What am I made for?

What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What is my purpose? These philosophical questions can be interpreted by our own limitations. What can I do on this earth? How can I make it a better place? How can I best spend the time I have left? There is no answer to the question of what you’re made for, but the best way to approach it is to ask yourself not what you are made for, but what makes you special. Unlike Lois Lowry’s The Giver, we are not assigned a job or a role in this world, we can decide it ourselves. In this way, we all contribute to society and the world in our own ways, and what we are made for is answered by our strengths. The class clown, and maybe later on, a stand-up comedian, is made to entertain. The person with innate athleticism is made to perform. The person with an incredible memory is made for a scientific field. To answer the question of what I am made for can be answered through experiences and effort. 
The world we live in is structured in a way in which we hope to incentivize people that are the best at what they do to perform in that field. Good and efficient work creates a better life for everyone. However, this can be taken to an extreme. “Instead of letting your life be defined by the grades you get or the promotions you earn, what if you focused on living a balanced life full of friends, family, work, and leisure?” (Week 9). It is easy to get caught up in the competitive cycle of life, where you have to outperform the person next to you to get approval from society or from whom you seek it. Constant deadlines, tight schedules, high expectations, and more can make it difficult to stay balanced and happy between everything you do. Factored into this idea of extreme competition is trust for others around you. From trust, it can be difficult to know the truth. Sometimes, the “truth” about a decision you are making isn’t known until you have made the decision. “It isn’t nice to think that we aren’t nice”(Week 7). Truth is a slippery slope of psychology, philosophy, ethics. Truth can be subjective, and truth can be different to other people. The way this quote applies to what truth is connected to the intention of others. Down to its most basic core, we hope to gain the truth from other people with good intentions and people that are being nice. Identifying the truth and bringing it to your community is another issue entirely. One thing we all have in common is the responsibility to improve our community, no matter what community means to us. The QQC from week 10 gives us a great example of solving problems within our community. “School leaders are placed squarely in the middle, trying to respond to the demands of both groups and looking for support from their boards and other stakeholders.(Week 10)” For those in power, it is difficult to please everyone in the community around you, especially when an issue arises that is controversial. While the death itself of George Floyd should not be controversial, the politics surrounding the trial, in addition to new measures taken by police certainly were. We are made for anything and everything on our path to happiness.



What am I made of?

I, and everyone existing in the world, are made of our experiences. The quality and experiences of life vary drastically around the world, and that is the beauty of life. It is important to know that everyone’s story is a unique one and one to be proud of. The experiences of what makes us who we are include every single experience we’ve had; the positive and negative ones, the ones we share, but also the ones we keep private. Memories we’ve had from our childhood, and recent events. Memories and experiences are even studied from a psychological perspective, where memories and experiences with a strong emotion connected to them tend to be remembered or more memorable. Flashbulb memory is the phenomenon that occurs when this emotional memory is experienced. Sad memories like the death of a loved one, a severe injury, and even a rejection can cause these memories just like happy memories, like a marriage proposal, graduation, or child can cause them. 
In my experience, the most resounding experiences that stay with us are the negative ones. These are the embarrassing moments that we learn from and grow from. Sometimes, these experiences can even be voluntary, where we put ourselves in difficult situations in order to grow from them. “Community is that place where the person you least want to live with always lives.(Week 11)” Taken figuratively, this quote shows that the people around us that might not like us or have motives different from us are the best to interact with. These people can sometimes bring out the worst in us; our insecurities, vulnerabilities, and weaknesses, and therefore allow us to act on and grow from them. These negative experiences can turn us into better people. The cliche of failure makes the best teacher, therefore, does have some truth to it. We are made of our experiences, but we cannot know what to expect from our experiences in the future. For this reason, we place expectations on ourselves, as well as hope, for fulfillment in the future. Hope is a valuable and vital thing to have, as it is a promise to ourselves that we can and will be better people. Hope drives everyone forward, no matter what kind of “hope” it is. Whether it is a religious faith, a personal hope, or a familial promise, hope that good things are ahead is what drives us forward as humans. “Everyone approaches their lives in a different way.(Week 12)” But the hope that next week will bring better things than this one and that the next thing you try will be amazing is what makes us tick. 

We are made of our past, and we are made for the things we have learned in our experiences.