I Think, Therefore I'm Inked

Last April I decided to take a risk and do something far outside of my box. For much of my life I've judged people with tattoos but I've never had a reason for that judgement. I always associated tattoos with the uneducated, people who didn't realize that they would be living with that ink on their skin for the rest of their lives. While I spent so much of my time judging people with tattoos, I secretly wanted one. I felt conflicted. Last April I decided that I was going to get a tattoo, and I haven't regretted it since. 

My freshman year of college, I took a class called LOGOS and in the first two weeks of class we had read Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy and I was introduced to his phrase "Cogito Ergo Sum: I Think, Therefore I Am" and something about that idea has stuck with me ever since. The idea that the outside world is decieving and all that we can truly know is that we are thinking just really makes me think. I got that phrase tattooed on my upper lefthand shoulder to remind me that I am a "thinking thing" and as such, I need to use that to my advantage. I also decided on the phrase because it was the first real piece of LOGOS knowledge that I could say that I understood and really liked. It marked the beginning of my experience in that class/program and I got it in my last few weeks in the program last April. It not only represents that idea of thinking and intelligence, but it represents the program that has changed the way that I look at the world around me. 

It's a simple tattoo, just three words written in a cursive script, but this simple piece of art that I have has changed the way that I look at others, just as the idea and class that it represents, which is a really cool thing. By having a tattoo of my own, I've stopped judging others. One of my best friends has tattoos and never in a million years would I have thought that I would hang out with people with tattoos, but you know what? I've already started looking at other tattoo ideas. Something about using your body as an artistic canvas and having meaningful, little pieces of work that aren't typically visible, is totally cool with me now. Now, I'm not going to go out and have my body covered in ink from head to toe, but I am not opposed to getting one or two more little tattoos. One of the biggest oppositions to getting a tattoo is the question of whether or not you'll like it as much when you get older, but I'm 20 years old. I have many more years to worry about that. I'll probably be thought of as a badass old lady some day with the cool, intellectual tattoo. Some of the most fascinating people I've ever met have been tatted up and I think there's something to say about that.

Dear First Year Me

I've been getting somewhat sentimental lately and I think it is because I'm going into my Junior year of college and I have no idea where the time has gone. Over the holiday weekend it hit me that my brother is going into his senior year of high school and I have no idea how in the world that happened. My leadership position on View Crew has also sparked some of this sentimentality when working with new students. I absolutely love their excitement an curiosity and I really enjoy watching them make the transition from high school to college.  There was so much that I worried about coming into college that really wasn't necessary and there was a lot that I learned during that first year that I feel should be documented. 

Dear First Year Me,
College is FUN! Embrace it and have the time of your life but most importantly...
1. Be yourself. Seriously. High school is spent trying to fit into some mold of who you think you should be, and this is the time to figure out who YOU are. Not who people WANT you to be. There's a difference. A big difference.
2. Embrace change. You will spend the first week of college crying yourself to sleep, but you get over it. Homesickness is a real thing and it hits hard. Especially when your mom continuously sends pictures of your dog saying how much she misses you. You can and will get through it. You will even get to the point that when you go home for a weekend occasionally, it actually excites you to get back to Des Moines! I promise. 
3. Stop being so freaking shy. It's okay to be an introvert. It's part of who you are, but you HAVE to start opening yourself up and losing the shyness. There will come a day when you have to go out of your little comfort zone and you'll learn how much fun life is when you expand your horizons. 
4. Take risks. You will eat things you never thought you would get yourself to (hello there, sushi), you will do things you never expected (whats up tattoo) and you will find that taking those risks has helped you develop into the person you are meant to be. 
5. Never stop questioning. Don't take everything at face value. I know how gullible you really are and it's not going to work out so hot in your favor if you just believe everything someone tells you. You have to figure things out for yourself.
6. Everything will be okay. You are going to have this going through your head consistently for at least the next four years. Life can be stressful. You will be broke. All the time. Not just occasionally, but it's a consistent thing. It gets old but it always works out. 
7. Get involved. This isn't a question knowing you, but don't take on too much at one time. There are great things that stem from getting involved on campus and dabbling in everything is okay. Apply for leadership positions and don't let it get you down when you don't get hired on Team GV because you will get hired on SLT and View Crew. 
8. Embrace failure. I promise that you will learn how to accept and embrace failure. It's not that you will be lowering your standards, but you will be coming to accept that you aren't good at everything and some things are just not meant to be. Getting a B in Biology isn't the end of the world. Life seriously goes on. Who cares if you get a B in the hardest class you've ever taken? A B should be considered an accomplishment. 
9. Don't think you're "too cool for counseling" because it is seriously the greatest thing you will discover in college. Having someone to talk things through with and vent about life to is absolutely incredible. I can guarantee that you will grow through the awkward, quirky sessions you have and they will come to be your favorite part of the week. 
10. Realize that your family isn't your only support group. You are going to develop the absolute best connections outside of your family with faculty and staff members that can't even match the relationships you have with some of your best friends. Celebrate those people and let them know how much appreciate them. 
11. Don't worry about making friends. You may not have 500 best friends but you will develop a close little group of incredible ladies who will always have your back. That's the best kind of friendship if I do say so myself! 
12. Live your passion. Stop trying to conform to what people want you to be. It is your life. Maybe teaching FCS isn't exactly what you were meant to do. It's a great time to realize it Freshman year while you have time to change rather than when you are older. Maybe you have always been meant to pursue your love of history. That's how life works. 
13. You don't need a big meal plan because let's face it. You won't be eating on campus all day every day. It's excessive and expensive. Low ball it because you can always go up but you can't go down. 155 meals a semester? I don't think so. You will have meals left over. 
14. Cherish every moment. You're only 18 once. Let that propel you forward. Enjoy your time with friends, stop to smell the flowers, tell those around you how much you really appreciate them. 
15. Positivity is key. Remember that workshop you did at NLC in Orlando? Yeah? Take your own advice. Living life with a negative attitude isn't going to get you anywhere. The world isn't out to get you. That cashier who was grouchy while you checked out? They're having a rough day. It's nothing about you, smile at them. Try to brighten the day of others.
Most importantly HAVE FUN! Don't be a party pooper. If your friends want to go do something, don't make excuses to not do it. College is supposed to be the time of your life. Make it that. 

