Prompt for 11/17/16

Do you ever eavesdrop?

I think everyone has been in some sort of situation where accidentally overhearing something you didn't intend to is inevitable. Perhaps you're sitting in a public place, or standing in a line, or something like that, when a conversation just happens to drift into your range of hearing. Maybe the people talking are too loud or too close, or both, and unless you move you'll be able to hear everything they say. By no fault of your own, you are eavesdropping.

This kind of unintentional eavesdropping is usually harmless and cannot be blamed on the eavesdropped. Most often if the conversation is easy to accidentally listen into, then the speakers probably aren't too concerned about keeping the contents of the conversation private. Most people don't care if others hear about the mundane aspects of their life or work. Who cares if the random person sitting next to you on the bus learns that you had a great muffin for breakfast, right? The person sitting next to you probably doesn't care either.

However, I've been in situations where being an eavesdropper has been irritating and/or unpleasant. One time I was at the public library, minding my own business at a table while studying for an upcoming test. Two people happened to be sitting nearby, and started having an animated conversation about each others' lives. It doesn't improve one's mood to have the stress of cramming material while being regaled with a long, unwanted story of how some stranger met their husband. I moved to end my eavesdropping not out of concern for their privacy, but for my grade. That time, I was fortunate enough to even be able to leave. When I used to take a morning bus, there'd be dozens of middle schoolers on it as well. Snippets of their loud conversations were impossible to filter out. I've been treated to gems such as "Is baby powder made out of babies?" that definitely didn't make me lose faith in humanity.

So far, any eavesdropping I've taken part in has been mostly accidental, and has never picked up anything secret or important. Besides, most of the important stuff nowadays isn't something you can just listen in on when you want to.  

Prompt for 10/27/16

-How comfortable are you with lying?

Lying is something that I have never been able feel comfortable with. Obviously, lying about something of great importance makes me the most uncomfortable. But the same holds true lies about trivial matters. My insides twist anxiously whenever I let slip a little white lie. I’ll even internally fret over partial truths I may have told in the past few months. Many who know me will note that I cringe at any degree of dishonesty.

I anticipate that many will question my opinion: “Surely the occasional white lie can’t hurt! Everyone does it!” I acknowledge this point, but it is my opinion that just because humans tend toward a certain behavior, does not mean it is morally just. I would even go to say that it is quite the contrary. I believe that the truth is absolutely good; therefore, something that is false degrades truth, and is inherently evil. Anything that is not the complete truth cannot be completely good.

People may point out that being too honest has its downsides; my brutal honesty has hurt the feelings of those close to me several times. I think my friend was greatly saddened when I told him that after a day in the sun, his face had the color and texture of a baked potato. Another got quite angry when I told him I didn’t give a shit that one of his gerbils had died. Being honest has even brought me pain, like when I told a large man (probably twice my weight) at the supermarket checkout line that he smelled terrible and should consider grabbing some deodorant instead of a large bag of Cheetos on his way out. Or perhaps purchase a bathtub.

However, I think all of this is irrelevant. Avoiding lies in order to spread the good of truth is a great endeavor, which is why I am so averse to lying. Indeed, I consider those who take to lying comfortably to be far beneath me. These kind of people clearly lack the conscience to even attempt to prevent themselves from spewing the evil of untruth. If anything is worse than the feeling after telling a lie, it is the feeling after realizing you’ve been told a lie. Unfortunately, I do not believe that people will cease in their dishonest depravity.    

An unfortunate fact is that when anyone tells you something, you can't be absolutely certain if it's true or not. You are at best able to gauge their degree of truthfulness only if you know their personality, ways of thinking, loyalties, and/or motives well enough. Only then can you recognize the face of deceit and slow the spread of dishonesty. I think that of all my points, this is the most important take-away. 

