Lecture response

Last night I went to a last lecture series talk by one of the psychology professors. Her basic premise was that being a person is hard. She talked about how in developed nations we have this uncanny ability to be unsatisfied with everything that we have. If we have a job with a $70,000 salary we want a job with a $100,000 salary but when we get that higher salaried job, we aren’t satisfied. We are also highly adept at feeling suffering, whether that be physical or emotional suffering. This ties into the idea that we are never satisfied with what he has and that leads to feelings of inadequacy and disappointment in ourselves. I have struggled with anxiety for years and this whole lecture really hit home for me. The speaker basically described exactly how I feel and told me that it’s both normal and that its ok to let myself off the hook sometimes. She states how in US culture we glorify the hard worker; the person who works late or comes in early or skips lunch. This makes sense but she also said that we glorify that even when there’s nothing for them to be doing that benefits anyone. The example she provided was that students always feel like they should be being productive. If we’re eating at dhall were thinking about why we’re not at the lib working. Everything she said really made sense to me and I really enjoyed going to this. It was way more interesting then I thought it was going to be and I would totally go to another Last Lecture Series speaker again.