David Foster mentions the theory about oneself to think that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities. However, Foster claims that this is the automatic, unconscious way of adult life that many may choose to follow and not be aware of it. In addition, I agree that my way of life shouldn’t just be about me, but about others as well. It’s important to think about others because Foster claims that its essential to open up your mind to think about others around you. Foster emphasizes the fact that the cliche about “teaching you how to think” is actually shorthand for an idea that is much more serious. As many may not be aware, “Learning how to think” is what we should …show more content…
It’s an average day and you get up in the morning, you go to your challenging job, you work long hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired. All you want to do is just come home and unwind because the next day you have to do this all over again. However, it comes to your attention that you have no food at home so you decide to go to the supermarket. You’re so annoyed because now you have to drive all the way to the supermarket. The end of the day is causing a long traffic, which is pissing you off even more. When you finally get to the supermarket, it’s crowded. You say to your self that this is the last place you want to be right now. Anyway, you finally get your food and get to the checkout lines, but now there are not enough checkout lanes open. You now become infuriated, but you still wait in the checkout lane. You finally pay, but then you have to maneuver your cart to the car and load the groceries so that they don’t fall out. You get into your car and drive back home through slow …show more content…
It’s not impossible that some people in SUV’s causing the traffic have been in horrible accidents and are now driving so traumatic. Maybe someone had cut me off driving fast because they have a hurt child in the back and are rushing to the hospital. They are in a much more legitimate hurry than I am. We can think that some of the people in the supermarket are just as bored and frustrated as I happen to be. A lady yelling at her son in the checkout lane may be doing so because she had stayed up three nights holding the hands of her dying cancer husband. Of coarse none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. We don’t have to choose to think differently. But if we do, we will be much more happier in life. We will start to have different perspectives of the people around us. Each and every circumstance that we may have to encounter, we will be able to choose how we want to react to that certain circumstance. The choice to try to see things differently, decide what has meaning and what doesn’t, is ours. No one can tell us how to think, we must learn for
In the article This is Water by David Foster Wallace, he talks about our daily lives and how important it is to notice our selfish ways by learning how to think. Wallace does this by applying scenarios to his article that show exactly how being self-centered occurs and what we can do to change our thoughts. In his article, Wallace also illustrated that our selfish ways are actually programmed from birth. For instance, ever since we were little, we all have come across a situation where we know someone who has annoyed us or irritated us. However, since we do not know their entire situation, we only judged them by the "cover of their book”. This act of selfishness does not make us happy like we want it to be though. After analyzing our self-centered actions, Wallace came up with the idea that in order for individuals to be truly satisfied with their lives, one needs to be more open-minded about their surroundings and see the world with the glass half-full.
On top of that, these type of people use their cellphone, eat, don't wear seat belts, or drunk while they are driving. But these people don't realize that doing those minor thing can cause them severe pains or even deaths. There are millions of peoples are getting killed and injured every year because of car accident. I think if everyone use the traffic rules, all
It is common for human beings, as a race, to fall into the comforts of routine – living each day similar to days before and days to come. Unfortunately, it is often too late before one even realizes that they have fallen into this mundane way of living in which each day is completed rather than lived, as explained by David Foster Wallace in “This Is Water”. This commencement speech warned graduating students of the dangers of submitting to our “default settings” of unconscious decisions and beliefs (Wallace 234). However, this dangerous way of living is no new disability of today’s human race. Socrates warned the people of his time: “A life unaware is a life not worth living” and who is to say he wasn’t completely right? A topic of long debate also includes the kind of influence that consciously-controlled thoughts can have on the physical body. A year after Wallace’s speech, neurobiologist Helen Pilcher, published “The New Witch Doctor: How Belief Can Kill”, which explains the influence of the mind and individual beliefs on the quality of one’s life. Together, both authors illustrate how detrimental a life lived unaware of one’s own thoughts and beliefs can be on the body and spirit. And though it is easy to live by
Dangers on roadways is an issue that describes the discrepancy between perception and reality of road rage. The media, for some odd reason, tends to make road rage a huge controversial issue. As seen on talk shows from Oprah Winfrey to CNN, they reveal to people that road rage could happen at any time and to always be looking over your shoulder. These talk shows and news programs also put fear into our minds by explaining that most roadragers often use guns to kill or injure their victims. Glassner contradicts the media's speculations by stating that out of approximately 250,000 people killed on roadways between 1990-1997, AAA attributed that one in one thousand was an act of road rage (pg.5).