Risk and Failure

Each week I have a different challenge or thought to think about. This week my challenge has been to think about what is good about taking risks and embracing failure. The timing couldn't have been better. On Saturday I interviewed for one of my dream positions. I've wanted this position for years and it finally opened up. I applied, worked with my campus career center, got recommendations (one from the President of my university mind you) and gave the interview my best shot. In the end, the position was offered to someone else. I was absolutely crushed. In my life, I haven't taken risks very often. I've just stuck to what I knew. The biggest risk I've ever taken was running for an FCCLA state office in high school. I've never tried so hard for something to not work/ fail before like this and I've learned some things. Success doesn't always depend on how hard you work. Sometimes it's out of your hands. You just have to accept that. Someone once told me that failure isn't fatal and that's so incredibly true. For some reason I've always been afraid of failure to the extent that I thought that if I failed I would disappoint those around me and everything I worked for would be down the drain. This experience has been one of the most humbling of my life. You don't really know how many people you have rooting for you until you fail and they come to support you.
I don't like taking risks because of my fear of failure. But it's almost like not living because you're scared of death. That's dumb. You don't really live unless you fail. So many successful people attribute their success to failures and this experience has shown me that even if I fail, I have a huge support group to catch me and pull me back up. Recently I've been working on taking risks, but I haven't done any that would even have room for a failure. I need to do that. I'm going to start taking risks in every way I can. I've always excelled in everything that I've done and failure has never been in my vocabulary. Now that I see that failure is a part of life and a part of growing, I see that you don't truly live until you experience it. As much as I think that they made the wrong decision in not hiring me, I understand that I just wasn't the right candidate that they were looking for. Something better will come along and I will move on. I need to stop focusing on my high school glory days and put that enthusiasm and energy into my positions on campus.
In the end, I've learned a lot in the last 24 hours. I went from an emotional wreck to being accepting of it. I didn't realize how easy it would be to move on, but I'm excited to see where I end up next.

Adventures

As the year comes to an end, I can't help but get excited for all of the exciting opportunities I have lying ahead of me in the new year. If I had to come up with one word to describe 2013 it would have to be growth. I don't think that a single year has ever allowed/caused me to grow as 2013 did and I'm incredibly grateful for the adventures it has taken me on. If you know me, I'm not one for trying new things very often or stepping out of their comfort zone but that's exactly what 2013 caused me to do. I tried sushi which was gross but it was at a sketchy Chinese buffet which may have something to do with it, watched Christmas Vacation which may be one of the top Christmas movies ever, met some incredible people and caught up with friends I haven't seen in years, stepped out of my comfort zone in ways I never would have dreamed, became more independent, got a job on campus that I absolutely love, applied to the Education program making my dream of being a teacher that much more real, sent in an application for a position I'm incredibly excited about applying for, organized for and met Dr. Brad Buck on campus, took a picture with Senator Ted Cruz which was awesome even though I disagree with a solid 97% of his opinions, also met Senator Chuck Grassley who offered me an internship with his office, and attended two different fancy dinners which I loved, the list goes on and on but overall I learned and grew so much this year. I even got to watch (on TV sadly) my Grand View Viking football team take home the National championship! With so much greatness contained in one calendar year, I can only imagine what 2014 will bring.

