This I believe:
I think that this is a really cool concept and it got me thinking about some life principles that I live by. There are a few, mainly stemming from my mom’s wonderful advice and own wisdom. My mom has lived a really difficult life and has still managed to keep a positive outlook on the world. She lives by the phrase that “happiness is a journey, not a destination” and that you have to “create your happy moments in every day”. This advice and way of living has translated into my own life and is often what I share with people who are going through tough times.
I am a total control freak. I love adventure and excitement, but sometimes I wish people would act how I build them up in my mind and not any differently. This was always true of the complicated relationship I shared with my Dad, in which I constantly wished for him to be different than he really was. My mom taught me that it is important to realize that you must not stress over what you can not control. This was probably one of the most enlightening, although difficult lessons I had to be taught. This lesson even spilled over into other parts of my life, such as academics, where school became a lot more fun because I was not stressing over everything, especially the things I knew I could not control.
The last idea I had for the “This I believe” podcast/speech is a little more quirky than the previous two. Although a little silly, and not something that I apply literally to my life, I think the message that I send through it is important. The idea is that you have to find someone who will “Eat your pickles”. I know that sounds crazy, but the idea is that if you hate pickles, you need to find someone who will eat the pickles off your plate. Of course this can apply to other foods, but there is an idea I’m trying to get across that is deeper than food. I believe that, although you should surround yourself with people who believe in the same things as you do, it is also important, and often times more eye-opening to let people into your life who are widely different than you. And whether your differences are as simple as if pickles are nasty or not, to something much more; you can work together to finish the plate.
Passion:
My idea for my Passion blog is to talk about movies. All my friends are absolutely obsessed with the movies, whether watching them at home or in theaters, it doesn’t matter. I, however am definitely more of a TV show person myself, but I am all about opening myself to new experiences. I am taking COMM150N currently, which is a movie class. It is teaching me how to analyze movies deeply and look at them in a different light. For my passion blog, I will let people in my life choose one movie per week that has really impacted the way they look at the world. Then, I will watch it and write about it analytically in my blog. Passion blogs are difficult for me to come up with ideas for, so this is my only one currently, but I really enjoy it and would not want to chose something else at the point.
Civic Blog:
My first idea for my Civic Blog would have something to do with the racial tensions in America and how much things have shifted from the Obama Presidency to the election of President Trump. I want to look at if there has been more racially motivated violence and oppression being exposed since the election of Donald Trump. I would include a lot of statistics that show an unbiased look at the number of racially motivated attacks per year in the United States. Although there is no way to show that any of these attacks were based off of the choices of President Trump, I think it could be interesting to look at some of the attacks individually in each blog, while analyzing the killer and any evidence they left behind that may have given way to their motivation. There is a lot of controversy surrounding this and I would like to explore this issue and keep an informative tone, while also voicing my own personal opinions on the matter.
The second idea I have for my Civic Blog is the role the United States plays on an international state. What is next for the United States as is challenged by rising economic powers, such as China? Currently, I believe the International system is in a unilateral system in which the United States exists as the power house, but dynamics are constantly changing and one can only guess what comes next. I think it would be interesting to look at the history of power changes in the International system, such as the shift from a bilateral to multilateral system after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. I would analyze what could be coming next, as far as a shift of power is concerned and the role that the United States currently plays in the global landscape.