Gina Campanella
Conscious minds
A person being terribly kind the
whole day felt like something out of a Hollywood movie. I pictured smiling
people and those out of touch with the world, like in the movie Pleasantville. There are opposing
preconceived notions that Loyola University Maryland is a friendly campus, but
at the same time many of the students are wealthy and pretentious. I cannot put
myself in the later category, but with my teenage years almost behind me, I’d
like to be able to firmly say I am a very kind person. Being in an environment
with many clashing opinions and social standings, unlike Pleasantville, I was slightly doubtful of this assignment.
Secretly, I was more afraid that I would not be able to go a whole day saying
kind, useful, and truthful things; this petrified and embarrassed me.
I reminded myself the night before
of the big task for the next day. I couldn’t think of anything worse than
waking up in a bad mood, and ruining this self-observation early on. I woke up
to get to work, and instead of hitting snooze for over an hour, which usually
leads to my roommate walking up, I only hit the button once and went unnoticed.
I had little human contact on the way to work, but once I arrived I put on a
smile that was more genuine than I planned and said “good morning” to my
co-workers. This was a new crew from last year, minus my best friend Paul, and
I realized I wasn’t as close with them as I wanted. Usually Paul and I just
talk amongst us, but this time I opened the discussion to everyone. This one
girl, we can call her “Bri”, tried to tell me her parents were on Secret
Service missions, that her boyfriend is forty in El Salvador, and that she
herself was moving to Puerto Rico shortly to pursue an experimental degree.
Although I had my doubts, and would have loved to poke fun at her, I realized
this must have been her way of coping with her world. I laughed it off and told
her that her life was interesting, instead of pushing her with my words and
making her feel uncomfortable. I think this helped me as a person, because I
related the situation to how little children make up stories to sound “cool”. I
bet “Bri” just wanted to make some new friends, and that day I decided I would
be one of them.
I went to class, took notes, and
participated with useful comments. I did not feel as if my class time was
affected positively or negatively by the iExamen. My brain doesn’t wander too
much when I’m in class, especially this day with only fifty-minute classes. I
used my time wisely by focusing, but once I left class I was really working
hard to stay on task with the reflection. I took a ride through Northern
Parkway to get to Michaels craft store. I sang to songs on the radio, observed
people inside and outside the store, and had interactions with employees. I
found that when I kept an open mind I was able to not get impatient with the
long line, and did feel like I needed to move fast paced like when I am home in
Boston. I strayed away from social media this day.
It was only my friend and I so it was
easy to stay focused on the task. I am sassy by nature, but she is quiet and
kind-hearted. I love to make jokes; I tend to say things that are truthful and
people preserve them as funny. These are not crude jokes, but I do know from
this self-observation that the jokes I usually make may need to be re-evaluated
more positively. Jokes can be one-sided, meaning they make people laugh but do
not make the speaker feel good. Through this iExamen I learned that being nice
is the fix for this, because they are just as happy but now the speaker
benefits from the kindness as well. I enjoyed the feeling I had when I was
vulnerably truthful and compassionate.
At dinner time I was feeling
exhausted. It was not actually hard work to be kind, truthful, and useful, but
to be conscious of it took effort. The people in Pleasantville make it look easy; they always have so much energy
and smiles on their faces. I was disappointed that I found it a big challenge
to complete this iExamen, and was fearful I wouldn’t be able to be this
conscious everyday. My goal is to practice this type of self-observation one a
week. I hope that this task will come innate to me after a few times. The
rewarding feeling of being kind is irreplaceable. There is no one saying I have
to like everyone I encounter, but I do have to be nice. Nothing makes people
different than me, and I owe them the respect I want in return. After all, this
is the golden rule I learned in Pre-school; I should put it into use almost
twenty years later.
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