learned that life will have its challenges and to just laugh through them because happiness is the most important trait to have. If I can maintain my joy in life I can solve any problem and overcome any challenge I face. So, what about you?
Everyone has their own demons and challenges. We can either run from them or we can conquer them. We can own them. I learned how to fight mine and fight I did. This fight will never end, but the more weapons I can bring to this fight, the better off I will be.
So, what weapons do you have? What weapons do you plan on getting? Only you can fight for your happiness. Others can show you the way to happiness, but it is you who will take those steps. Therefore, get your weapons, find your path and start exploring. Life is a constant war, but the more you fight and the more you win, the closer you will be to nirvana when that war finally ends. Nirvana is not in the clouds, it is all around us.
I’m angry. I’m really fucking angry. Want to know why? I am angry that millions are exploited every day. I am angry for the thousands of lives ruined every month. I am angry with the mindset that has developed in the general public that makes us think that we are better than an entire group of people. And I am angry with the United States Justice System.
The United States Justice System is putting thousands of human beings into a confined area for the rest of their life. People are told every year that they must spend the rest of their entire life paying for one mistake they made. Now I have thought of this concept for quite some time and the more I think about it, the less I understand it. One action, one mistake, can dictate your entire life.
I’m not gonna lie, I have stolen food before; right from under the cashier’s nose. I simply did it because the idea of paying the insane price for a tiny candy bar seemed unnecessary. So does that make me a thief? Am I a thief for one action? Am I a thief for one moment that I said screw the law and took matters into my own hands? I do not think so. Yes I have stolen, but I will never identify as a thief.
I write about this act of defying the law because I see a disconnect from common sense and our justice system. By stealing once, I am debatably not a thief, yet if I kill once, then I am definitely a murderer. Sure, you can get away with self-defense because your hand was forced, but if you do it in cold blood then people see you as a killer. Yet I stole with little motive and my actions do not define me.
Now do not get me wrong, I understand that murder is a lot worse than stealing. I would never try to say otherwise. As a society we typically value lives a lot more than we do to inanimate objects. So yes, of course murder is terrible, but why must it define someone. Why must one action, one wrongdoing, define a person and force them into a situation they have no control over? How does ending their life early help bring back the people they killed?
One can say that they deserve such an ending because of what they did, that they deserve death. I believe that the narrative is looking at this question from the opposite direction. I think instead you should ask yourself, do you deserve to kill? Do you deserve the right to systematically end someone’s life early? Do you feel a world where people are killed in an organized manner is better than an unorganized one?
And do not forget what you agree to when you state someone’s life has no right to continue. You are enforcing a permanent action that has untold consequences to the people physically and mentally close to this individual. Not to mention that one-ninth (take a second to think about how large one-ninth. 11% Just let that sink in for a moment) of people put on death row are later found innocent… can you believe that? I barely can. In other words, one-ninth of people are systematically sentenced to death for something they did not do (Stevenson, 2012).
So why does this mindset exist in the United States? Why do we feel the need for vengeance? Why do we feel okay to sentence people to death, yet could never imagine shooting someone? I honestly do not know, yet I do have a scary guess. That guess is that our mindset is exactly what our justice system has wanted, and maybe even taught, us to believe. This scares me because it makes sense.
Our government has a very capitalist/corporatist economy. This economic category explains the high amount of government influence from large companies. Dozens of companies profit from and exploit prisoners every day. Companies like the Corizon and Global Tel* Link together take home over six hundred million dollars of revenue annually from prison contracts alone. These companies are making millions of dollars every year off of people who work for pennies… in the past, this was called slavery.
And don’t think that only shady companies take advantage of these imprisoned people. In the 1990s Victoria’s Secret exploited thirty-five female inmates to sew lingerie. Exmark, a Microsoft subcontractor, took similar action when they discovered how to avoid paying minimum wage, with inmates working for as low as thirty-five cents an hour (Henderson, 2015). Now if this does not scream exploitation then I am clueless to what does.
I suppose the next question is how do we know that the justice system is sanctioning all of this? How do we know the government is not trying to end this as you read my post? We can assume they are not because it helps them. It helps businesses, it helps the economy, it helps citizens flourish. I can also safely assume the government does not care about these inmates because this problem has gotten progressively worse.
In 1972, there were 300,000 jail/prison inmates within the United States. At the time, the United States population was roughly 201 million. This indicates that 0.15 percent of the United States population lived within a cell. Thirty years later, in 2012, the prison/jail population rose to 2.3 million. The United States population as a whole had only risen to 314 million, which indicates that 0.75 percent of its citizens were being forced into a place they simply do not want to be in (Stevenson, 2012). In those thirty years, the prison population has grown to be five times as large, in relation to its population. Now personally I hate skewed statistics, this is why I tried to present the data as fairly as possible. As the United States has grown in size its prison/jail population has grown five times faster. My question is, why?
