Assignment Takeaway 5

This week’s assignment was my favorite assignment! We were supposed to choose to do five acts of kindness for someone that we don’t know. Showing random acts of kindness is something that I absolutely love doing. Unfortunately, I get too caught up in my everyday life and don’t always remember to do for others as much as I probably should. With that being said though, I try very hard to instill in my children the joy of giving to others. As cliche as it may sound, kindness makes the world go ’round. With all of the hate in the world today, I want to make it my mission to do what I can to spread love. If others do the same, maybe the world will be slightly more loving.

My visual representation this week is a picture that I took when my children and I decided to put a couple of dollars into the Redbox movie when we returned it. We did the same this week but I didn’t take a picture of it. This is one of my kid’s favorite things to do and I hope it is an act that they share with their children.

 

Assignment Takeaway 4

I chose this visual representation for the assignment 4 takeaway because love is my lifeline. I am a very emotionally-driven person and my whole world revolves around the love in my life.

After reading the prompt for this assignment, I was immediately excited. We were asked to take a love style questionnaire and then share our results and reaction to those results. I feel very blessed to have the amount of love in my life that I do and I couldn’t wait to share that love with everyone! This assignment was challenging as well. I am not used to analyzing my love and thinking about it in a way that I haven’t thought about it before. This assignment challenged me to take an in depth look at the way in which I express my love. Not only did I learn about the styles of love that I relate to the most, but I also learned how to think about my personal relationships with those I love.

I was pleasantly surprised by the results of my love style questionnaire and was intrigued so much that I continued to research the love styles that I scored high in. I also found it fun to include my partner in the results and get his opinions on my results and how they relate to our relationship. This assignment has definitely been a topic of conversation recently and it excites me to learn more about why and how I love the way that I do.

 

Assignment Takeaway 2

Talk about an intense assignment! Self-analysis is always very intimidating. I don’t particularly enjoy talking about myself and I surely don’t typically like looking at myself in photos. (Ha!) With that being said though, I did thoroughly enjoy this assignment.

Being able to step back and analyze every part of myself was quite humbling. I wasn’t worried about what I looked like but was more focused on how I was feeling. By doing this with each picture, I was able to bring back the very raw emotions that I was feeling in the moment.

For a photo representation, I chose an actual photograph that I wrote about in my assignment. This photo was taken at my graduation just a few months ago. It is me in my cap and gown surrounded by my beautiful children. I vividly remember trying to fight back the tears here, because I couldn’t believe that I was finally graduating! I was finally able to have something tangible to represent all of my hard work over the years. To have my children, who were so proud of me, by my side made it that much more incredible!

 

Assignment Takeaway 1

https://www.deviantart.com/agbutler/art/If-It-Aint-Broke-Don-t-Fix-It-139508161

Learning about the four different heuristics this week was very eye opening. I know that we tend to make decisions quickly but I didn’t realize how much they impact our judgement. The representativeness heuristic refers to a decision that is made based on what group a person seems to fit in based on certain characteristics. The availability heuristic is a decision that is made based on how easily someone can think of other instances like that one. The anchor and adjustment heuristic uses an anchor as a start and then adjusts it accordingly. Finally, the status quo heuristic keeps things consistent.

Personally, the one heuristic that I was able to relate to the most is status quo. I am guilty of seeking consistency everywhere I go. The saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” should be my motto! If I visit a new restaurant and I order something that I enjoy, I will typically stick with that meal every time I come back. In the same scenario, if I order something that I don’t like, I most likely won’t go back to the restaurant again. After this week’s lesson, I see now how detrimental that can be. I’m essentially keeping myself in my own little bubble and not experiencing the world around me. Just because something is great, doesn’t mean that there won’t be other things that are great as well. Likewise, just because something isn’t great, doesn’t mean that other things won’t be better.

Learning about what each of these heuristics are and the potential issues with using them, will allow me to be more aware of my decision making process.