Liesa Collins - Response to DFW

Something that has come more and more ever present in my life is my privilege to choose. Choose the people I associate with, the direction in which my life turns, even something as simple as whether I choose cereal or fruit for my morning munch. It is so simple to fall into a routine with your decisions because routines are safe and comfortable. But I am easy to forget that my routines come into contact with other people's routines almost daily. It can be so easy to not understand why someone cuts you off on Broad St or steals packages off your front stoop. I am so quick to blame others, always. But there is a reason for everything and DFW definitely touches upon that in this speech. This is the second time hearing this speech and I think I understand it in a totally new light this year round. As you grow, you are subject to being expected to show empathy in a lot of situations. For me, it might fall in at my job this year for I am a boss now and I might need to apply empathy to my employees, which is something I am not routine in doing day to day. The speech focuses on higher education giving you the rights to feel a certain way about life; this hit me differently this year because I feel it is my right, after paying for college myself and finally buckling down to deciding what I should do with my career, to participate in concepts like consciousness and sympathy. It makes sense: the more educated you are, the more you have the "credit" and the "right" to respond to things in an adult like way.