Why do we not consider just how long a life sentence is? Why do dozens of companies makes millions off of helpless individuals? And why has the number of people without freedom grown five times as fast as the U.S. population? Now I did say I was mad at the United States Justice System, but I do not blame them. I think that we all have our motives and reasons to justify our actions. Because of this mindset, I do not want to end this post by pointing my finger at anyone. Instead, I would like to provide a solution.
My solution is simple, yet would be hard to do in so many ways, regardless I know it is possible. I know this because Germany is already doing it. Germany has implemented a new type of prison system that serves closer to a rehabilitation center rather than confinement. The inmates are not allowed access to the outside world until they have been diagnosed as mentally healthy individuals. Every “cell” is cozy and provides a feeling of warmth for the inmates. Each inmate is provided with a therapist in an attempt to work through whatever mental illness/distress that the individual is going through.
The purpose of this is to help the prisoners, rather than hurt them. This policy is to help each individual with whatever problems they are going through that led them to do such a despicable act. The policy sees criminals as mentally harmed individuals, and regardless of their previous actions, they are treated with care no different than how we would help someone going through any other mental illness.
Now you may be thinking, “well Jake, they don’t deserve such good treatment, they are criminals.” Here is the thing, in my opinion just about everyone is or was a criminal, it just depends on where you were born. Who does not drive at least five miles per hour faster than the speed limit? Who did not at least sip an alcoholic beverage before the law gave the thumbs up? I mean come on, who hasn’t broken the law at least once? I would say, and I would hope, zero.
Depending on your environment and a million other factors, that one and done type deal could have snowballed in something much more. People who smoke pot in the slums of New York City run a much higher risk of being caught and serving time than people in the upstate region of that same state. The reason is simply that the war on drugs is not happening in little towns like Glens Falls, it is happening in the depths of Queens. Same crime, but different outcomes.
I believe once criminals are seen as the unlucky ones in society, rather than the villains of society, our world will be a much healthier place to live. My solution is to rehabilitate these people because although their actions were terrible, it is still redeemable.
If someone we care about is depressed we would treat them with kindness and try to fix their illness. This reaction involves human beings understanding one’s pain and taking action to minimize it. I believe it takes a lot of mental illness/distress to be a murderer, so we should treat these individuals as human beings nonetheless.
Criminals are humans. They are alive and they feel pain just as anyone else does. I know sometimes it is hard to see the good in someone because of how they wronged you, but deep down you have to try to see their pain as well. Deep down you should try to see the best in them and through our process of rehabilitation, we can try to make that desire a reality. A world where we systematically help heal people rather than kill them is a world I would like to live in.
Stevenson, B.(2012). Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice/up-next
Let me begin this post by stating the fact that I love kids. Having said that, I was wondering if anyone else has noticed that kids can be little psychos.
I have been a lifeguard for the City of Glens Falls for the last three summers. The job essentially entails card games, eavesdropping on people’s conversations and the occasional save. I mean, it’s not my fault. I am literally paid to watch these people play in the water. Therefore is it only natural to hear the occasional small talk.
One day I was listening to a conversation between a mother and her son when a realization dawned on me. As I watched the son, once again, splash his mother in the face after repeatedly told not to, she responded with an ultimatum. Either splash me again and we go home, or stop splashing me and have fun. In response, the son whipped as much white water into his mother’s face as possible. His mom, infuriated, told him to sit on the sand and that they were going home. The son walked up to the beach and began to cry.
As he sobbed, I noticed that the intensity of his tears was directly connected to whether his mother was looking at him. As the mother began to collect the other children, the displeased son would dramatically increase his sadness with every glance the mother gave him. Finally, after a minute, the mother could not stand her son’s emotional state and told him he could get back in the water if he did not splash her again. With instant joy and achievement, the son bounded into the water and was back to having the time of his life. Not ten minutes later did I witness him splash his mother again as the cycle began once more.
It was at this time that a realization hit me harder than any belly flop I have ever been paid to witness. That disobedient son was simply playing his hand. He knew that his mother didn’t want to be splashed, and he knew she would threaten to end his fun early. Yet none of this mattered since he also knew that he had the ultimate ace card. He knew a couple of fake tears and a hardcore frowny face could turn her decision right over.
I thought about this for quite some time until I came to the conclusion that our empathy towards others is knowledge that must be learned no different than math or any other subject you learn in high school.
After three years of watching similar showdowns commence, I found that almost all the kids had that same ace that their parents lack. They possess the inability to understand how their actions affect others. They know that their actions will make others sad or happy. Yet they do not feel or truly understand the effect that emotion has on the person’s well being. The son understood that fake crying would make his mother sad. Which would then get her to go against her own statement and allow him to continue having fun. What he couldn’t comprehend was how she felt.
Another example is that these children do not realize the mental consequences of stating that one person is better than the other. I believe this is why little kids are the bluntest tiny humans out there. They simply do not understand what will psychologically happen to these people as they hear the unrelenting truth.
