Living, Loving, and Learning: Buscaglia Reflection
While reading Leo Buscaglia's book, Living, Loving & Learning, I was
able to reflect back on some of the experiences I have had in my life that have
helped to make me the person I am today, and I was able to look into the future
at what I would like to become. I was able to see how well I know myself and
what I have to offer others. I was able to see the things I don't like about
myself and determine some of the ways I can make myself better. This is some of
what reflecting on my life and looking ahead while reading Buscaglia has taught
me.
A. "You Cannot give to anybody what you do not have."
I went to Juab High School in the small town of Nephi, Utah. Like
many other small town high schools, football coaches and P.E. teachers doubled
as Algebra teachers and Science teachers. This allowed our school to make full
use of the limited teachers and resources that it had. There was a lot of
talented people that taught at Juab and some of them made great teachers and
coaches, but some of them didn't. Sometimes it ended up that the football
coach/algebra teacher cared a little more about tomorrow's football game than he
did about ensuring his algebra students knew how to balance equations, and
sometimes the P.E./Science teacher cared a little more about the teaching the
tennis unit than she did about teaching the four life processes.
Those teachers were also the ones that had to relearn the algebra and
science lessons a few days before they taught them to us, because on paper they
were qualified to do the job, but as far as knowing the material and having an
interest in what they were trying to give to us, nothing was there. Have you
ever tried to get someone excited about a subject that you knew nothing about?
Have you ever had a math teacher that sent you across the hall to get help from
someone else because he didn't understand what he was trying to teach you? It
can be pretty hard sometimes to get excited about something if your teacher
doesn't get excited about it. These teachers tried to give us something that
they didn't have.
When I was in middle school I had another teacher that tried to give
us what she didn't have. She was the health teacher, but because of some
addictions to drugs, she really wasn't very healthy. It was sad, because she
taught us from the book t...
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...t a fantastic one." (Buscaglia 83)
I chose this quote from the writings of Buscaglia because it
ties up all of his ideas into one little bundle. If you were to give someone a
gift and then watched them neglect it, abuse it, or destroy it, your feelings
would be hurt and you would be pretty upset. But if you were able to see them
show it off to their friends, love it, and take care of it, you would feel like
that person appreciated the gift and it would be almost like a gift to you.
Upon reading this quote is where I took the opportunity to look into
the future. The gift that God gave me is a wonderful one. Sometimes I have a
hard time seeing my life as being wonderful because I make so many mistakes.
But life is wonderful because life is about making mistakes. It is what we do
with them that is important. I know that God always sees me as being wonderful.
God loves me. He gave me life. God wants me, and every other person, to
become the very best that we can be, and then to become even better. He wants
us to nurture life, to love life, and to live it. Let's do our best.
Works Cited
Buscaglia, Leo. Living, Loving, Learning. Ballantine Books (1985).
the many things that can be learned from it, instead of looking at it passively. You grow
provided me with a different outlook of myself, and brought about new responses to some of
loss for what to do. In the following days, I found that many things that were extremely
thought provoking points of view that I have read in a while. It's just too bad
get along with people who are differnt than us. They made me realize that I could learn something
The controversy over euthanasia has recently become highly publicized. However, this issue is not a new debate. Society has voiced its opinions on the subject for hundreds of years. Euthanasia, which is Greek for "good death", refers to the act of ending another person’s life in order to end their suffering and pain.1 Two forms, passive and active euthanasia, categorize the actions taken to end the person’s life. Passive euthanasia involves removing a patient’s life support, withholding food and water, and discontinuing medical treatments. Active euthanasia includes any direct action taken to cause the death of the person, such as administrating a lethal drug.2 The debate over this issue stems from moral, ethical, and religious beliefs. All of these standpoints either side with the patient dying a natural death or from an accelerated death by euthanasia.
