This week I started one of my summer classes online, Psychology of Life Span Development. While reading the first chapter focused on the nature vs nurture debate and the underpinnings of how we define and measure “positive” life development, I began to think hard about what makes a great life. What is it that allows for, causes, or enhances this “positive development?” When I think about my personal development, I want to grow to be an extraordinary person engaged with the world around me. Over the past year, I have thought a lot about leadership and achieving an extraordinary life. As I make pretty big decisions for my life and am starting to see at least what direction I am headed I have been quiet concerned about this debate. In my life I want love, happiness, fulfillment, and success, in that order. These seem to be the ingredients for a great life, but where do they come from? In my opinion it is more than nature vs nurture, but also personal choice and desire.
Traditional discussions of personal development focus on nature, being genetics and predisposition; and nurture, being a person’s environment and how life events impact them. While many people like to argue for one being stronger than the other, most advanced discussions come to realize that it is really a combination of the two working in tandem. I like to think of it like a sculpture. The final piece of art is a creation of both the material and work of the artist. The piece is bound to the limitations of the material and the acts of the artist on it. Like the material of a sculpture, a person can only develop within the limitations of their genetics and biological existence. Each life experience is like an act of an artist molding and forming the individual creating a unique finished product. This is all fine, but I don’t believe humans are like a chunk of clay, marble, wood or otherwise. Humans have the ability to not only respond, but to create. I believe a truly great person capitalizes on this ability.
Your own life is the one thing you can truly own. Being proactive in development, growth and success makes a truly amazing life. As I have talked with a lot of successful people I highly respect, looking for advice and guidance as I prepare to enter the “real world,” no one has ever told me that good things just fell into their lap. I started to see a theme in the constant advice I received that all the best things in life don’t come easy. I started to realize that all of these awesome individuals grabbed their life by the horns and showed it where to go. This seemed to be the case across the board. Great successes, happiness, meaning, achievement, and love are all investments. You can only get out what you put in. I have never talked to an accomplished professional who told me they inherited the company from their parents and have had smooth sailing ever since. I have never met anyone great saying they were born satisfied and accomplished. I have never talked with a happily married older couple who told me that they have had nothing but rainbows and butterflies and never had to work to make their relationship fulfilling. All positive outcomes have come because they cared enough to put in the effort.
This theory seems to have nothing to do with nature or nurture, or does it? Are some people just inclined to take the actions necessary to live great lives? Do some people have experiences that motivate them to go and find what they are looking for? This is my question. While looking for love, happiness, and success, who is in control? Will the girl of my dreams walk up and say hello and live happily ever after? Will I sit on a park bench look out over the lake and have happiness hit me in the face? Will I walk into a random office building to use a bathroom and find a job that will launch me into a successful career? While I think that fate, nature, and nurture, are have some place in that, I really think that truly great results will come from blood, sweat, and tears.
But maybe there is a place for traditional developmentalists. Maybe the ability and desire to work for success is out of our control. Maybe success comes from holding the ingredients and experiences necessary to achieve it. Maybe love and happiness is something that people either have or don’t. This could be the case, but that isn’t a world I want to live in. I want to live in a place where I am responsible for my outcomes. While I understand I work within a framework out of my control, I truly believe that I have what it takes to grasp for that extraordinary life.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Laissez-"unfair"
The following is a short essay I wrote for an environmental studies class. With oil now spilling into the gulf and people are actually starting to notice I thought this would be a fitting thing to post.
Author G.K. Chesterton once said, “The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly. But the rich have always objected to being governed at all.” This sentiment rings true when examining international relations and energy. The current state of international politics is one with little accountability and governance in the favor of rich nations paired with injustice and criticism at the disadvantage of poor nations. The developed world consumes 32 times the amount of resources as the developing world does per capita.(Diamond) This disparity is central to the energy crisis with one out of every four humans lacking regular access to electricity.(Friedman)
Judging by the allocation of resources, terrorism is the central challenge and focus of American policy. The largest sector of the 2009 fiscal year federal budget was defense spending, accounting for 28% of the total budget while discretionary spending only accounted for 12%.(whitehouse.gov) These dollars are being allocated to fight a war on terrorism. Ted Koppel argues that the current state of this war on terror would be better termed a war for the protection of American energy supplies in the form of oil. Koppel argues that defense spending is really defending America’s oil dependent economy. This active investment keeps our nation energy rich and dependent on unsustainable fossil fuel energy and unlikely to quickly convert to a more sustainable energy supply.