Personally, I have always considered empathy to be a trait that you either have or don’t have. Yet, since we learn it, I now consider it closer to a skill. Nobody teaches you how to feel happiness, but somewhere along the line, we must have been taught how to feel for others. If not taught directly, we may have taught ourselves through life experiences.
And like any skill, some people can learn it quicker and easier than others. People who are labeled as psychopaths, for instance, never learn this skill. Just as some people have the inability to read, these people have the inability to feel for others. On the other end, we have the altruists of society. People are so good at understanding others, they seem to identify with everyone around them as much as themself.
Empathy is the skill to understand how actions will mentally affect others. I think children are little psychos simply because they have not had enough time to learn this skill yet. Like any skill, some kids will learn it before others, or some may even go their whole life not learning it at all. Yet most will learn at their own rate and they will understand the feelings of others more and more with every year that passes.
If empathy is a skill that can be taught, then let us teach it. Yes, some will struggle more than others, but struggle or not we all learned fractions. And if we learn math, then we might as well learn how to care about one another as well. I mean come on, do third graders really need to know how to find the area of a fenced-in backyard or do they need a thorough explanation that other kids feel the same as they do when their toy is taken from them.
We should have a class designed to teach these much needed social skills to these very psycho children. I am not saying to get rid of math, but maybe we have a class called social life. One that teaches us to be empathetic for others. As well as teaches us how to handle breaks ups properly, or explains the ins and outs of awkward conversations. This class would simply teach us how to be mentally stable in a way that makes everyone else feel good as well.
Yes, you can learn these skills on your own, but if I was told to learn math on my own I don’t think I would have made it to triple integrals. I probably would have figured out addition and subtraction and then called it a day. This is how we currently handle these much needed social skills. We learn the basics and then suffer through the rest. I say we fix that, what do you think?
Six months ago I decided to become a vegetarian. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would be doing this, yet here I am, loving it the whole way through. As an ex meat lover, I would like to say that this is definitely not for everyone, especially people who enjoy lots of variation and options in their diets.
Typically, people’s first reactions when I tell them that I have become vegetarian is, “Are you okay?”, “What do you eat?” or “You look too skinny”. Yes, I am okay, I actually eat a lot and I am at a healthy weight. I have gotten a couple “good for you” responses but that is only after I explain exactly why I made this huge choice in my life.
Last August, when I first started college, one of my friends told me that she was vegetarian and of course my first reaction was “What do you even eat?”. As a meat eater I was so confused on how anyone could ever go on without eating animals. I had watched a lot of those really sad Netflix documentaries where they show the ins and outs of the food industry, very graphic videos of animals being slaughtered or chickens having breasts so big that they could not even move and even if they wanted to they could not because there were thousands of other chickens stuffed into a room. Even those videos did nothing for me, I even recall telling my boyfriend while watching it that I could still eat meat and that I wanted chicken nuggets. So now you might be asking, so what made me a vegetarian?
College food definitely played a roll in my choice due to the awful grey meat that they serve, yuck. This all happened quite gradually actually, It started off with not adding the grey chicken to my stir fry during lunch time. I then soon realized that I really did not need to eat meat with my meals, I was just conditioned to think that it was a necessity. After a couple of weeks, I had noticed that I would go a couple of days without eating any meat and not even realize it. I still continued to eat grilled chicken after a workout just to get in the necessary protein for the day. One night after the gym I made myself a huge serving of chicken in which I proceeded to eat half of and then throw the rest away. In that split second of throwing that meat away, I had one of those “AHA” moments and I haven’t turned back since. I thought to myself “this chicken forcefully gave up its whole life on this amazing planet just so I could throw it in the trash”. To this day it makes me sick just thinking about how terrible humans are to other living, breathing, creatures.
I have had a lot of people ask me how I get my proper protein and vitamins, and quite honestly I hate this question. Yes, meat has a ton of protein in it. You might be shocked to find that there is a lot of protein found in a wide variety of foods, for example, broccoli has more protein per calorie than beef. Nuts, beans, rice, fruits, and almost all vegetables are loaded with protein, but unfortunately, we are not properly taught nutrition and can become ignorant as a result. The food industry is tremendous, so tremendous in fact that they will use their money and lobbying power to brainwash the general public into thinking that the meat that we eat every day is necessary for survival and proper growth and it couldn’t be further from the truth. Just like the pharmaceutical and oil industries, the meat industry pays for us to believe that we need something that we really do not and in turn breeds innocent animals just so they can be killed and consumed. What a lovely life these animals must live on planet Earth, harmed, controlled and pumped with hormones just to be killed by humans whose gluttony blinds them from morality and whose greed blinds them from truth.
Life without meat is not unfortunate, I feel a great amount of pride with my decision to become vegetarian, even if going out to eat or dinner at a friend’s house is much more complex now. If you are on the fence with cutting out meat I ask that you try it for just a day and see how you feel. After all, it is just getting rid of one little bit of your meals, it’s really not that crazy, stock up on your veggies or have an extra serving of rice I promise you won’t regret it.
