Week 9

I'm passionate about a lot of things.  When people read my CV, I feel as though the first thing they think is that I'm not very focused in the things I do:  I have a job as an RA at an apartment complex for paraplegics, I do research on salamanders, I founded and am now president of the first Hispanic sorority on Ohio State's campus, I have played piano since first grade, and I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, building houses.  I think that it's only natural to be passionate about a wide array of different topics.

I don't think that social change can come out of every passion one has.  However, I do think that social change arises from passion.  Social change is a tough topic because it requires change from not an individual, but from a community.  Only a huge motivational force would be able to make such a huge change in society, and I think that passion is that huge motivational force.  Our passions get us emotional about certain topics.  For example, if I'm an advocate for Women's Rights and I constantly hear about rape cases on the news, this might stir up some anger.  This anger would then drive me to make some change in my community.

One thing that I'm passionate about is the Latino community in the US.  I'm an advocate for that underrepresented community and I do all that I can to make changes within it.  The Latinos are not really voices on our campus.  I tried to change that by establishing the first Hispanic-based sorority on campus.  My sorority now supports other Latino groups on campus, such as LSA.  Slowly, we are trying to create a network of Latino and Latino advocates in our community so that this underrepresented group will have more of a voice on our campus.

For me, it's not hard to stay committed to this particular project because that passion is still inside of me and I'm still very driven to reach my goals.  However, it is tough when perhaps I want to collaborate with another Hispanic organization, but my group as a whole wants to collaborate with someone else.  It is upsetting when individual and group ideas do not perfectly overlap, and that can pose challenges.  However, I think that overall, my group as a whole and myself are still very committed to this project that we took on.  I think we're just as committed now as we were when we first started.

Week #8

In order to work closely with one another in a group, members of the group need to discuss goals and methods on how to reach the goals with one another.  Inevitably, when having these discussions, group members will notice the personal values of one another.  At times, this can be a positive thing.  For example, if a sister values education and is showing how much she does value it by studying at the library, perhaps other sisters will be motivated to take on this value as her own and thereby join her sister at the library.  Sometimes, having individual values rub off on the group can have negative consequences, though.  For example, if a fraternity member joined Greek Life for the wrong reasons and thereby values only the social aspect of Greek Life, this attitude might draw others in as well.  Other fraternity members may start putting more emphasis on the social aspect and less on pillars he/she used to value, such as academics.  I think that being a person of congruence doesn't mean that we are congruent with our values every second of every day.  There will be times where we do make mistakes and perhaps we are less motivated to do work for our philanthropies or put hours in at the library.  I think that this is okay, as long as we don't lose sight of the bigger picture.  It's okay to trip up once in a while, but when we look closely and examine whether a person is a person of congruence or not, I think it's best to not focus on little mistakes, but look at the person as a whole.  We're all humans and will thereby make mistakes so dwelling on solely the times where we were not living congruently might not be the smartest thing to do.  To live a life of congruence, I think that the best thing is to look at our behavior.  If it parallels what we say we believe in, then we are on the right track.  If there are some murky areas, then that gives us an opportunity to ask ourselves why we weren't being congruent at that time and what we can do in the future to make sure that we are living congruently --maybe our values changed or maybe we made a mistake that we can learn from.

Week #7

We come to value things in our lives based on life experiences.  People become passionate about things when they have a personal connection to them.  For example, a woman with a father with Alzheimer's might donate money to research for the cause or a woman with a sibling with breast cancer might walk in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure or if someone has experienced abuse, they might create a help group on campus to help other people suffering from abuse.  People value a lot of things in life, which makes it hard to balance, but overall I think that people typically do a good job of being congruent with their values.

I think that I mostly am congruent with my values, but on occasion there are times when I should be studying, but instead I'm socializing.  Some people might say that in this case I'm not being very congruent, but I think that social interaction is important as well -in fact, Social Interaction is one of my sorority's Principles.  Sometimes, we need to choose between two things we value, and I think those are the times when people look at others and think that they are not being congruent.

Right now I'm struggling with congruency with community service.  I always talk about how important it is to serve the community, but I have not done as much community service as I would have liked this semester.  This is an area where I can definitely improve on.  I think that right now I am struggling with it because I'm focused on academics:  Keeping my GPA up and studying for the MCAT.  Hopefully this summer when I won't have the pressure of school, I will be able to devote more time to community service.