During class this week, we discussed the practice and concept of Mindfulness. I really enjoyed listening and participating in the class discussion over mindfulness. Mindfulness is defined as “the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.” I have always heard to “be mindful of your actions” and I believe that it is very important to do so. As a student who is always stressing about something, I think it is very important to take a minute or two out of your day to exercise mindfulness. Mindfulness applies to everyone and I believe that it is something all people should practice for well-being. This week, our task was to practice a moment of mindfulness. I decided to practice meditating while doing homework in order to help calm myself down. Recently, I had been feeling stressed out about a few upcoming assignments and I could feel the stress building up inside of me. On this particular day, I was sitting outside doing homework. The weather was perfect with a light breeze. While I was outside working on schoolwork, I got worked up over an assignment that I didn’t fully understand. After feeling the stress build up inside of me, I decided to take a moment to sit there, close my eyes, and just breath for a few minutes. As I sat there in silence just breathing, I could slowly feel the stress starting to melt away. I could hear the wind blowing through the air and the leaves that had fallen from the trees and it sounded really peaceful. I opened my eyes after a moment and just looked up and the clouds with an empty mind. After simply taking a moment to take in my surroundings and try to clear my mind, I felt almost restored and I felt like I could now calmly continue the work. Practicing mindfulness is important for mental health. People get very stressed out over small things and sometimes need to take a moment for themselves and just breath to calm down. Problems usually get resolved quicker with a calm person trying to solve the problem. 

We also discussed globalization and its effects on the environment this week. Before class, I was assigned to read the “YES” argument. While reading the argument, I found myself thinking that it was saying yes, globalization is bad for the environment. After reading over it a couple of times, I found that the article actually supported globalization as it could help the economy and eventually in return help the environment. After being placed into breakout rooms to discuss the argument, I had a much clearer understanding of what I had read. The group that I was in had a long discussion of both sides of the argument and we decided as a group that globalization is bad for the environment. I agree with the groups decision especially because as I was reading the argument, I was somehow understanding that globalization was harmful to the environment. The discussion was helpful and definitely gave me a much better understanding of globalization.