Prompt for 10/13/16

1.  How much self-control do you have?

Depending on what situation I'm in, my self-control can vary wildly. When it comes to giving into distractions (like eating, sleeping, surfing the web when I should be working) I'll admit that my self-control is pretty bad. What goes through my mind is pretty much this:

"Lemme go downstairs and grab a snack. Or maybe two. Or I'll just polish off all the leftovers from dinner." 
"I'm pretty tired, so I'll just take a nap instead of finishing this..." 
"I'm bored, let's see what's on my Facebook feed...or on all these subreddits. Do I feel like reading random stories from strangers? Yes I do. Oh hey, new stuff in my YouTube subscription feed!

By now I assume you get the idea. Such a heavy procrastination habit is obviously bad, as is my lack of self- control when it comes to all these distractions that food, sleep, and the internet offer. This problem is most likely the result of a short attention span, sometimes combined with lethargy and/or boredom. Even now, as I ponder how to continue my essay, my left hand twitches, longing to hit Ctrl-n and wander over to another webpage. Ironically, I'm not even supposed to be working on this essay prompt right now; I'm supposed to be coding. As you can see, my self-control when it comes to distractions is not so great.

The same used to be the same when it came to controlling my actions and temper. I was a pretty wild kid who liked to get my way. Honestly, a twelve year old or younger Sam Guo would annoy the hell out of me. I was quick to get angry and lose my temper; I seemed to have overreacted to a lot of situations that could have been dealt with calmly and easily. I often was easy to provoke; in one instance, I ended up in deep trouble after some other kids had tossed rocks at me, and I ended up pelting them back. When playing games, I'd openly vent my frustration if I lost. 

Fortunately, I think I've improved myself in these areas. I'm not as quick to get angry, and generally I'm outwardly calmer and less hyperactive. In that regard, I think my self-control has gotten a lot better. I can keep my emotions in check better than I used to be able to and I'm more mindful of what my actions may cause. In the future, I hope to also correct my self-control when faced with distractions.

Prompt for 9/29/16

-What is your personal credo?

Often times, my friends and family will tell me I'm a pessimist, that I'm too negative. Admittedly, there is validity to their points; I will often expect the worst of situations, the potential downsides to actions, and act less-than-pleased when I'm put into unfavorable or stressful scenarios. Honestly, I've been this way for quite a long time. While it may seem like quite the flaw, I'll take a moment to act out of character and be optimistic about my pessimism. My so-called pessimism stems from and reinforces my tendency to be prepared for the unfavorable possibilities of every situation. 

My shift into a pessimistic character most likely was gradual, from a young age, but I don't recall many details; it was probably the culmination of many experiences. I was always really excited for trick-or-treating during Halloween, and afterwards I’d be happy about the good time and candy I got. But one year, I was sick on October 31^st, and was crushed by the disappointment of missing out on something I had so looked forward to. I eventually realized that the disappointment from a good situation turning sour far surpassed the pleasure experienced from an expected good situation. Several quotes I came across (in books or online) aided this realization. For example, a character in a novel I read said "Prepare for the worst...that way you'll never be disappointed," and someone quoted in a magazine said "The good thing about being a pessimist is that you're always right or pleasantly surprised." I ended up accepting these as good pieces of advice. 

On one hand, people may understandably frown at my tendency to assume and prepare for the worst. However, my so-called pessimism results in me being more prepared for many situations. I'll often prepare for things with a "better safe than sorry" mentality. Even if it's small, trivial things, like always charging my devices in the night even if I think I have enough battery to last the next day. Even after doing that, I’ll still bring my chargers. When studying, I'll spend a good amount of time on a topic or piece of information that the teacher only mentioned briefly, in the anticipation that it could be on the test. There have been quite a few history tests where doing so has saved me some points or even granted me some extra credit. For interviews or events with a vague or nonexistent dress code, I'll lean to the formal side. Interviewers are much more often put off by a t-shirt and jeans than by a dress shirt and dress pants. 

