This week’s topic was very insightful in regard to learning about how poverty and sustainability relate to one another. I read the “No” authors side on whether or not poor people are the reason for environmental degradation. When we got sent to the breakout rooms, I was in a room with two girls who read the “yes” article and then myself, who read the “no “article. After much discussion about the two articles, and the question we were asked to answer we all agreed that corporations should do something to help the impoverished people. Although we said yes, we think that they should help, there were a few reasons why we believe that they shouldn’t. We think that they should help because they have the money in the means to, they could supply jobs or aide in building more housing. But we also believed that it should be the governments job to help, not the people who have worked their way up to having the money and power that they do. With all of this up in the air during our discussion, I told my group that I still think that the big corporation should help because it could make all the difference in the world for the impoverished, and maybe one day in the future they would help someone in need, because someone helped them. Some things that I took away from this reading, and our discussion is that there are a lot of small steps we could be taking to work towards a more environmentally friendly planet. It is not up to just one person to make a difference though. In order for there to be a real change, everyone will need to open their eyes to what is going on around us. If we could bring more awareness to the things that are happening to our planet because of the way we live, then maybe more people would be inclined to make a change. I know for me, this class has had a huge impact on the way I see our planet and the small steps I will take to be a part of the change.

This week, we were assigned to practice 10 minutes of mindfulness a day instead of the five minutes that we were previously assigned. This week was one of those weeks where I was having a hard time because I felt overwhelmed with the amount of schoolwork that I had, and I just did not feel like myself. I found that I was being very cranky and irritable this week because of my built-up frustration. Every night this week before I got in bed to relax for the night, I spent 10 minutes reflecting my day and praying. I took time to recognize all of the things I had to be thankful for and to try and ease up on the frustration I was feeling. I put things into perspective and had to remind myself that there are a lot of worse things that could be happening this week and to be grateful to have another day to be healthy and alive. The mindfulness practices this week helped to calm me down and to have peaceful time to myself during the chaotic week I was having.