Getting Involved

So for this post we were supposed to look at some ways you can get involved on campus or in the Storm Lake community so I thought I would talk about what I already do that helps both. I am a part of the BV Buddies program, which involves mentoring a student either from the elementary, middle school, or even high school level. You meet with your mentee one hour a week and do fun activities with them. It involves the campus because it is a BV club you can join and most importantly, it involves the Storm Lake community because you are helping the youth become even better people. I love this organization because I love working with kids and it can teach you a lot as well. Overall it is a great organization that people should definitely think about joining!

Thrive Charts

Today's blog post was about the charts in the Thrive book and what we found surprising or interesting. I thought it was surprising that the amount of happiness goes up really high if you spend more time meditating or doing yoga. I did not know that it could cause that big of an impact on your level of happiness. I thought it was interesting that after reading 6-10 books you are not any happier than if you read any more than that. I love reading and I thought that if you read more, you would actually be happier but it kind of plateaus instead.

My Pride Shrine

For today's blog post we were supposed to look at what would be put in our pride shrine. I would put the following things in mine:

1. The basketball from the game when I scored my 1,000 point
2. My high school diploma and some day my college diploma
3. The scrapbooks I have of newspaper stories and other athletic and academic achievements
4. The basketball I received from the first coaching job I had
5. Pictures of moments that I will never forget that happened in the past

These things are important to me and they give me a sense of accomplishment so that is what I would put there.

Change in My Hometown

Our blog post today was to talk about something we would change about our hometown that would make it better and make people happier. I think that something I would change would be having more nature based activities and places to go because there are a lot of areas that could be utilized specifically for nature activities that are not being used for anything right now and it would get people out and about more than what they are. Although there is a sense of community already in my town, I think that this would help strengthen it even more. I guess it would not necessarily have to be nature based either but just more things to do in general where people can get together and do something different instead of the same old stuff they do all the time.

5 Priorities and Core Values

Today's blog post was about our 5 priorities based on our daily schedules and how well that matches up with our core values from before. My top 5 priorities based on my schedule would be:

1. Education
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Happiness
5. Work

I think that technically I could have all 5 of my priorities match with my core values because education and work would go with perseverance since you have to work hard with both of those in order to accomplish what you need to. Family and friends would go with family oriented since they are very important to me to have in my life. Finally, happiness would go with humor since that is something that I find enjoyment in and stuff that makes me happy.

Meaningful Quote From Chapter 1

We were supposed to look at the first chapter of the Thrive book we are reading for this class and I decided that I liked a quote by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi the best. The quote is:

            "As many a thinker since Aristotle has said, everything we do is ultimately aimed at
             experiencing happiness. We don't really want wealth, or health, or fame as such---we
             want these things because we hope they will make us happy. But happiness we seek not
             because it will get us something else, but for its own sake."

I really thought this quote was interesting because many people think that money can buy you happiness or just material things in general. The funny thing is that we may not really want those things, we just want the happiness that we think will come from having those things. The thing is though, the things that we think should make us happy really do not and could actually cause you more problems instead. I think what we should do is be happy with the things we have and the people we have in our lives because that is all we really need to be happy.

Where I Come From

So for the blog today we were supposed to describe our hometown.

I am from Nashua, IA which is a really small town in Northeastern Iowa. My town is so small that we only have one restaurant, two gas stations, no movie theater, no bowling alley, and nowhere to shop (closest place is about 30 min away) In my town, everyone knows everyone, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. I would say that in general, we would have a 6 out of 10. I think that the sense of community helps with being happy but since there is a lack of things to do I think that decreases it quite a bit.