OBSTACLES

Journal prompt for Jr Honors English today:

"What are some obstacles that prevent people from pursuing their dreams? What obstacles stand in your way?"

This is another good prompt.  Its pretty easy but something that you can also really think about.

In general, obstacles that prevent "us" from doing things are physical, mental and fear.  I think fear is probably one of the biggest obstacles people face in pursuing their dreams.  We are afraid we can't do something or may be hurt, either physically or emotionally.

I would definitely say FEAR is my biggest obstacle - of doing anything I might be dreaming of doing.  I really don't like doing new things and especially learning new technology, even though I'd like to be able to do more when it comes to current technology.  I'd love to learn PhotoShop, but its just too hard to learn something new.  And I can always ask Justin to do it for me.

PHYSICAL obstacles are also huge for me.  I'd like to run more 1/2 marathons, but physically I'm not just not up to it these days.  Plus, I'm lazy and am not pushing myself too hard right now.

One of my dreams is to go SKYDIVING - biggest obstacle there is that I'm  AFRAID of heights.  Those 2 things don't really go together, do they?

Empathy

The journal prompt for Jr Honors English that I am subbing today:

"Define empathy.  Why is it important in your life and in our society? When and with whom do you feel empathy?  Is empathy difficult?  Why or Why not?"

The dictionary defintion of EMPATHY - the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else's feelings.

I asked the students what the difference is between SYMPATHY and EMPATHY and one student said it perfectly - "SYMPATHY is feeling bad FOR someone and EMPATHY is feeling bad WITH someone."

I think EMPATHY is very important but a difficult thing to truly feel.  Its almost impossible to share another person's experience and emotions unless we've been through the very same experience.  If we have had a similar experience then we can have EMPATHY.  I frequently have said that I don't have EMPATHY for my kids when they have braces because I never had braces.  So I can have sympathy for them, but not EMPATHY.

If we truly had EMPATHY for more people around us and in society, we would be a much kinder society.  I've often wished to live my mom's life for just one day so I could have EMPATHY for her.

I have EMPATHY for those who experience infertility but not true EMPATHY since we had 3 children before we experienced the challenges of infertility.

It's funny because when I think of EMPATHY I tend to think of challenging or difficult experiences but we could certainly have EMPATHY for others in joyous, uplifting or positive experiences.