iExamen 2 - Jessica LaTona

After receiving this assignment I must admit I was a little worried I was not going to be able to accomplish the desired task.  I am normally a very sarcastic and outgoing person that says whatever comes to mind, sometimes without thinking about how it will affect the situation and the people around me.  I am always proud of this quality of mind, but it has helped me through a lot of difficult situation that I have encountered throughout the last year of my life.  However, I found this exercise refreshing because it have my insight on how words really can affect how people react and overall how your day will unfold.

I noticed that by thinking about what I wanted to say before I said it really improved my conversations with people and allowed me to have more intelligent and provoking conversations about worldly current events such as the upcoming election.  This was a different kind of communication for me because I generally do not get too involved with politics.  It is not something that interests me, yet just from how this particular conversation began I was intrigued to participate and voice my opinion on the two candidates.  I believe that self-observation in this situation suggested that with the right people and level of intellect any type of conversation can evolve and there are limitless possibilities to what can occur throughout your day when you are aware of everything you say.

Another thing I noticed about practicing self-observation was that by only saying things that were kind, honest, and true people reacted to me differently.  Being sarcastic all the time, people don’t always take me seriously or think that I was being mean.  It was refreshing to see people react in a way that showed me they believed what I had to say and could tell that I was being honest.  I don’t want people to think of me as a mean and negative person, so the self-observation exercise made me realize that sarcasm for me is just a defense mechanism I use to avoid awkward or uncomfortable situations and make light of these kinds of situations if they occur.

This iExamen was very different from the first one but overall I learned one very important lesson.  That lessons was that speaking kind, truthful, and honest words do not only affect how other people around you feel and act it affects yourself as well.  Participating in this act of self-observation all day truly opened my eyes to how everyone feeds off the words of others and that words have a profound effect on the surrounding atmosphere.  I think this is a good tool to use if you ever feel lost in the world because it can bring you back to truth, honesty, and goodness, I know that in a way this is what this exercise did for me.  It taught me not to be afraid to speak my mind or afraid to say the wrong thing as long as it’s the truth.  The old saying goes “The truth hurts” although I believe this is true, I would rather know the truth than be lied to.  Everything around us is effected by something, and sometimes you need to take a step back from the way you are everyday to realize how you affect the world as well.