Reflecting on Week 1

Prompt: Why did we choose to start a class about Fraternal Change with a service project, and what did you learn about yourself and your peers as a result of our shared experience today?

I should have jumped on this reflection right after our first class class, but the thoughts still seem fresh in my mind a week later. It's interesting that we ended up watching that clip from Pay It Forward, because over winter break I actually caught that movie on TV myself, and was inspired by the same scene. It wasn't the first time I'd seen it--just the first time in a while. That's one of those movies from which you pick up on something different every time you watch it; the meaning is a little different each time, but always makes an impact. Well, that's how it's been for me, I guess.

Anyway, starting things off with a service project in this particular class got us in the right mindset. Just like watching that movie clip. So what's the mindset? It's certainly a mindset of (I've already used the word "impact;" let's go with "significance") making a significant difference to someone. While I was making sandwiches -- in between learning things about the people at my table -- I thought about the difference we were making for people. Sure, a PB&J sandwich doesn't do a whole lot for a person in the grand scheme of things, but to think that someone on their last leg stood in line to ask for help, and we answered, is pretty significant I think.

So what I'm seeing is that whatever efforts we choose to put into the causes that we volunteer to support as individuals will make a difference to someone; no matter how big or how small our actions, somebody is glad we helped.

It's important that we know what change we hope to bring about and the reasons why; there are plenty of quotes by famous people regarding the ignorance of "change for the sake of change," and anything else for the sake of itself (I like this one: "Growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of a cancer cell." -Edward Abbey), so what I think this class will help us with in the Fraternity and Sorority community is to develop answers to those questions for ourselves and to unify our vision for where we are going and what changes will lead us there.