Decisions? How do we make them? How do we know they are right?...
That is the big question in this modern era. In the old times people's lives where planned when they were children. Women got a fine husband and got married early to raise a family, while men worked. It used to be simple since everyone knew their life was planned out for them. Now it is a very different time. Women are doctors, leaders, teachers and many other things and men are the same. Now we have the freedom to choose of how we will end up and what life we will have when we get there. However like in Spider Man, "With great power, comes great responsibility." The power we have grows everyday with the help of our minds and what we have created with them. Our minds have led us to great discoveries like new worlds, and medicine but it has also led to great pain, like war and environmental degradation. Our actions have consequences and that is something that we as people tend to forget.
How we come around to these decisions is never easy and we are faced with them every day. Small things like what to eat for lunch, if we really have to do the reading for homework and if we can stay up watching TV one more hour. However what some people overlook is that these small decisions are what lead to the larger ones. There are several factors that lead to how we make decisions; including past experiences, age and individual preference, belief, and escalation of commitment. (Dietrich, 2010) Malcolm Gladwell talks about how we come to the decisions we do and uses research to back his claims. According to Gladwell research has shown that many decisions are led by instinct or reasoning. There are times when there is no clear logical decision and those are the moments when past experience or individual preference allows us to arrive at a decision. Though in most situations reasoned analysis works and as it turns out those are the moments when big life decisions come into play. What I found most interesting about his arguments, was when he said that instinct is not always correct. The problem is that we don't know our instincts are wrong until long after the decision has been made, since we rely on them so much and have come to assume they are right. It is a delicate balance because we don't know when its wrong but we have to assume that it usually is.
Our decisions effect not only ourselves, but this planet, and others around us. We tend to rush to quick decisions that will cause us the least amount of harm and rely to readily on our instincts. We as a human race need to understand this because then we can make better decisions in the future.
Sites
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/180/decision-making-factors-that-influence-decision-making-heuristics-used-and-decision-outcomes
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/06/14/when-our-intuition-leads-us-to-bad-decisions/
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Horse Equality
This weekend I attended a clinic taught by Sue Comming-Schultz. She is a renown trainer and care tacker of horses and has trained hundreds of world champions over her 40 years in the horse business. There were two things that really stuck with me from the clinic.
One had to do with this quote by Anne Kursinski, "Natural talent, no matter how great, can't make up for a lack of basic knowledge and skill. Solid basics combined with real desire and commitment can make any rider a good rider." To train competitive show horses takes time, patience and discipline on the side of the rider. Horses are complex animals and before a person can attempt to train one they must know the mechanics behind their body movement and control. Without that the horse can be injured or broken. Horses are made of of thousands of tendons running through large muscles around a delicate skeleton and on top of this they are holding up the weight of a person. All these parts move in a specific way, so to be able to get the horse to do what the rider asks of them, the rider needs to know how all these parts come together. This knowledge is necessary so that you learn how to ask the horse correctly and properly. Injured horses come from this lack of understanding because trainers will not spend the time strengthening the horses body and learning the mechanics behind this body, since of these things aren't know then the horse will be asked to do something its body is not ready to do. Like Sue described it would be like me telling you that you are going to run the marathon when you have never run a day in your life. This training takes time so without the patience it can not be achieved even with all the talent in the world.
Another was what I discovered on my own when I looked online. Sue told us that many of the broken horses she has seen over the years came from this lack of knowledge and discipline on the side of the rider/trainer. A largest topic in the center of horse abuse is on Tennessee Walkers. Tennessee Walking Horses are know for their movement because it involves legs that are flung high into the air and a low hind end. To some this looks "graceful" or "elegant", but to others its the pure sight of abuse. This high knee action, or "big lick" movement. is what causes the horse to lift their front legs high in the air is caused by a method called soring the horse. Soring is the act of using chemical agents, that are applied to the horses front hooves and absorbed by the hoof itself. These chemicals cause soreness and extreme pain in the hoof and around the ankle. Then metal chains are put around the horses ankles so that they bang that sore area with every step, and that makes every one agony. This is what causes the "big lick" movement because the horse doesn't want to put any pressure or weight on those front feet and so they lower their butt and carry 70% of their weight on their hind feet. Soring is illegal due to the Horse Protection law and societies are cracking down on the activity but it is still done. People will do anything to win, but I believe that nothing is worth torturing an innocent animal.I didn't realize till this weekend how badly we can hurt horses simply due to ignorance and lack of knowledge.
