Personal Manifesto

For our readings this week, we were assigned a chapter in the text Sevice-Learning Companion. We had to read Chapter 3: Becoming Good Citizens. In this chapter, Duncan discusses creating a personal manifesto. This is a simple way to narrow down an underlying issue in society and try to decide how you can personally make it better. To create my own personal manifesto, I decided that our society is too busy and stressed. People simply fly through life and worry about every small detail, including myself. I think that stress management is a key life skill to have. I think the best way to get on the right track toward achieving this skill it to just relax! I created five tenets to try to live by for a week. These tenets included:

1. Don't dwell on all of the things I need to get done.
2. Walk a little slower and take in my surroundings.
3. Go to bed earlier.
4. Reflect for atleast 5 minutes a day.
5. Try to not take medicine for a stress-related headache. Find another solution i.e. workout, etc.

To be completely honest, some of these tenets were easier to remember than others. I found myself forgetting about the assignment really because I was so busy! :/ But! When I did remember, it was definitely nice to take my time walking to class, kind of taking in my surroundings a bit more. I did go to bed a bit earlier, which was also very nice! However, I cannot recall one time when I actually took five minutes to simply reflect. Overall, I think the assignment helped me de-stress a little. Maybe if everyone took some time to simply take things a little slower, our society wouldn't be so busy and stressed???