Tuesdays with Morrie

Although this wasn’t the first time I read Tuesdays with Morrie, I feel like I appreciated it more this time. In fact, I feel like my appreciation for the book will continue to increase as I begin to resemble the main character, Mitch, and his preoccupation with all of the superficial things life holds. However, reading this time I felt a bit conflicted. Last time I read it the concepts seemed so simple: don’t get bogged down in things that don’t matter, stay close to your family and friends, love everyone. As a college student—especially at a school like Southwestern—I think I’ve become very caught up in planning for the future: internships, grad school, careers, etc. As a result it’s difficult to acknowledge the fact that a job/salary/position is not going to be the end all/be all of our lives. So when I was reading about Morrie “scolding” Mitch for getting too caught up in his job, I was torn between all of the planning that’s going on and the idea that there are and will be more important things in life.

However, I don’t want this conflict to negate the fact that I really like this book. The idea of “love or perish” is one that is very familiar and comforting to me; my family lives by the words “love one another.” This is something that I feel any and everyone can benefit from, and a goal I try to aim for in my daily life.

I think that it would be impossible to fully discuss our topic of Understanding Human Behavior without covering death. Morrie often mentions, and I think we can all agree, that people’s priorities and outlook on life changes drastically when they discover exactly how much of that life they have left. People who had no interest in their fellow human beings suddenly crave relationships; people who continually put things off become eager and anxious to begin those same things. I also think that how a person handles their own death says a lot about them. Morrie’s response, for instance, suggests that he is happy with the way he lead his life and how it turned out. I also think that by being at peace with his situation, it shows that he is confident that everyone he loves is quite aware of his feelings.

I’m interested to see how everyone in the cohort feels about the conflict of striving for a successful career versus focusing on the more personal things in life, or if they think it’s a conflict at all. I definitely believe that both can be achieved, though I’m not sure how easy that may be.

Boys and Girls Club

We talked a lot about what, if anything, we’d like to get out of our service project. I think we toyed with the thought that we shouldn’t want anything out of volunteering, and that wanting to be personally fulfilled defeats the purpose of a selfless act. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to personally benefit from a volunteer project. I love kids; they make me laugh. In the long run, I think going to the Boys and Girls Club could have a great impact on these kids, but I’m sure that one day in the near future when I’m stressed and just want to get away from school, this could be the perfect way to do that. We also have the benefit of being with the kids for a limited amount of time. That sounds bad, but I simply mean that by visiting once a week, or once a month or whatever we decide, we won’t become bogged down in the everyday stresses that working with kids can bring. I worked at a kids’ summer camp for two years and by the end of two months I’ll be honest I wasn’t as excited about going to work as I was at the beginning of the summer. For this project, though, we won’t have to worry about that and we can just enjoy spending time with the kids. So I guess one goal I have for this project is pretty selfish (come on, we’re all selfish, it’s not just David): a way to escape from my hectic schedule for a bit and do something that I enjoy that actually benefits others….rather than just watching TV or Facebooking…..

Another goal I have for this project is kind of a smaller version of our group goal (to form relationships with others). While forming relationships is the long-term goal, I think that the being able to interact with people who aren’t just other students to complain with or a study buddy is a great opportunity. I genuinely enjoy being around/getting to know people, and when you’re at a place like Southwestern, though we certainly have a diverse set of personalities, we’re all somewhat alike: hard-working college student (hopefully), teenager/young twenty-something, etc. I think that getting outside of the SU bubble will be a breath of fresh air that might keep us a little more sane as the semester goes on.

Personally, I would like to go to the Boys and Girls Club with a small group at first. I’ll be more comfortable that way which I’m sure will make the kids more comfortable and fell more at ease. As far as structured games/activities are concerned, I think we would be better off just hanging out with the kids and maybe just participating in whatever they’re doing at the time. I’m afraid that if we come in right away and say “OK now we’re all going to do this…” we may come off a little more authoritative than we would like. Eventually, I think it would be fun to incorporate some group activities, I just feel like we’ll have more success with that after we’ve gotten to know the kids a bit.

I think it’s kind of pointless to go to the Club for less than an hour at a time. It will take a little while for the kids to warm up to us and if we take off right after that happens it probably won’t work very well. Honestly, though, I don’t think I’ll be able to go more than 3 times a month…..probably more like 2. I don’t know how often everyone else thinks they’ll be able to go, but I think if we’re going in groups of 2-4 at least every other week, then we’ll have at least one group there each week. Maybe that’s less than everyone is wanting to go, I guess it just depends on how all of our schedules look.