I'm not one of those "New Year, New Me" types of people because let's be honest, I'm not going to do any of the stuff I say I'm going to, so why set myself up for disappointment? That's dumb. I get the idea of setting goals, but a new year isn't going to magically make your goals happen. It doesn't take a new year for you to make goals. If you want to change something do it. Don't wait for a new year to make it happen. You are the one in control of your life. Not the calendar. Come on people. Go out and make great stuff happen all year! Not just in January!

Although I'm not setting New Year's goals, I am looking forward to many things about 2014. I've got some great opportunities coming my way and I just can't wait for everything in the new year to get started. January kicks it off and from there the opportunities keep coming. It's so exciting! I'm ready to make 2014 as great or better than 2013 has been!

Happy New Year
Go out and do great things!

Hayley :)

Where does power come from?

I've been thinking a lot about where power comes from and what gives someone the right to have power over someone else lately. I think a lot of this has been stirred from a class I'm taking where we've been talking about the role of the state, but this is a question I've grappled with for a couple of years now.

Who was the first person to take charge as a leader, and why did the other people submit to them? Was it the best hunter or was it someone with natural leadership ability? Did gorillas that eventually evolved into humans have leaders? Why did one gorilla just suddenly become leader? Why? Why? Why? Is there such thing as a natural leadership ability? Is leadership really natural? Why does someone else have the ability to tell me what to do? I don't remember signing anything that says anyone else has power over me. I just don't understand and I don't think I'll ever fully understand.

What gives someone else power over me? They're just a person like I'm just a person. We are all just people, nobody better than the other. In a classless society, nobody would be born with more power than another. If we had no society back before society was even a thing, nobody was just born powerful (I mean, strength, yes, but power over others, no.) Where then, did power come from? What makes people submit to the authority of others? I just don't understand where that authority came from. A policeman is just another person, but they have authority over what we can and can't do. Who got to decide what we can and can't do? And why did they get to decide and not me? The problem I'm grappling with at the moment is that we're all just humans. Nothing really distinguishes each from the other in a state of pure nature, so what makes someone so much more powerful than I am. Why should a congressman have the power to tell someone whether or not they can get married? What is it that gave them that power? The constitution. Who gave men of the constitutional convention the power to create the constitution? When the settlers came to America, what made some leaders and others just normal, every day people? I just don't get it. Did someone just decide they were going to be King one day and BAM! they ruled over everyone?

Voltaire said "To figure out who rules you, figure out who you can't criticize." That is so true to an extent. You aren't going to openly, blatantly criticize the person who rules over you because of fear of punishment. What gives that person the power to punish you other than their own authority. In that case, why can't you punish them? If you criticize someone of power, there is a high probability of backlash so Voltaire was right. I do criticize Voltaire in the respect that if I were to criticize the President, who rules over me, it's possible to do so with little to no repercussions because others would agree. Granted, in earlier times, it was much harder to criticize the ruler, but the principle still stands. In Nazi Germany, those who criticized Hitler were far and few between because of terror of being punished. In other countries, it is a crime to speak against the leader, but in modern-day USA, I could write a blog about how much I hate President Obama and nothing would happen. I would get some backlash from friends of mine, but other than that it would be relatively painless (except for how much I support the president...it would pain me to have to write that :) ).

What kind of ruler rules through fear? I have a strong feeling that leaders through history have gained a lot of their power through inflicting fear of pain or punishment onto those they rule over. People wouldn't question the ruler because they didn't want to get killed or tortured. I think that in the beginning of time when people began taking control of each other they did so through fear. It's like a big bully who takes your lunch money. If you want to live here, you have to submit to my power otherwise I'll kill your family because I can. I think that would cause me to submit to someone else's power too. Not cool.

Another thought I've been pondering lately has to do with how anyone has any right to land. Adam and Eve didn't own land. Archaic peoples didn't own land. Maybe if you decided that you wanted to live somewhere and made your own area that was cool, but who ever associated a monetary value with it. I get selling a house, but I don't feel like anyone has more right to land than anyone else. It's another power thing.

I don't think I'll ever know the answer to these questions. I don't even know if this post makes any sense to anyone else but me, but I'll continue to think about these big ideas and try to figure out what I think and where power actually comes from. :)

Words of the Wise

I've been reading a lot of really interesting philosophical type books lately, both for class and my own personal enjoyment and I've learned a lot. (I'm also taking a political science class...so I've been thinking politically again...) From my post yesterday about Socrates being wise because he knew that he did not know, to what I've been reading this morning, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty which was talking about toleration of others I've been thinking a lot about some interesting topics. I haven't really thought about what Mill was saying for sure (I read it about an hour ago), but it got me thinking nonetheless.