Legalization of euthanasia would also place us on a ‘slippery slope’. The ‘slippery slope’ argument, proposed by Walker [2], stated that if euthanasia is legalized, more immoral actions would be permitted and those actions might not be able to keep under control. One example is that involuntary euthanasia would start to happen after the euthanasia has been legalized. The Netherlands has legalized the euthanasia twelve years ago. This law at first...
improved me to over look on my mistakes. Before I would never go back and
Today, unresolved issues on genetically modified organisms, animal rights, abortion and human experimentation generate lots of conflicts. Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) is yet another contentious issue because of the ethical and moral dilemmas it provokes and partly because it implicates issues of life and death (McCormack). For a very long time, euthanasia has been a prohibited medical practice in most countries. Currently, only a handful of nations such as Netherlands and Belgium and states such as Washington, Vermont, and Oregon ascribe to it. In other countries such as Australia, Britain, Singapore, and Switzerland serious discussions are ongoing. However, the outcome is far from clear (James). Euthanasia, by designation
The term reflection means the examination of personal thoughts and actions. For nurses this means focusing on how they interact with their colleagues and with the environment to obtain a clearer picture of their own behaviour. This means it is a process in which a nurse can better understand themselves in order to be able to build on existing strengths and take appropriate future action (Somerville, 2004). Reflection is a way to bring your own intuition along with empirical knowledge together. Reflective practice in nursing is guided by models of reflection. Reflective practice model serves as a framework within which nursing or other management professions can work. Reflective practice model is also a structural framework or learning model that serves the purposes of a profession and is particularly applicable to health related professions. Reflective practice enables practitioners to learn to value themselves as significant people with values and feelings that are important factors in giving care. Whilst reflective practice allows the nurse to recognise the value of their experiences, they may also need support to work through a difficult situation. This is where reflection aids nurses in dealing with these challenging experiences (Johns, 1995). Reflection on experience offers nurses the opportunity to reflect on caring in practice in ways that its nature can be understood, where the skills necessary for effective caring can be developed and most significantly, where the values of caring for people can be highlighted, both to the individual nurse and the world in general (Johns 1996)
I came to understand myself and others better. I better understand prejudice and its causes as well as how widespread prejudice is and how it is reflected in our media and language. I learned how to communicate better, identify conflicts, and resolve conflicts.I learned how cultural and gender differences can affect communication and sometimes hinder it. I found out the cause of Xenophobia and the effect of the oppression related to Xenophobia. I can now better understand the experience of people of color in the US. I can now better understand about the relationships between the European settlers and the Native Americans. I realized that both the Native Americans and slaves were taken advantage of greatly throughout the early history of the
...covered skills I never knew I had. So, besides learning something about other cultures, you also learn a lot about yourself.
constantly trying to improve on things that I do on an every day basis (work, house work,
It rather made me think about life and realizing everything you do has an outcome. It did make me realize why I was in school. Not just because the government wants us to go to school. Or most parents in this country wants there kid to be smart so they send them to school. Even though my parents did send me to school because they wanted a better life for me. I was not at the same mind set of majority of 10 year olds. I had firsthand knowledge what it would be like if I did not finish my education. I saw the sacrifice my parents made the long hard hours they put in for me. I had firsthand knowledge on what life would be like. I also have seen the success my dad and mother has had do to hard
There are two cases of euthanasia, voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary euthanasia is conducted with consent from the patient while involuntary euthanasia is conducted without consent, but the decision is made by a close relation to the patient because of incapability on the patient part. Also euthanasia has two procedural classifications, passive and active. Passive euthanasia involves withdrawal of life-prolonging treatments, whereas active euthanasia as well-known as mercy killing involves the use of force or lethal substance are used to end a patient’s life. Active euthanasia include life-ending actions conducted by the patient or somebody else. In short: euthanasia involves killing the patient to eliminate the pain while end-of-life care involves eliminating the pain so that the patient can die painlessly, from natural causes. Euthanasia is very controversial in the sense, many argued that it is assisted suicide and could be a cover for outright murder. Others have also argue that, in hastening the dying process of a patient is not apparently the way to relieve suffering. In contrast, regardless of a patient’s medical condition, euthanasia is against medical ethics, is against most religions, and it is not the ultimate answer to end suffering patients. Physicians and doctors have a code of ethics that’s guide their practices. Euthanasia is a direct violation of the medical oath which states that Physician-assisted suicide, like eu...