Iexamen II

Alonso Parra

I believe we all often forget how important it is to do self-observation exercises, this in order to be aware of how we deal and communicate feelings to our surrounding. It is also right to point out that sometimes we are not even aware of how we treat ourselves. Are we being truthful to ourselves? Are we being kind to ourselves? It is very common for me for example, to over demand from myself. I usually tell myself that I am not tired, or that I should be keep going. Then, I tell myself I will have a short nap to recover some energies, maybe half an hour would be enough. That is a lie. This happens way too often, especially when I use the nights to work on my assignments. Then what happens, is that I over sleep and wake up being absolutely angry at myself for letting this happen. Sometimes I get really offensive with myself, and to try to remain academically on my writing, I will not elaborate on said insults. There needs to be a moment to stop, think, and be aware that, for the mentioned example, I was being totally useless about my efficiency and time managing. Also I am very sure that I was not kind at all with myself.

As the last time, I chose Saturday for the conducting of the Iexamen, because I think is the day in which I communicate the most with people around me. Specifically, with my friends and roommates, as with my family and friends in Chile. Also on weekends there is time to go out of campus, as we exchange students go sight seeing a lot and often carpool for groceries.

First thing in the morning I was not feeling kind at all. My apartment was filthy and I felt I was the only one that cared about the situation. When I remembered that I was doing the Iexamen, I stopped and thought very well what I was going to say to my roommates. I was not going to say something kind but I did think of something useful. Instead of scolding them as I probably would have in a regular day, I proposed the idea of going to a supermarket to get some cleaning supplies. It was very useful, and at the end we all had a clean apartment and I was not the only one feeling good about it, the dorm had a new vibe. I did not wanted to tell them I was doing this exercise, so I thought to myself that I really saved myself from an annoying antagonizing scolding against my roommates.

I am a person with a very good sense of humor. I was always the joker around my friends, family and teachers. Sometimes, when a humoristic situation takes place, my friends automatically wait for my joke to come, or they say, “Ok say something”. The funny thing is that the friends I told about this exercise abused on the facts that I had to be truthful and kind. They even began to tell among themselves about it. They said that I could not be mean, or else I would fail the class. As I said before, I have a very good sense of humor so we just laughed about it.

Taking it more seriously, I noticed that it is so easy to be kind and useful. I think I never stopped to think of how important is, for example, to tell my mom I love her. I cannot say that it is something useful, because I am probably not gaining anything by doing it. But that does not matter, I was kind to my mom, and I saw that she was so happy about it, I felt bad for not doing it more often. Of course I have to mention that I was also being truthful. I do love my mother very much.

As for other chances of practicing this exercise, I notice that when you are too kind to people you are not used to be, they might think you are flirting with them. I would like to stop right there to think about how seldom is to be kind nowadays. I do not want to be extremist about it, but it is concerning that people believe that kindness necessarily means to obtain benefit of someone.