"After reading up on Rose’s “Survival Instinct” prompt is being thankful for our childhoods. Growing up, each individual goes through their first stages of the chapter, from there it develops into your story. Everyone’s story is different, we all come from different backgrounds, and after reflecting on Rose’s childhood story I can relate to personal hardships that I went through as a child. Though, I am grateful for it, it has shaped me into who I am now, and I am proud of that. End of the day people are born into these rough or privileged lifestyles, and one cannot fully understand the other until they are placed in the same shoes as the opposite.

All of the art pieces were wonderful done by Rose, but the one that stood out to me was, “Seventh Generation, 2017”. The reason why this stood out to me was because of the title of the piece, the way that I interpreted it was that it takes that one generation to break the endless cycle of poverty within the family. It is fuel of motivation in my opinion, it will take a lot of work, a lot of hours, and plenty of dedication, one can achieve this if they truly apply themselves."

After reading this post, I immediately thought about a quote from a Batman movie. Ironically, the quote comes from The Joker who is the antagonist. There’s a scene within the movie where The Joker says, “They laugh at me because I’m different. I laugh at them because they’re all the same”. I think that we spend a majority of our youth engaging in conformity which is essentially trying to fit in. Unfortunately, our society tends to make fun of and outcast those that are different. Due to this, we try our best to fit in and sometimes this comes at the expense of losing our true self in the process. It’s safe to say that culture can heavily influence our lives as well as impact those around us. As Rose mentioned in her discussion, she always chooses her daughter’s clothes and hairstyle for her. Her daughter hates this because it takes away her sense of self-expression. Rose understands this but she has a hard time of allowing it due to the fact that she wants her daughter’s childhood to be better than her own. With that said, you can easily see how Rose’s own culture and childhood still has an effect on her to this day. I think it’s safe to say that Rose was somewhat of an outcast as a child. Now, I don’t mean this in a bad way at all. However, she even mentions herself that her family had a unique way of life. Due to this, she ended up conforming to a more traditional lifestyle as she got older, and I don’t blame her one bit. However, I think her childhood sticks with her to this day and that is why she struggles to let her daughter wear her clothes with holes or walk around dirty. Rose lived that way as a kid and didn’t have a whole lot of opportunities. So, Rose wants to provide nothing but the best for her daughter. This is totally understandable, but it creates a bit of a problem. It limits creativity and self-expression while promoting conformity. In my opinion, conformity isn’t a bad thing, but I find it to be detrimental when it is suppressing diversification. As I’ve learned in my Organizational Behavior & Diversity class, diversity is an essential part to creating and maintaining a good business. Therefore, in this scenario, I think the best thing to do is let Rose’s daughter wear her own clothes and hairstyle as she chooses. By doing this, it allows for self-expression and diversification. Of course, the risk of this is what society will say about this. But I think it is important for Rose’s daughter to experience the world on her own. I think this holds true to every single human being. When we are young, we are so concerned with what everybody thinks about us, but as we get older, we realize that nobody even cared in the first place. Therefore, I am an advocate of diversification and being yourself regardless of cultural and societal influences. To wrap up, I want to leave you all with a quote about being different and expressing yourself. “Being different simply means you have something unique to offer the world”.

I am very lucky to have grown up with a roof over my head and food on the table, but when I was a kid I didn’t understand how lucky I was. I was upset that I never had the coolest toys, the trendiest clothes, or the newest iPhone. I didn’t understand that this lack of social status was what allowed me to live the comfortable life that I was blessed with. Now that I am older and much more aware of what it is like to be an adult in this social and political climate, I understand just how much privilege I have in my life. Not only did I have a roof over my head, but I had parents that were still together and showed me as much unconditional love as they had to share. I am also white, which, even though this should not affect how anyone is treated, automatically gives me more privilege in this society. I am so damn lucky and I try to remember this every time I am feeling down about my life. I think it is really important for people to be aware of the privilege they hold and the best way to use it to benefit society. Rose, you brought up that there are people that come from wealthy, privileged positions who feel they need to rebel from the capitalist structure so they adopt a sort of “hippie” lifestyle. These are some of the people who need to be more aware of how good they have it. They think they are doing good for the world because they ride their bike to work or eat organic food, but the reality is that they are able to take part in this because they come from money. They are always preaching this way of life but they neglect the fact that there are people who are living paycheck to paycheck and literally can’t afford to eat anything other than the frozen and affordable food. We have to stop shaming people for the way they grew up and the hardships they had to face, because it is all just a consequence of living in a system that hates minorities, poor people, and women.

I thought some lyrics from one of my favorite songs fit this topic.

"The struggling you do won't help
Metal in his hands with six rounds
Take apart my heart with two shells
All that for a script of how he felt
This candle light hits me in my face
I hunger for her blood, I need a taste
The flesh is tender right around the waist
On the sea, your moral compass is erased"