organization and peace through learning challenges

I am very excited that the Learning by HEART challenges have been added to the course this semester. I think that happiness, empathy, attention, reading and time management are some of the most vital skills of life. I could even argue that I think they are more important than the education I've received through this point because all of the knowledge I have accumulated means nothing if I cannot manage my time, connect with people, and live my life happily. It is not often that a course offers material on these subjects, so I am very eager to do some of the challenges and read more about how I can improve in these areas. 

Out of the topics covered, I am most interested in reading more about happiness and time management. While I do think I am a happy person, I do feel myself getting very frustrated about small issues or getting really put out when wrong thing goes wrong in my day. I think if I had a mindset of more overall happiness and was more focused on all of the good things I have in my life rather than the negative, it could help keep some of these feelings at bay. I need to learn to let go of the things that I cannot change and not let them bring me down. The challenge that most interested me in the happiness section was the happiness jar. I think its a really good idea to write down all of the good things that happen because I could see the jar physically fill up with the pieces of paper which would be a visual reminder of all the wonderful things that happen. In addition, if I ever was feeling down then I could reread all of the things and revisit the happy feelings that I felt whenever they happened. 

A meme describing a valuable life lesson. Photo created by: James Dubreze

The second area I would like to work on is time management. Even through the first week of this course, I felt myself getting behind and starting to get stressed about everything that I needed to complete. The first week is difficult because we have been on break and have not developed a routine for the semester yet. However, I think using better time management would have helped me complete more assignments without the grace period and would have eliminated some stress from my week. In addition, I think strong time management skills are vital to have because I will always need them. Even after graduated, I will still have work deadlines and things I need to get done. Therefore, I would like to develop these skills now while the resources are easily available and are in a perfect environment to practice and strengthen them. In my eyes, it would be a total waste to not take full advantage of these challenges and use them as an opportunity to grow.

Lastly, I really enjoyed the jelly bean video that was posted in the blog to introduce the idea. I had seen it before, but it was a good reminder to take full advantage of my time and live life to the fullest. I think its so easy to get bogged down in the responsibilities I have or in the feeling that my life is "hard" because I have to balance my time between classes, jobs, and friendships. It was a good reminder to shift my focus and cherish each moment and use it intentionally to further either my relationships, my knowledge or my skills. The last thing I want to do is look back on my life and regret the time I spent jealous of people who had more free time, or stressed about classwork or worried about the future. Rather, I should enjoy every moment I've been given and learn whatever valuable lesson I can from each situation thrown at me.