Category: Trending on the Web

#DearTeenageMe

There’s a hashtag trending right now: #DearTeenageMe … here’s the advice I’d give myself.

Dear Teenage Me,

You can do it. Your hard work pays off. Everything turns out okay. I’d like you to know that things will never get easier – in fact, they will get harder, and more complicated, and will at times seem overwhelming. But life will also get more wonderful, satisfying, and interesting. Things will not go as planned, not even close. They will be better. Trust your instincts, and make choices that reflect who you are and what you want (NOT what you think other people think is the best choice for you).

Be prepared. You will make friends, only to grow apart from them. You will gain some weight, but that will not make you less beautiful, less important, or less worthy of respect and love. You will struggle with classes, and you will struggle with sports. Please remember that you are more than a dress size, more than a test score, and more than your athletic successes or failures. You are more than the sum of your parts, and there are people who will be there along the way to cheer you on, support you, and love you unconditionally. Cherish those relationships. Show that kind of love and support to everyone you can, because you will learn that even small acts of kindness can make a difference.

Be open to ideas that challenge your view on the world. You will meet people and take classes that will challenge how you think. Embrace these opportunities to grow. Learn about different people, countries, ideas, and cultures. Actively combat your own biases, and continue questioning the world around you. You will find that the world is a complex, messy, terrifying, beautiful, difficult place. You will realize that others have not had the same opportunities as you have. Be sensitive to difference. Acknowledge obstacles others face and do not disregard the experiences of others. Never forget that you are not better, or worse, than anyone. Try to show others this as well.

Above all, do not hold onto bitterness. Learn to forgive others, and yourself, for hurtful words and regrettable actions. There are few things in life that cannot be fixed with a sincere apology and a change in behavior. This is especially true regarding your thoughts and behaviors towards yourself. Fill your mind and heart with love, humility, ambition, and acceptance. Expel doubt, self-hate, disapproval, and comparisons to others.

Remember that there is always room for improvement, but that does not mean who you are today is not good enough.

Pat Crowley: Introducing Insect Protein into Western Cuisine

This week, CMC alumnus Pat Crowley paid us a visit at the Athenaeum. Pat ’02 is the founder and CEO of Chapul, Inc., a company that is transforming the natural foods industry with its cricket energy bars. Concerned with topics of food and water sustainability, Pat aims to introduce edible insects into the western diet. Unbeknownst to us, most of the food products we consume require extremely high levels of water consumption, aggravating the issue of water conservation and sustainability. Insects, on the other hand, barely require any water, increase the diversity of food supply, and grow in a wide range of climates, making it an efficient and healthy source of nutrients, especially protein.

What Pat points out as the main inhibitor of the propagation of alternative forms of nutrients, such as insects, is the cultural barrier. Some Western cultures are not ready for this revolution and lack acceptance. However, Pat believes this to be temporary. As soon as the cultural perception surrounding this matter shifts, a new food supply chain will be engineered.

Although still aiming for cultural-wide acceptance, Chapul’s mission has already captivated the natural foods industry, which understands the importance of sharing and maximizing resources. A collaborative effort is required in order to shift our perspective on consumption. Happily, companies like Chapul are gradually gaining market share and traction in the right direction towards the proliferation of conscientious consumption. Please join me in congratulating Pat’s efforts in building a more sustainable future and revolutionizing the food industry.

For more information, please visit http://www.chapul.com.

Non-Combat Veterans

Professor Taw at CMC teaches an amazing class called “War.” In the class, we read between one and four books a week that looked at war through the lenses of theory, memoirs, fiction, and historical analyses. Soldiers in the BIG wars – WW1 and WW2, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan – these were the people we looked at. Individuals who went to war, to fight, to the messy, harrowing, haunting hell that is combat. But one thing we never formally talked about were non-combat veterans. We talked about the shift in America to an all-volunteer force, which altered demographics and reduced general American emotional and physical involvement in the military (less than 1% of the U.S. population is active duty). We talked about the need to reorganize and attempts to repurpose our armed forces. But we didn’t spend much time on non-combat veterans.

We talked about the fact that the glorification of war may be held in striking contrast with the dirty reality that war actually is. We talked about the terror, the psychological trauma, and survivor’s guilt. We talked about those who didn’t make it home, and the refusal of many who did make it home to accept the title of hero. But we only briefly discussed what it means to be a non-combat veteran.