I’ll admit that my pessimism has caused problems. The most obvious detriment is the negative mindset; my urge to consider the worst can become overwhelming, and a difficult (but definitely manageable) situation will sometimes cause me to severely overthink and drown in my own negative thoughts. A constant swirl of “What if?” fills my head and makes it harder for me to think clearly and find motivation to complete the task at hand. I’m also prone to sharing my own brand of crushing realism with others around me, be it complaining about a long paper or pointing out any issues I can think of in peoples’ plans (no matter how trivial). I myself understand this is neither helpful nor healthy.    

Despite the potential drawbacks, I stand by my credo of pessimism. The part I take to be valuable is not the negativity, but the idea of being ready and prepared in case things go bad. It's a central part of who I've become.     

Prompt 9/15/16

2. Would you mind if your parents blogged about you? 

       Based on how uncomfortable I'll get when I know my parents are talking about me to someone else, I'd probably be immediately mortified if they were spreading embarrassing childhood stories or complaints about how lazy I am on the internet for any stranger to read. Even worse is the possibility that someone who knows me might chance upon my parents' blog and eventually spread the contents to my entire circle or friends and acquaintances.   

       Part of the issue of having parents blog about you is that they know nearly everything about you; you best and worst moments, your moments of strength and weakness, and this is to be expected for such close family. But these are things that I would probably not be comfortable with if they were out in the open. No individual bares themselves to the world completely, and everyone has things they keep to themselves, or things they'd rather forget and never see resurface. When people that close to you are writing on the internet about you, there is a very real danger of these things being made public. And once something is made public, it more or less stays that way. Knowledge, when distributed over the internet, will quite often stay there or be saved elsewhere forever.  

      And parents seem more prone to spreading this type of information than others, but almost never with the intent to embarrass. Being the people closest to you, they see you in a different way. To them, you are their child and faults are sometimes noticed less. But what may seem fine to them can end up making things quite uncomfortable for you. One may have idiosyncrasies that they don't wish their friends to know about, and suddenly a parent blogs about it and it's out there. A past picture or story that seems cute to your parents could very well circulate and haunt you for a long time. 

       When it comes down to it, my own desire to never let my parents blog about me stems from the possibility that something embarrassing or uncomfortable may be posted and it may come to affect me if picked up by a friend, acquaintance, or family of such people. So if my parents remained anonymous, never used my name, and never posted pictures, so that the things on their blog couldn't be traced back to me or my family, I'd probably be fine with it. 

Prompt 9/1/16

Do you wish you could return to a moment from your past?

To me, most of my past is a time of regularity, of routine, with nothing out of the ordinary really happening. Although it's certainly more stressful now than it used to be (which is perhaps why it's quite tempting to return to my relaxed childhood), reliving snippets from my past would probably be a futile exercise.

Disregarding all the issues I'm already inclined to raise with the implications of backwards time-travel, I realize I don't have the slightest clue in which part I'd even want to return to. The simple reason is that I have no important, defining moments in my life. While there have of course been constant ups and downs, high and lows in my life, I haven't lived long or independently enough to seriously screw myself over or find life-changing success. I suspect this holds true for the majority of people around my age. While there have been times where I've been happier than I usually am or going through better times, nothing stands out. There would be some times that would be nice to revisit, but I struggle to even choose a place in my past to start from.

Even if I did have an idea as to what I want to relive, I'd have to ask myself what I could accomplish with the chance. Many people might want to relive a portion of their life to fix a mistake or drastically change the rest of their existence; but again, this wouldn't apply to me. I don't have any defining moment, anything I desperately want to change. There's places where I wish I had said something witty or taken the chance to get some free food, but that's all trivial. To significantly change the course of my life, I'd probably have to redo a large portion of it, and there's no guarantee that the change would be positive.

