Past

As I was registering for my Fall 2016 classes, Cornerstone Experience was a mandatory orientation course, so I automatically thought it would be a waste of time. However, I was curious about what the class would entail, so I asked one of my friends who took the course his freshman year. He said it was mostly group activities/assignments, and I would have to go around campus and take pictures of the places I went. He left out just how thought-provoking the lectures would be. My all-time favorite…

The Power of Now Name Institution Course Date The Power of Now “The Power of Now” is a book by Eckhart Tolle. The book majorly talks about how living in the present (now) is the true meaning of life. It provides people with the real happiness they require in their lives. The main subjects of the book include spirituality and psychology. Tolle uses his knowledge to write to us about how every person needs a guide in their lives so that they may live up to their expectations. In spirituality,…

A small boy takes his first step, falling as he tries. There is no one watching. No one to help him up. With tears streaming down his plush cheeks, he continues on crawling. As he grows, he never truly learns how to walk, but he holds onto his surroundings to hold him up. Years later, he has completely tricked his mind into thinking he can walk on his own, but when one of his crutches breaks in two, he is back at crawling. With a death in his family, he crashes back into reality that he is once…

“Money doesn’t buy happiness.” That’s what the people prior to us tell us, the next generation, but they tell us as they are sitting in their paid off Ford F150 with their fancy new iPhone watch and college tuition loans paid off. Because they are done, they have no daily stresses because they have “made it” in the real world. The rest of us, not the 99% not swimming in pools of diamonds, but the rest of us middle classers, 50% of Americans (Thuy Vo 2012), bring home less than 1,000 dollars a…

problems answer it causes history to repeat itself. This repetition of the past will cause isolation at the worst, and complications beyond repair. The innocences and truth with which were thought, are revealed as lies. The hidden truths reveal an ugly background within the years before them. This unearthing will undoubtedly bring about the seen similarities with the problems of what was once before it. Problems pertaining to the past will ultimately bring about the destruction within a person…

Jr once said, “we are not makers of history; We are made by history.”. By this he means that we are shaped by our past, everything that has happened, has happened because certain people wanted it to. We can't change the past but we can make the future. And throughout time society has continued to change. We strive to create change so the world will become better. Looking at the past there are many great changes that have influenced who we are today as a society. However not all change is good…

importantly, the question is what is history itself and whose narrative is at the core. In her reflective, but argumentative, essay entitled “In History”, Jamaica Kincaid analyzes how these ideas-- what is history and how does what happened in the past impact us today-- can and should impact people today. Kincaid commences her essay discussing the actions and lasting legacy of Christopher Columbus. She describes that “he [Christopher Columbus] named” the various people, animals, and the…

Mindfulness (n.): Awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally. This is the definition according to Jon Kabat-Zinn. This definition, although quite descriptive as to what mindfulness embodies, may not mean a whole lot to someone who has never experienced mindfulness. This is because understanding what mindfulness truly is and then living life in a mindful manner is quite challenging and takes plenty of practice. Throughout my relatively…

Santayana once interestingly stated: “Those who cannot remember the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat it.” With this same philosophical idea proposed by George Santayana, the study of our nation’s history and foreign policy efforts should be used as a lesson to guide any future behavior on how the United States should deal with the threat ISIS presents because of the clear thread that exists between the past and present. The same gap of communication and lack of understanding of…

”That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong What they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realized I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years now." -chapter one This quote, located at the beginning of the first chapter, gives heavy insight into what lies ahead. In the second sentence, the narrator hints at a memory from the past. We then know this memory is traumatizing in one way or…