This idea is near and dear to my heart. My husband is an active duty sailor in the U.S. Navy. He was forward deployed for 13 months, sailing around Asia and the Middle East on a submarine supplier. He has never seen combat in his four years of service, but his commitment to the military means he could be reassigned into a conflict zone at any moment. In an age where the American public is increasingly distant from the military, many members of the armed forces are blindly thanked for their service by people with little understanding of what they’re doing. Many military personnel are cherished and held up by loved ones as heroes.

I understand that. I think it’s incredible that, for whatever  personal reason, these individuals sign up to serve their country in whatever capacity the military sees fit. But I also think labeling these men and women “heroes” out of hand places enormous pressure on them and even pushes them to want to go to war. Many soldiers, sailors, marines, etc., will never see combat. They will do maintenance, gather intelligence, and file paperwork. They will do incredibly important jobs that support our military’s ability to maintain its status as the strongest in the world. But by glorifying the soldier who has returned from war after defeating the enemy – very WW2 – we as a society might be encouraging our young men and women to want to deploy, to want to engage combatants, to want to go to war. It instills within our troops a message: if you do not serve in a combat capacity, you were missing out, you are not as much of a soldier, and you are less worthy of support and praise.

In an era where the military’s purpose and priorities are being reassessed, I think researchers need to focus on the perspectives of our service members – how they feel about their roles, the purpose of the military, and what it means to be perceived as a hero. Because while one of the prerequisites for joining the military is mentally preparing for the order to go to war, I’m not sure it should be a personal aspiration.

Women in the Public Eye

I saw a screenshot of a Tweet today – it said “Don’t tell me ‘gender isn’t a factor’ when Hillary Clinton is more despised for being cheated on than Donald Trump is for cheating.”

Political ideologies and candidate preferences aside, this Tweet points out a repugnant truth – the moral, physical, and behavioral standards for female public figures are different than those of their male counterparts. While people poke fun at the Donald’s orangey skin and coiffed hair, they are incessantly critical of Clinton’s pantsuits (at one point alleging that she wears pants to hide blood clots), her demeanor (but, as she points out, one should not be excited to talk about ISIS), and her health. Instead of discussing her policy prerogatives, news stations focus on her age, her makeup, her seemingly tired face, and her husband’s extramarital affair.

Female politicians face this ridiculous scrutiny all the time. If their voice is too screechy they are labeled annoying, if it’s too deep they’re too manly. If they’re too pretty they can’t be smart, but if they’re not pretty enough that won’t do either. They have to be serious, but not too serious. They have to know the issues, but not come on too strong because it’s “off-putting.” Their ability to run a country or represent a district is questioned because they have a menstrual cycle. They are labeled “too emotional” simply because they were born women.

This absurd phenomenon is in no way limited to political figures – the Olympics saw reporters forgetting past successes of female athletes, attributing medal-winning successes to husbands, and general sexist commentary about appearance. Female celebrities are chastised for having multiple suitors over the years, while male celebrities are lauded as playboys, “successful with the ladies.” Women in the military experience obstacles to assimilation because they “distract men,” or “disrupt cohesion”.

With the number of women in journalism and media, it is incredible – as in worthy of awe – that the descriptions, analyses, and representations of women are this skewed. Women should undergo scrutiny based on merit, experience, and individual capability. They should not be held to a different set of rules or expectations, and they should never have to justify their right to a position because their gender is perceived as a handicap.

Grit

Psychological studies suggest that for disadvantaged children – with disadvantages ranging from social perceptions of race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, family structure, etc. – resilience, or “grit,” is one of the most important factors in determining their success in overcoming social, personal, and financial obstacles. The knowledge that there are traits that can increase a child’s chance to rise above poverty, overcome adversity, and navigate other obstacles is in some ways encouraging – it provides hope that there are ways a child can succeed even when the odds are not in their favor.

On the other hand, defining resilience as a key character trait for success is dangerous. People may take to the idea that resilience equals effort: if you work hard enough, you succeed. This misinterpretation of what resilience is and what the finding means could result in less assistance to disadvantaged neighborhoods or at-risk children. People might think that the relative lack of success for some children is because they weren’t tough enough, or didn’t try hard enough. This perspective negates research proving that certain groups face challenges that other groups do not, and that these challenges present barriers to success that are extremely different to overcome.

The implications for these findings are unclear – promoting grit and resilience at the semantic level, without context, could prove dangerous and disadvantageous for those who need the characteristic most. The problem is that many obstacles to disadvantaged groups are systemic, engrained in bias and historically institutionalized. For children growing up in schools, communities, and systems with preconceived ideas of their potential, it may take a lot more resilience to overcome stereotypes and societal expectations than is reasonably expected from one individual. In a world where the answer might be changing the entire system, is “grit” worth promoting at the individual level?

Where do you stand on this?