Brooks and Barbara's connections

  Before coming in to class I was having difficulties finding the connections between the two articles. After I relooked at both articles over and over again I got a couple of connections of the two articles. Then when we went to class and everyone brought their own ideas about what connection these two articles had. When reading the two articles together in class I gained a lot of new information about how the articles connected because when people bring their ideas together it all start to make sense little by little. Talking about it in class was a good way to help me better understand the different ways they connected, everyone had little information and slowly it was like finding all the pieces and putting them together to find that connection. The two articles we were focusing on was the “It’s not About You” by David Brooks and “Confessions of a Quit Addict” by Barbara Graham. One of the connections were the variety of choices they both had and by having too many choices it made it hard for them to just stick to one. This connection was in my interest because this is true in real life, when we have too many options just to make one choice can be difficult. As compared to having just two options it makes it a little bit easier for us to choose because it narrows the options. Another connection these two articles had was they both talk about self-destructor. David brooks isn’t talking about himself directly of experiencing self-destructor but Barbara is, and somehow these two connect because they both talk about how it affects people. This class helped me understand abstract and concrete ideas because it something that always pops up and we end up talking about it. The more we talk about it in class the better understanding I get of these two terms. We discussed how Brooks article mainly is about abstract ideas like worry, anxiety, freedom, happiness, and purpose. Meanwhile Barbara’s article was more concrete and little abstract. Barbara gave specific, concrete examples in her article, she had loads of examples throughout her article.  For example, she talked about quitting which is abstract, but then later in the article she listed down what she quit throughout her life. Barbara quit multiple jobs, her marriage, and college. In conclusion, these two articles spoke about different topics but in a way had strong connections between the two.

The Two Flavors

David Brooks mentioned the two “flavors” of worry in America. The first one is election related anxiety, many people depend on this election because all candidates want to make drastic changes. An example why people in America are feeling anxiety about this election because of Donald Trump’s idea to build a wall that separates the United States and also try his best to kick out all the immigrants who live in the United States. This election has to be the most outrageous of them all not only because there are a lot of differences between the candidates but because this is the first time in history a woman is up for election to be the next president of the United States. The second flavor David Brooks mentions is the educated-class anxiety, and according to Brooks “can be characterized as a feeling overabundant of options without a convicting purpose.” There are studies shown that rich countries have more anxiety than poor countries. The World Health Organization states that 18.2 percent of Americans have constant anxiety,” while only 3.3 percent of Nigerians do.” Brooks also explains worry to have the “fear of missing out”, which does make sense. A lot of people do fear to be left out, I’m not really sure why people feel the need to receive attention all the time. Maybe they grew up having everyone’s attention that’s why it feels weird when other people are focused on something else and not on them. Also, many people feel the need to fit in, so maybe that’s another reason why David Brooks said that people fear to be left out or miss out. I see the second “flavor” playing in my friendships because sometimes I do fear of missing out on some of the things they do. For example, whenever they go out and they don’t tell me about it right away I feel like I’m missing out. Yes, I know I have been missing out on a lot of things but the main reason for that being is because either I have to go to work or I have to go to school and focus on turning in my assignments. Another fear of being left out with family is this year I’m not going to come home for the holidays due to my work schedule. I know I am going to miss out on a lot of things this year because of my priorities with school and work.