While terrorism is a buzz word in both politics and the media, we rarely ever discuss why developing nations are frustrated and angry with American culture. The closest society comes to this discussion is hidden deep with patriotic rhetoric. Speeches, bumper stickers, country songs, and other forms of communication giving their due respect to our troops often make mention of fighting for the American way of life. This slogan may hold more answers than first glance would provide. The American way of life, that is to say American consumption, is what we are fighting for. As Jared Diamond explains, terrorism against western nations may be rooted in the frustration of individuals in developing nations who are very aware of the disparities in resources between the two worlds, and understand the institutional oppression leaving little hope to ever achieve “the American Dream” on a global scale. The current climate of global economic governance perpetuates the inequality that frustrates developing nations and sparks international conflict.
While the poor are being governed badly by this economic system, rich nations are fighting being governed at all. As Thomas Friedman explains, population is only an issue if people continue to consume resources in an unsustainable way. The lifestyles of developed nations are unsustainable. The true tragedy lies in the fact that converting to a sustainable way of consumption would be less painful than any individual would expect. Sustainability is not tied to comfort. We currently have the technology to live sustainably without seeing a major shift in any individual’s actual life style. The change though does come at a price to big business. Change requires new capital investments, which intern costs money. Corporate America spent 3.47 billion dollars on lobbying in 2009. The corporate voice now drives American policy. This voice stands in opposition to change and stands stronger against regulation. This refusal to be governed not only maintains the status quo in environmental degradation and international inequality, but hurts the American economy by withholding jobs that would be required to transition current infrastructure to be sustainable. In order to obtain both political and environmental sustainability equity must be emphasized while the rich submit to governance and the poor are governed more fairly.
Author G.K. Chesterton once said, “The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly. But the rich have always objected to being governed at all.” This sentiment rings true when examining international relations and energy. The current state of international politics is one with little accountability and governance in the favor of rich nations paired with injustice and criticism at the disadvantage of poor nations. The developed world consumes 32 times the amount of resources as the developing world does per capita.(Diamond) This disparity is central to the energy crisis with one out of every four humans lacking regular access to electricity.(Friedman)
Judging by the allocation of resources, terrorism is the central challenge and focus of American policy. The largest sector of the 2009 fiscal year federal budget was defense spending, accounting for 28% of the total budget while discretionary spending only accounted for 12%.(whitehouse.gov) These dollars are being allocated to fight a war on terrorism. Ted Koppel argues that the current state of this war on terror would be better termed a war for the protection of American energy supplies in the form of oil. Koppel argues that defense spending is really defending America’s oil dependent economy. This active investment keeps our nation energy rich and dependent on unsustainable fossil fuel energy and unlikely to quickly convert to a more sustainable energy supply.
While terrorism is a buzz word in both politics and the media, we rarely ever discuss why developing nations are frustrated and angry with American culture. The closest society comes to this discussion is hidden deep with patriotic rhetoric. Speeches, bumper stickers, country songs, and other forms of communication giving their due respect to our troops often make mention of fighting for the American way of life. This slogan may hold more answers than first glance would provide. The American way of life, that is to say American consumption, is what we are fighting for. As Jared Diamond explains, terrorism against western nations may be rooted in the frustration of individuals in developing nations who are very aware of the disparities in resources between the two worlds, and understand the institutional oppression leaving little hope to ever achieve “the American Dream” on a global scale. The current climate of global economic governance perpetuates the inequality that frustrates developing nations and sparks international conflict.
While the poor are being governed badly by this economic system, rich nations are fighting being governed at all. As Thomas Friedman explains, population is only an issue if people continue to consume resources in an unsustainable way. The lifestyles of developed nations are unsustainable. The true tragedy lies in the fact that converting to a sustainable way of consumption would be less painful than any individual would expect. Sustainability is not tied to comfort. We currently have the technology to live sustainably without seeing a major shift in any individual’s actual life style. The change though does come at a price to big business. Change requires new capital investments, which intern costs money. Corporate America spent 3.47 billion dollars on lobbying in 2009. The corporate voice now drives American policy. This voice stands in opposition to change and stands stronger against regulation. This refusal to be governed not only maintains the status quo in environmental degradation and international inequality, but hurts the American economy by withholding jobs that would be required to transition current infrastructure to be sustainable. In order to obtain both political and environmental sustainability equity must be emphasized while the rich submit to governance and the poor are governed more fairly.
My First Post
I realized recently that throughout my years I have "lost" a bit of creativity. This will be my first effort to reactivate the creative part of my brain. I also want a chance to organize and share my thoughts while trying to improve my writing. Well there isn't much content I want to post and am just posting this to see how this thing works. So in the future feel free to comment and respond and whatever else tickles your fancy.
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