Interdisciplinary Psychology:

Forgiveness  

            I struggled terribly with this exercise. I just couldn’t think of any one person that I would like to “forgive” for what they have done. I can’t stand the fact that we live in a world of victims and that everybody perceives themselves as the victim and never the perpetrator. I’m in no way suggesting that this exercise isn’t useful, but I just didn’t have any obvious person to forgive. In an effort to still use the idea of forgiveness, I altered the activity slightly.

Beautiful Day 

 Objectives/Plans…

¨      Sleep in past 8:00am

EMP

The Experience  

            I really enjoyed our time at the EMP. From start to finish, it was a good day. Although it was only one of many days, it was a day that I made a conscious effort to be positive. And though I consider myself a rather positive person to begin with, I’m sure that it’s that self-deception and misperceived self of mine exaggerating reality yet again.  However, on the day of the field trip, I actively tried to make the day as positive and fun as possible.

The Resilience Factor 

            We live in a culture filled with victims. It seems that every time anything unfortunate happens to us, we immediately skew reality and defend our egos with a vengeance. It’s never my fault and everyone else is out to get me. This kind of attitude is constantly in the news, portrayed in movies and television, and acted out in every day life. It’s frustrating on so many levels, but it’s especially frustrating when I read about techniques for increasing resilience and see how well they actually work. The theme of the text seemed to be that if people were more well equip with resilience techniques, the overall happiness and tolerance of people would increase. Why is it then, that this resilience information isn’t more widely available?

3 Blessings 

            Not every day of my life is particularly great or packed with wonderful experiences. Some days just call for a stiffer drink than the night before. However, once I took the time to think back on what positive events actually happened throughout the day, it was clear that I had a lot more to be thankful for than I gave credit to. I have an unfortunate habit of letting one day slip into the next and before I know it weeks have passed by. Doing something as simple as “counting blessings” every night was a refreshing reminder of how comfortable my day to day life is. I’m not regularly faced with struggles such as racism, sexism, discrimination or any other kind of intolerances. I don’t live in poverty and hot water is always on tap. If my biggest problem is paying a digital cable bill or having enough money to go snowboarding, I think I’m doing just fine. This exercise reminded me of my circumstances and how they could easily be a lot worse.