Weekly Blog Posting #"9" (It's 8)

Over the course of this quarter one thing has become abundantly clear to me: in order to address the issues facing my chapter, I need to attack the problems at their source rather than simply making short term solutions. I don’t know whether this was something I learned in the leadership class, or simply through my experiences being a chapter president. Either way, I think this is a concept that will not only aid in the operations of my chapter, but through the rest of my life. Additionally, I realized how important it is for an organization to be unified under a set of common values. The biggest difference (I saw) between organizations that collaborate the successfully and ones that do not was the presence of a strong set of (common) core values. This is something my chapter is greatly in need of, and something I plan on instilling in the coming semesters. Hopefully, the changes I make today will make us successful down the road.

This course also reminded me of some things that are critical to the success of an organization. It made me remember to play off of the strengths and desires of the individuals in my chapter, rather than forcing each man to act in a role he may not be best suited for. Even though I often reflect on my past decisions and the state of my affairs, this course changed my reflection process in an abstract way, which allowed me to discover new ways to approach old problems.

Blog Post #7

I simply love the activity of gaining new insight on different topics and becoming familiar with my surroundings. Whether I am literally exploring an area I have never been to before, or learning about and developing new techniques to overcome obstacles in the world, nothing gets me more excited than the potential for discovery. This passion extends to all facets of my life, including developing personal relations, picking up random skills, increasing my marketability in the business world, and of course, pursuing my degree.

Because of this passion, I would say that I have a very non-traditional approach to social change. Most of the problems that exist today in society have very easy and very temporary fixes. For instance, in order to combat poverty in our community, we could simply raise the minimum wage. This is the approach that most people would take to combat this issue, and while it’s certainly a step in the right direction, that prices will soon go up, and the poor people will soon be in the same condition as they were in before the minimum wage was raised.

I am the kind of person that does research into the root cause of problems and tries to fix them from the bottom up. So in this particular case, I would compare the countries with the lowest poverty levels have in common the countries with the highest poverty levels, compare the people living above and below the poverty line, etc., until I come up with some strategies that I think will make a long term impact on the issue, and then test those strategies out on a small population of people. This approach takes a lot more time, a lot more planning, and probably more resources than the other approach, but also has a much higher chance of solving the issue in the long term.

It’s also hard to draw support for working on this second approach to social change. In the first approach, it’s very obvious what impact you are making on the problem, and you have a very clear view of the results. In my approach, the results take much longer to appear, so it often appears to outsiders like you aren’t doing anything at all.

This is happens a lot with my fraternity. In our case, our brotherhood has been all over the place for the entire year; one day everybody loves each other, and the next day everybody is at each other’s throats. We are also having a problem with people’s level of commitment to the fraternity. Many people are not doing their jobs and aren’t showing up to anything. Now most of the guys in the fraternity think the way to solve this problem is to have a retreat or do more fun events together, but this will only solve the problems for about a week before everything goes back to normal. What I have been trying to do is isolate the root cause of each one of these issues and attack it at the source. It has taken quite a while, and we probably won’t see the results of everything I’ve done until sometime next semester. This makes everybody think that I’m not doing anything at all, and that my methods aren’t effective. It makes it very difficult to keep everybody’s morale up and keep their confidence in me.

Blog Posting #6

A lot of people think that the existence of values in humans is the direct result of our higher cognitive ability. While this may hold some truth, values, (in a community sense,) are actually an evolutionary tool used by species that behave in a social manner, such as humans, gorillas, or wolves. At their core, values are simply rules that govern how a member of a group should behave in order to maximize their chances of procreating. In less intelligent species, this could be anything from marking your territory to having a large and lustrous mane. These “values” in other species are easy to spot when you know what to look for, and are pretty congruent across the entire population.

However, when we begin to look at creatures capable of highly complex thought, (ie. Humans) we see a multitude of different values that vary from person to person, time period to time period, society to society, etc. For example, while some ancient cultures glorified violence and war, most cultures today value intelligence and peace-making skills over prowess on the battlefield. It could be argued that the diversity in values stem from varied environments, but that wouldn’t explain things like why some cultures value abstinence until marriage.

I think that up until recently, most people have inherited values from their family and community members, and have not examined why they value those things, or why those values are important. I am happy to see that recently, our society has embraced the practice of questioning our motivations, and many individuals have started to develop their own values rather accepting those that society imposes on them.

From a fraternity standpoint, I know that when I first joined DU, I merely acted in a way that was congruent with my own values, instead of following the principles of the fraternity. If my actions happened to align with one of the values of DU, it was sheer coincidence. If I ever did anything in the name of one of our principles of the fraternity, it was because I was told to do so. I was indeed spending time on things I valued, but the things I valued were acceptance by my brothers instead of following the principles of DU. It was not until I began to really think about our principles that I started to realize how the values of DU aligned with my own values. It also forced me to consider changing certain values that I lived my life by. That’s why I encourage my brothers to reflect upon the founding principles of our fraternity, and question why our founding fathers put such a high emphasis on them. It’s only by fully understanding our values that we are able to act according to them.

