People are too self conscious

During this unit in sociology I had a friend in my mind who I was connecting everything to. There are some people in this world who are overly self conscious because they are looking at these women on magazine covers and comparing themselves. I think it is absolutely rediculous when women do this because we all know these women are "fake" and photoshopped. My friend used to complain about her self image on a daily basis (that is before she got help). People need to be carefull and look out for their friends before they do something dangerous (like hurt themselves). Women need to learn to love themselves the way they were born and brought into this world. Like is an amazing thing and I believe everybody should be thankful for what they have.

Nature V. Nurture

Yes, nature and nurture are both two essential ideas that help a person become "human" but my view is that nurture overpowers and has a stronger effect then nature does. Like we have been learning in class everyday, people need interactions with their own kind to become fully "normal". For example, we have learned about neglected children who have lived with almost no nurture for a portion of their lives. This has effected them in many ways and they can't function like a normal human being would. It is not enough that they were born human, because they weren't cared for and nurtured by their surroundings and parents. For instance, some of them didn't know how to talk or had extremely abnormal behaviors. I believe that each child grows up to be somewhat like their parents (no matter what), that is if they were cared for properly. For me, I always repeat that i will not be like my mom over and over again in my head... but the truth is, I am already becoming slightly like her in small ways. There is nothing we can do about it nurture over powers nature.

Life Without $$$

Acouple days ago in Sociology we learned about an educated man who gave up all of his money and everything along with it and is now happily living in a cave in the desert. He relies on nature for food and anything else he needs and he uses the public library for their computers. After hearing this story I couldn't even imagine myself with no money what-so-ever. Living in America, we become dependent on money and materialistic items, and most of us think that it would be impossible to live without those things. But, this man has proved us all wrong and has showed us that money doesn't automatically provide happiness. This is because he is just fine and content living with nothing. Even though this man has gone to extremes, his story gave me a different prospective on life.

Fear of Dependency

I think because of the fact that America is all about Democracy which provides Freedom and Independence, people who live in America are afraid of being even a little dependent. In many cases, people in America who truly need help, don't ask for it and then something un-needed occurs. For example if a father loses his job, he might feel that he has too much pride to ask his best friend or brother for some money or support; since he feels he needs to be stubburn and independent it might lead his family into a rut they didn't have to be in, in the first place. In my case, I find myself dependent on my parents for many things. This does in fact make me very uncomfortable because 1) I'm going to college next year and need to learn how to do things on my own and 2) I feel I have to act a certain way and do certain things just to recieve their help without feeling bad about it.

There really isnt just one way to describe America. For the past couple of days in sociology we have been trying to, but in my head it just isn't clicking. Yah, SOME of us only care about materialistic things, and SOME of us are all about time and money... but that is thing, we all get to choose what we want to be and what we think so it's not fair to generalize Americans and say for instance that "we all are lazy", because personally I know I'm not lazy. All and all, there really isn't any words that could describe ALL of America, because living in the U.S everyone gets the freedom to be different.