However, I have to admit that it's tempting to jump back to the past, not because of the potential to redo my life, but to return to the less stressful times with less responsibilities. It's definitely been more than once that I've complained to a friend (or the other way around) about wanting to jump five years back and forget about college and independence. Being a shrimp of a middle-schooler wasn't as fun, but messing around and not worrying much about a laughable homework load definitely made it better. As tantalizing as the prospect of going back to that kind of lifestyle is, time eventually messes everything up. The seconds add up and before I know it, I'm a high-schooler again, agonizing about my GPA and college apps. The years add back up and bring you back to where you are now. Therefore, I think returning to a moment from the past would simply be a futile attempt to escape from the future, despite the initial allure of the idea. Although my tendency for procrastination may contradict the following sentiment, I'd rather just struggle through whatever joy, sadness, or monotony is to come without yearning for impossibilities that actually would hold little impact for me. And besides, time doesn't  give a damn what I think; it'll always continue to push me forward without the slightest glance backward.  

Prompt for 8/25/16

1.       Have you ever felt embarrassed by the things that you used to like?

Often times, my mind will wander to the past and I'll mentally scroll through a list of things I used to like or have fun doing. As I take the time to contemplate on younger versions of myself, every time I inevitably end up asking myself the same thing:

"What the hell was wrong with me?"

So yes, looking back on my past enjoyments from the perspective of a senior in high school, there are a lot of things that I used to enjoy but cringe at now. 

Some of the first things that comes to mind are all the terrible games I used to love playing. From pointless little flash games with graphics seemingly taken from the eighties to productions from big companies designed to consume your money and/or time (always the latter for me, considering how cheap I am), I was easily sucked into them. I spent almost two years of middle school playing "Battle Pirates," an MMOG created by a company notorious for money-grubbing and repetitive gameplay with long waits for in-game achievements that trapped players; I fell for it completely. The worst part was, it wouldn't be my first time falling prey to this type of game, or even my first time falling prey to a game by the exact same company. As if simply remembering all these crappy games wasn't enough, reminders that I had played them are plastered over my Facebook wall and notifications. My past posts about these games are less easily found, but I still get notifications and spam email from them (perhaps I'm also too lazy to just simply block them). 

In addition to the games I used to play, there’s also the assortment of cartoons and TV shows I used to scramble up early in the morning to watch on Saturdays when I was a kid. Recalling the often silly and poorly written stories I used to think were great is usually enough to get me to squirm in discomfort. Once again, I ask myself why in the world I would ever had enjoyed something like that.

When it comes to embarrassment over these games and shows, there are probably two factors my current self is instinctively considering; the fact that I spent all that time playing and viewing said games and shows, and the fact that I wasted all that time on things I now find dumb. Right now, though, it’s obvious that I’ve only dropped one of those factors; I still waste time (that could’ve been spent doing something productive) on games and shows and movies, albeit I waste my time on games with more sophistication and shows or movies with better story-lines and execution. If you criticized these things I enjoy now, I’d most likely jump to defend my current time-wasters as “tasteful hobbies.” I can’t deny I haven’t ever debated the merits of certain games and shows with other people. At the very least, I seemed to have learned somewhat from my shameful two years of playing "Battle Pirates"; I'm now extremely wary of any game that has a design that screams "time and/or money waster" (the signs are blatantly obvious), and I've probably saved myself hours and hours by refusing to play Clash of Clans despite encouragement from friends.     

Funnily enough, my embarrassment essentially stems from my current self looking on the interests of my past self with great condescension. Perhaps it’s the adolescent eagerness to leave one’s childishness as far behind as possible, as quickly as possible, that drives this. So, to reiterate my answer: yes, I am embarrassed by what I used to like. A simple reason I might give would just be “what I used to enjoy was stupid.” But stupid from my current teenage perspective. Inevitably, people change and leave things behind. My embarrassment is quite likely the result of my mind subtly assuring itself that it has changed for the better, that what I enjoy now is “higher-tier”, if you will. Undoubtedly, my adult self will view my present self with the same embarrassment, eager to leave behind the dumb decisions that come with being a teen.