Currently, I value freedom, evolution, improving the lives of others, and my own personal happiness.

Freedom is something that I could not imagine living without, and something that I think all people deserve. As long as I live, I will fight for every human being’s life to behave in any way they wish, so long as it has no adverse affect on anyone else. However, most things that we would consider freedoms, such as freedom of religion, speech, etc. have a lot of unnoticed affects on other members of our society. Because of this, I like to stay as educated as possible on any controversial issue of freedom before I take a side. For instance, while I strongly oppose the poor treatment of women in most Islamic cultures, many of those women are perfectly happy with the lifestyle. I would have to understand the culture a lot better before I would act to change it.

I think that evolving and growing in order to maximize the full potential of humanity is the single greatest cause a person can get behind, whether that be from researching technological advancements, breaking down cultural barriers, or promoting the general happiness of one’s fellow human beings. In accordance with this, I spend a lot of my free time learning about the properties of the universe and world around me in an effort to one day be a part of the evolution of our society.

I also value improving the lives of the people around me. Most of what I do falls into this category, whether that be working on behalf of my fraternity brothers, giving to a philanthropy, or just helping out some random stranger in their time of need. I do these things because they make me feel good, and because I know that I have the ability.

Last, but not least, I value improving my own personal happiness. This can usually be achieved by acting in accordance with my other 3 values, but I do take some time out each day for “me” time, where I vow to not get anything productive accomplished, and just focus on enjoying life.

Even though most of what I do does align with my values, I know that there is more I can do to be congruent with them. In order to accomplish this, I need to change up my schedule a bit. My schedule doesn’t have a ton of free time, so I will probably need to cut into my sleep time. Despite how much I enjoy sleeping, I know that when I am on my deathbed, I won’t wish that I would have slept more often. In the immortal words of some dude, “I can sleep when I’m dead.”

Blog Post #5

I’m not sure I fully understand what I am being asked to write about, but I am writing about my vision as it relates to my entire life, as opposed to just my fraternity. I also think that a vision should be a very general, ideal state of something, and I don't think I could write very much about that.
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A vision is a hard thing for me to develop, partly because the exact meaning of the word “vision” is so hard for me to pin down. I know that a vision is used to determine goals and practices of an individual or group of people, and I know that a vision is distinct from a set of core values, but beyond that, I am not sure exactly where it falls between these 2. I understand it in terms of a group of people, but I don’t think that a vision of a person can exist in the same way that it does for a company or organization.

When someone forms a company or an organization, in almost every case, he or she does so with a very specific purpose in mind: to make money, to solve world hunger, to make scientific advancements in the consumer electronics market, etc. After this purpose is established, it is significantly easier to picture the ideal state of the company or organization 100 years from now. On top of that, if the owner/ founder is satisfied with the state of the company or organization, he or she is able to appoint a new person to be the leader of it. After that they can form a new company or organization with a different purpose and a completely different vision. However, this method of specialization doesn’t really work when applied to individuals.

I personally have core values that govern my behavior in all circumstances, but I don’t operate under one single purpose. My core values and ambitions change frequently enough that it’s a waste of time to try to develop one overall vision. Instead, I have a purpose and a vision for each individual facet of my life. I can get more done if I compartmentalize and focus on one vision at time, rather than trying to do a bunch of stuff at once. It also allows me to evaluate decisions in terms of how they affect each of my individual visions rather than how they affect my overall vision. That allows me to take advantage of many of the opportunities that present themselves to me, while at the same time addressing the impact they will have on each vision.

For example, I make a distinction between my academic, fraternity, and professional visions. Academically, I strive to learn as much as possible in every possible subject, rather than get straight A’s. Fraternally, I strive to make my organization into one that supplements the college education with one that leads men to success in every aspect of their lives. Professionally, I strive to provide my employers and clients with a breadth of experience and skills that no other single person can offer. Recently, I was offered an internship at a very well respected company. In this internship, I would have been learning new skills that are very closely related to my degree, building new business contacts, and developing experience that I could use in any number of positions down the road. This would have been very beneficial in helping me reach my academic and professional visions. However, it also would have been in HUGE conflict with my fraternal goals. Since I have a very limited time to pursue my fraternal vision, and significantly more time to pursue my academic and professional ones, I ultimately decided against the internship, though if I had had a single overarching vision instead of many small ones, it is likely I would have made a different decision. Examples like this are where I think it’s beneficial to have multiple small visions rather than one large one.

I also think it’s important to live a life of balance. Some people have made it their life’s goal to cure cancer, and while I think this is a very noble goal, it is also closing the door on a lot of other opportunities. I probably won’t ever cure cancer, but that will allow me to play a larger role in solving many other societal issues like developing a widespread renewable energy source, improving the living conditions of people all over the world, or protecting the rights of my fellow human beings. I may never be well known for any of the work I do, but I will get a lot done by the time I die.