The “What's in it for me?” mindset that so many people live with in today's world can appear to be a selfish question. Morris believes that it's anything bu...
Yet Wallace tells his audience that they can control this at times, that they can show sympathy for the giant SUV that just cut them off on the high way, or the old lady who could be making her final trip to the grocery store. Wallace reasons that being thinking in this mindset is not our unconscious thought, that in order to embrace this empathetic and compassionate train of thought “it depends on what you want to consider.” (208). Informing his audience that awareness is essential and Wallace also declares that “you get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t.” (208).
When a motorist expresses offense over the actions of an aggressive driver, the situation can escalate to acts of road
During a commencement ceremony, David Foster Wallace addresses graduating students with a query of how to think critically, away from their default parameters of thought. The challenge laid by Wallace was to begin learning how to break away from an egocentric method of thought--away from being able to narrowly look at a situation and observe how it may have a personal effect, in preference for a train of thought that looks at “why is this happening and how does it affect everyone involved”? This is supported by multiple analogies that Wallace covers, such as trying to comprehend why someone is driving defensively in an SUV, or why someone is driving recklessly and in a hurry. Wallace goes as far as to reverse the egocentric train of thought
Learning how to think in this way takes time and failure. This idea is what happens in schooling. A student is being taught how to think through lectures and a letter grade system in which tells the student if he or she needs to improve in a certain area. In this way students improve in knowing how to think. However, this is not all that goes into the idea of learning how to think. Quoting David Wallace he says “..being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.” (Wallace, pg 3). To be able to do what David Wallace is talking about a person has to learn from their failures in the way they think. For example, if a person has a bad experience eating sea food such as salmon they learn from that failure, and probably will not eat salmon for a long period of time. Learning how to think about your failures is one of the main objectives in order to learn from those
Susan Wolf, born in 1952, is widely considered one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th and 21st century. One of Wolf’s most renowned works is The meanings of Lives, which drew a lot of attention in the philosophical world for a number of questions that arose from it. Arguably her most widely debated and questioned assertion in The meanings of Lives is “If you care about yourself you’re living as if you’re the center of the universe, which is false.” This however I don’t not believe to be true. Every human being, no matter how successful or unsuccessful, has the right to care for them sleeves and not believe they are the center of the universe while doing so.
Some would say that speed limits are not adequate, or certain laws should be changed. Reports have shown that the majority of Americans have no problem with speed limits or the laws; new drivers are not helping either. There are key things that are liable for joining or causing road rage. For example; loud music, honking the horn, tailgating, and changing lanes without signaling all have been known to increase tension while driving. The actual causes can be traced back to different forms of stress. Such as being called into the boss' office for discussion of work performance, making bad grades in school, or having just been dumped by your girlfriend/boyfriend. Road rage is a result of an outburst of all the stress in ones life. Cars are a status symbol in our time. Nice cars give others the impression that the driver has money. Fast or flashy cars give an impression
in the future; we are guided by our thoughts. We become what we think about. Start Today.
Paul, R. & Elder, L. (2004). Critical Thinking: Nine Strategies for Everyday Life, Part I.
You often think that everything boils down to deadlines. If only the tick of the clock is much slower and if deadlines don’t exist, everything would be much easier. Sometimes you blame your failures to somebody or to a circumstance where in fact, the real problem is just the way you perceive stress.
Attention Getter: Life is like a huge roller coaster, a journey full of twists and turns, and ups and downs. And sometimes in this journey there arises various situations where one is unable to deal with these turns, let alone have the energy to face the ups and downs. In situations when the downward spiral becomes difficult to overcome it seems to linger on and on. The major cause of such feelings, are the chaotic activities of life. Stress is no stranger to our daily life. Stress in its severer form can lead to everything that we care about and love become strained and puts a burden on our physical and mental health. Therefore, we must take a hold of our stress, hang on to life and practice helpful techniques to vanish these stressful dilemmas. When we understand our situation, the better we will be able to get through them with ease.