Doing new things

I thought that Dr.J's speech about doing new things in your life was extremely powerful. His lesson was the second profound lesson that he has brought up in the last two weeks. I have read a lot about the idea of doing new things in your life in self-development books; therefore, when Dr.J brought up the idea, I found it interesting. I brought up this idea again because I think it is very important for people to gain the benefits from this lesson.

Most people constantly look for ways in which they can improve their lives. Many times, the people who want to improve their lives do not know where to go to make such improvements. They feel stuck, and they believe that nothing they can do will help. Most people in this position do not realize that the easy way to fix this problem is by making changes in their lifestyle. This may sound like an obvious decision, but most people do not realize this. In general, people are afraid of the unknown, and therefore they are uncomfortable with changing their normal habits. Making sometimes-drastic changes does not seem to them like a good idea because they do not want deal with new things. These people believe that improvement in their life will only be caused from making progress in the things that they currently do; they need to realize that making changes in their life will open new opportunities for positive change in your life. You cannot find success in the forest of life if you keep looking for it on the same path.

I feel that the reaction of some students who listened to Dr.J’s lesson shows a major problem that humans have. I could tell from many students that they enjoyed Dr.J’s lesson, but they would not implement it into their life; they are comfortable with the food they eat, the people they talk to etc, and therefore they find no reason to change. As far as I know, as long as people are not fully satisfied with their life, then there is absolutely no reason why they should not be ready to make drastic changes in their life. It is important to mention that, when I am talking about drastic changes, I do not mean decisions that will obviously cause problems. The changes I am talking about relate to things that are clearly beneficial, but people do not make them because they are different. One of the worst obstacles with success is being comfortable. If someone is not ready to change the current habits that they have, then it is not likely they will see improvement in their life. If you keep doing what you have always done, then you will keep getting what you have always gotten.

Dr.J’s lesson was important in itself, but I think that his act of teaching this lesson shows something important. Some of the most important things that I have learned from my professors were not a part of the curriculum at all; I find this fact interesting because it shows that the so-called life-lessons that we learn are often the most important. In addition, I believe that is important that people listen to any type of advice that they receive. I think that many people were too quick to throw away Dr.J’s lesson on trying new things, and that it is the main reason why I wanted to bring up the idea again. People need to understand that getting too comfortable with their lifestyle can be a waste of their life, and I believe that functionalists would be strongly against the fear of change that many people have.

Do you think the fear of change exists? And If so, Do you believe that it is problematic in the lives of most humans?

In Response to Megan Cooney (4/17/2010)

Q: “What do you make of the phrase "live every day as if it were your last?"

We went over the idea of living everyday as if it were your last day in class briefly, but I would like to expand on it. Dr.J originally made the point that it is irrational to live everyday like it was your last because there is an extremely high probability that we are going to be alive the next day. I think that Dr.J made a great point and he is completely correct, but I also believe that your point at the end of your post is important to analyze. You make the point that the phrase of living everyday as if it is your last could be helpful if people followed the idea of the phrase and not the phrase itself. I think this is a powerful idea because it seems that people could benefit from thinking of everyday as their last day to live.

It seems to me that the act of implementing the phrase of living everyday like it’s your last needs to be a balancing act. As long as a person does not cause major problems for their future, than I believe that living everyday as if it is your last is a great idea. I think it is great that you mention that living everyday like it is your last is similar to living without fear. While I do not believe that the living without fear is exactly what that phrase means, i think that living without fear would be extremely beneficially to people. Fear is something that causes a lot of trouble in the lives of people, and therefore I feel that people need to find ways to start living fearless. Taking risks can cause many benefits, but most people are too afraid of the possibility of failure. Many books on success that I have read bring up a similar idea; they ask the question of what would you do if you knew you could not fail. I think that this is a very powerful question because I believe there are many things that people would do if they knew they could not fail. Fear of failing can be helpful but I think that it also can hold people back greatly.

The phrase of living life if it was your last day can be extremely helpful if people used the idea to take more smart risks in their lives. By smart risks, I mean risks that have a much higher rewards than risks. Sometimes people are afraid of making a decision because of possible problems that are not that bad. An example of this would be going to a party, or joining a group that you never have experienced before. Many people are afraid to do things like this because of the problems that could happen as a result from making the decisions, but the rewards greatly outweigh the risks. Even if some risks may cause problems, at some point at least one risk will be very beneficial. I think that the phrase living everyday like it was your last could be very helpful if the phrase was looked at as meaning living with out fear. If people started to live without fear, but not take unintelligent risks, then I believe that their lives would be tremendously improved.

What types of decisions would you make differently if you started to live everyday like it was your last?

Existentialism is a lesson that all college students should learn

After learning about existentialists, I personally feel that every college should learn about some of their values. More specifically, I feel that every student needs to learn the problems with living for a future moment. It is scary to me how many young people are so focused on their future lives that they forget about what is going on in the present moment. The problem is that people believe that some future moment in their life will fulfill them or make them happy. I have read many stories about successful people who could never reach satisfaction with their lives. These people would keep telling themselves that some future moment will make them happy, but once that moment arrived, some other future moment became the new moment that will make them happy. A person who is internally unhappy will never become happy because of some external event.

College students need to stop thinking that their college experience is only a bridge that will get them some future dream job. I have seen personally the problems that people who think this way will face. The main problems that they run in to relate back to the decisions that they make while in college. Students will become business majors so that can become wealthy after they get out of college; most times they will never reach the wealth level that they want, but even if they do, they will never feel fulfilled.

If college students began reading about existentialism, then I feel they would reach a sort of wake up call in their lives. Their reading may cause them to rethink what their true purpose in life is. Even though existentialists say that there is no absolute purpose in life, I still feel that people who read about existentialists may feel that they need to be looking for a deeper purpose in life. I feel that college students may realize that the main purpose in life does not relate to anything outside of them, such as money, and other materialistic things. After reading about existentialists, they would start to understand that they could only be fulfilled by living in the present moment, and living for future fulfillment is a major mistake.

I feel that existentialism is group of beliefs that would be extremely helpful for people to understand in today’s society, but it would be most helpful for college students. I do not agree with all of the ideas that existentialism represents, but I believe that college students could learn a lot because they generally have an open mind about things that they learn. Existentialism goes against many things that our society teaches, and I feel that it would be good for college students to learn about something that goes against society’s norms. Society teaches us the importance of having wealth, and that having materialistic things will make us happy. Society also tells us that certain ways to live are the right ways to live, and everything else is wrong. Existentialists instead encourage people to enjoy the process of living moment by moment, and they also tell us that there is no exact truth, and therefore people should find out what is true in their own lives.

Are the ideas of existentialism to vague to be taught as a class in college?