Now some people might disagree with me and say that they have a single purpose in life and have formed a single vision that they work towards each day. While I think this is certainly admirable, it is also a bit closed minded to say that you have a single vision for your whole life. I know I may be alone in this opinion, but I think it’s very important to constantly reevaluate one’s purpose and ambitions, and to decide whether or not they make sense given everything you have learned since your last evaluation. If not, then perhaps it’s time to set a new direction and develop a different purpose. However, you are much less likely to do this if you let one single purpose govern your entire life.

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Blog Post #4

True collaboration among human beings is a very strange phenomenon. It often benefits all individuals involved more than if they had worked alone. For example, take Pelotonia. The bike shop owners want a way to capitalize on the increased interest in bicycles, and the people involved in Pelotonia want donations. So in an effort to scratch each other’s backs, the bike shop owners are offering discounts at their stores and donating some of their proceeds to Pelotonia, and the people in charge of Pelotonia advertise the stores that support them. In other words, by collaborating, both parties are in way better financial shape than if they had not worked together. Yet it is very rare to find true collaboration in this day and age. Everyone in our society is so focused on their own goals that they fail to see how helping someone else with their problems can benefit themselves. In other words, no one realizes that collaboration can be achieved in spite of selfish motivations.

Selfish motivations are something that will probably always be present in every member of our species. Everybody knows this, and I think it makes people hesitant to work together. In collaborative scenarios, it would be easy for one person or group of people to completely mess up the work of the rest of the group. Even if this action would screw that person over as well, we always view ourselves as having the most to lose, and therefore are frequently unwilling to work together with others. When people are attempting to reach goals collaboratively, selfishness is viewed as a barrier that must be overcome, instead of a tool to use for mutual benefit.

Imagine an electric car as a group of people working together, all with the same, selfish goal of getting from point A to point B. Now even though it may seem like it would benefit each component to hog all of the available energy, no piece can achieve its goal without help from the others. Without the motor, the other pieces can’t move; without the windshield wipers, the other pieces can’t drive in the rain; without the headlights, the other pieces can’t drive at night; without the speedometer, the other pieces will be stuck in a tow lot because the driver will be arrested for speeding. Each part has a crucial role to play and is incapable of reaching its goal without the others.

While the mutual benefits of collaboration may seem obvious to some, others will still resist and claim that they do not receive anything out of the efforts. It is at this time that some people would try to force collaboration onto the resistors. However, I think this is the wrong plan of action. Even though you might be doing what is best for that person, forcing them into a collaborative effort is likely to turn them into someone who hinders the rest of the group. I think the only way for someone to be a truly effective member of a collaborative effort is voluntarily.

Blog post # 3

When I first joined this fraternity, I did so for selfish reasons. I may have joined this specific fraternity because of the connection I felt with the people in it, but I came in with no intention of improving it or the community in general. If that happened along the way, it would be purely coincidental, but my sole concern was how it would benefit me.

Over the past few quarters, my attitude has completely changed.  I now regard the well being of the fraternity over my own well being. My core values have changed to those that reflect the ideals of Delta Upsilon. Before I make any decisions, I evaluate how each outcome might affect the image and operations of our fraternity and community. I am making concerted efforts to improve relations between members of our fraternity, as well as relations with other Greek organizations. I am taking on more and more responsibilities with in multiple communities. Whereas I used to be uninvolved and apathetic, I am now ambitious and feel like I have the responsibility to help those around me.

This drastic change in attitude has mostly stemmed from the encouragement of the people around me. At first, I was indifferent about helping the communities I was involved in. I felt like even if I did want to help, I didn’t have the ability or the resources to make a difference. My fraternity needed a strong leader to take over the presidential role, but I didn’t think I would make an effective leader. Despite being on campus for over 100 years straight, none of the other members of the Greek organizations knew who we were. I understood this, but couldn’t see what I could possibly do to impact this and improve inter-Greek relations. I recognized that a lot of people around me needed help, but didn’t think I could be the one to provide that help. Despite my insecurities, the people around me have continued to support and encourage me to pursue those goals I feel unreachable. Slowly but surely, as I started to see how I could help my different communities, I also started to see the importance of doing so. In other words, seeing that I had the ability necessary to incite change forced me to see why I had the responsibility to do it.

Unfortunately, some of the members in my fraternity care about their communities about as much as I used to and it’s hard to get beyond the wall of self-centeredness. As time has gone by, our culture has become more and more focused on working towards goals that benefit one’s self rather than one’s community. Insurance companies make obscene amounts of money by tricking good intentioned, gullible people. The price of a college education skyrockets while the comparative financial benefits of a college degree steadily decrease. This culture shift has made it exponentially more difficult to convince people to care about their communities.

Now the men in my fraternities will do as much community service as I tell them to, but only because I tell them to. If you were to ask them about the societal value of the work they were doing, they would just stare at you with a blank look on their face. This is certainly a problem I plan on addressing, but I am unsure of how to change this mindset. We have had people come in and talk to us about the importance of selflessness in regards to our communities, but it has not been very effective. I am currently unsure of what I can do to really motivate people to help those around them, and it’s something I will probably struggle with up until the inauguration of our next (fraternity) president.