This debate about tolerance has been going on for CENTURIES, and for someone who was writing in the 1800s to talk about toleration blew my mind, especially how strongly he was pushing religious toleration. He said "Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized..." The United States like to pride itself on being tolerant and accepting of all types of people, and freedom of religion was a MAJOR component of the founding of the United States, but do we really have religious freedom here? Yes, you're free to practice your own religion, or to not have one, but are you treated in the same way as others?

Christianity is so deeply ingrained in our culture that it's hard to be anything but. I get that we were founded on a strong christian base of various practices and denominations, but when the first amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." I think we need to take it seriously. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, it would have been much less of a deal to set a national religion, but today there is SO much religious diversity within our country, trying to push Christianity in everything is a bit ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I consider myself a Christian and I have absolutely nothing against Christianity as a religion, but I think we take it too far in our politics.

So many of the political arguments that divide our country center around religious problems, gay marriage, abortion, etc...and I think that we have to be able to remove religion from those problems and look at them as what they are without the Christian lens getting in the way.

Gay marriage- two people that want to get married of the same sex. How absolutely terrible is that? It's not. Don't get your panties in a twist because of someone else's decisions. You don't get to CHOOSE your own sexuality, so why should someone else CHOOSE whether or not you get married? I just don't get it. Come on now people. The bible says this or the bible says that; just because the BIBLE says it, doesn't mean that you HAVE to be against it. The bible also says that slavery is a natural condition...so do you believe in slavery because the Bible says it? Probably not. You have the capacity to decide for yourself whether or not you believe in gay marriage, but from a standpoint NOT involving religion, why would you have a problem with it?

Abortion- I'm not saying that I support abortion, but I don't see why someone else should decide what happens to someone else's body. There are SO many circumstances surrounding why a woman would get an abortion that I just don't feel like it is right for a law to say what you can and can't do to your body. That being said, I don't think that people should be able to have abortions past a certain point and I think there has to be a valid reason as to why someone does it, but I don't think that the limits should be so short that the woman doesn't have time to make a rational, well thought out decision. If you believe that life begins at conception, good for you. I feel like there are SO many complications that are natural that could end the life between conception and birth that it isn't as big of a deal as some people make it out to be. (I am not endorsing abortions in any way, shape or form, just giving my views here.)

If our CONSTITUTION/ Bill of Rights SAYS that we won't have a national religion, I really think we need to take religion and our politics and not put religious dogmas into our laws. We have to take a step back and look at the WHOLE picture and consider both sides of the argument. Mill talked at length about looking at both sides of an opinion before deciding which one you truly support and I really think that a lot of people need to be able to sit back and LISTEN to others' opinions before being so strong-headed themselves. Why can't we just support each other without tearing others apart because of their beliefs or opinions? I understand why people believe the opposite of me, I don't believe that they are always correct, but I support those opinions and would never HATE someone because of what they believe. My roommate and I are on the TOTAL opposite end of the spectrum on our opinions and some of our beliefs, but we embrace that. We support each other's opinions and we have GREAT discussions about this kind of stuff because we are able to see where the other comes from. Why can't everybody do that? I guess I'll never understand.

BTW- you can check out my roommate's blog at heathercarpe.blogspot.com :) It's REALLY good!

Wise is She who Knows that She Does Not Know

I've heard this idea everywhere lately and I absolutely love it. This idea began when I was reading the Death and Trial of Socrates: The Four Dialogues by Plato in my honors class. When we discussed it, I fell in love with the idea because I completely agree and I loved the way he worded it "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing." Socrates was told by the Oracle at Delphi that he was the wisest man in Athens, and I believe that he was wise because he understood that he didn't even begin to know everything that there is to know. You can't be wise if you think that you know everything, and you can't be wise if you think you know nothing. If you know that you know some things, but don't know even a portion of all that there is to know, you are wise. I also saw this quote in Sophie's World, a book I've started to read about the history of philosophy. It was talking about Socrates being wise in a really down to earth way and I really enjoyed it. I laughed when I caught the reference to the quote from the other book I had read about two days before.

I believe that there is so much to learn that it is impossible to learn it all. You have to understand that to be able to open yourself up to wisdom. Your life experiences, combined with the knowledge you have makes you wise but also the knowledge that you don't know all there is to know plays a major part. If someone knows that they are wise because they think they are, they're not wise. If someone else sees the wisdom in someone and that person doesn't believe that they are wise, then the person is truly wise.

I understand that I don't know all that there is to know and I accept that. I will work to learn all that I can though because I believe that knowledge is the key to a successful life, a happy life, and is the key to moving society forward. People have to be knowledgeable and educated for anything worthwhile to get done. If we don't know what we're doing and aren't educated about what is going on, we won't advance our society in any sense of the word. Education is the key.