Soring Awareness Videos:
http://timesfreepress.com/videos/2012/mar/17/6007/
http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2009/09/cruelest_horse_show_091709.html
One had to do with this quote by Anne Kursinski, "Natural talent, no matter how great, can't make up for a lack of basic knowledge and skill. Solid basics combined with real desire and commitment can make any rider a good rider." To train competitive show horses takes time, patience and discipline on the side of the rider. Horses are complex animals and before a person can attempt to train one they must know the mechanics behind their body movement and control. Without that the horse can be injured or broken. Horses are made of of thousands of tendons running through large muscles around a delicate skeleton and on top of this they are holding up the weight of a person. All these parts move in a specific way, so to be able to get the horse to do what the rider asks of them, the rider needs to know how all these parts come together. This knowledge is necessary so that you learn how to ask the horse correctly and properly. Injured horses come from this lack of understanding because trainers will not spend the time strengthening the horses body and learning the mechanics behind this body, since of these things aren't know then the horse will be asked to do something its body is not ready to do. Like Sue described it would be like me telling you that you are going to run the marathon when you have never run a day in your life. This training takes time so without the patience it can not be achieved even with all the talent in the world.
Another was what I discovered on my own when I looked online. Sue told us that many of the broken horses she has seen over the years came from this lack of knowledge and discipline on the side of the rider/trainer. A largest topic in the center of horse abuse is on Tennessee Walkers. Tennessee Walking Horses are know for their movement because it involves legs that are flung high into the air and a low hind end. To some this looks "graceful" or "elegant", but to others its the pure sight of abuse. This high knee action, or "big lick" movement. is what causes the horse to lift their front legs high in the air is caused by a method called soring the horse. Soring is the act of using chemical agents, that are applied to the horses front hooves and absorbed by the hoof itself. These chemicals cause soreness and extreme pain in the hoof and around the ankle. Then metal chains are put around the horses ankles so that they bang that sore area with every step, and that makes every one agony. This is what causes the "big lick" movement because the horse doesn't want to put any pressure or weight on those front feet and so they lower their butt and carry 70% of their weight on their hind feet. Soring is illegal due to the Horse Protection law and societies are cracking down on the activity but it is still done. People will do anything to win, but I believe that nothing is worth torturing an innocent animal.I didn't realize till this weekend how badly we can hurt horses simply due to ignorance and lack of knowledge.
Soring Awareness Videos:
http://timesfreepress.com/videos/2012/mar/17/6007/
http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2009/09/cruelest_horse_show_091709.html
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Break Ending
Another break comes to an end. Breaks are needed every so often to give our minds and bodies time to recuperate from the demands of college. College so far has been a journey of ups and downs. As the year comes to its end we think about what has happened our freshman, sophomore, junior or senior year. It was not until I looked at a calender and say that we only have six weeks of this year left, did I realize how fast time has flown by. This fast-approaching end is viewed differently by everyone.
When talking to one of my friends about this year ending, his reply was "No, it has been too short. I sad its going to end I've been enjoying it, besides I do nothing at home." However, when I asked another friend about what she thought she said "I'm happy and sad. I will miss hanging out with you but not the work." I on the hand have mixed feelings about school ending. I will miss my friends since I will not be able to see them seeing how I live out of state, but I am excited to go home and spend time with my family, friends, horse and not being controlled by schoolwork. When you look on Twitter and Facebook you see posts saying things like "Finally a break.","So happy to be on break." and "I get a break from school thank god."
It seems that every person has a slightly different view. College is fun in the sense that you are living with your best friends and living on your own, but the down side is that like my dad says, school is our job. There is homework, reading, studying and tests that add to the stress of college. However there must always be trade offs in life no matter what the situation, so it can simply depend of which counts more, the pros of the cons.
When talking to one of my friends about this year ending, his reply was "No, it has been too short. I sad its going to end I've been enjoying it, besides I do nothing at home." However, when I asked another friend about what she thought she said "I'm happy and sad. I will miss hanging out with you but not the work." I on the hand have mixed feelings about school ending. I will miss my friends since I will not be able to see them seeing how I live out of state, but I am excited to go home and spend time with my family, friends, horse and not being controlled by schoolwork. When you look on Twitter and Facebook you see posts saying things like "Finally a break.","So happy to be on break." and "I get a break from school thank god."
It seems that every person has a slightly different view. College is fun in the sense that you are living with your best friends and living on your own, but the down side is that like my dad says, school is our job. There is homework, reading, studying and tests that add to the stress of college. However there must always be trade offs in life no matter what the situation, so it can simply depend of which counts more, the pros of the cons.
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