What Love Cannot Fix

It was another sleepless night. I wish I could tell you that it was just an unsettling dream, even anxiety about who knows what that kept my slow-rolling tears and I awake that night. But, no. I was suddenly woken by another drunken fight.

According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, one in 12 adults suffer from alcohol abuse. Unfortunately, my brother was one of those 12 in our family of five—and we all suffered while it lasted. At 17 years old, deciding which college I would go to was supposed to be my only concern. Yet, I would have preferred a lifetime of sleepless nights to anxiety about where I would end up than one more night of belligerent commotion.

            It was three a.m. and my brother and the anger in his voice were unrecognizable, to say the least. My bedroom door was shut, but our house is small and the walls are thin—nothing goes unheard. It was Christmas break and I didn’t expect to hear much more than the usual holiday cheer, but I was unfortunately mistaken. It had been a while since he had last come home from college and while not getting to see him very often was a little bit sad, it was heartbreaking to see him hiding behind the smell of whiskey and an empty gaze.

            He and our parents yelled at each other for what seemed like an eternity. I laid there in my bed hoping that they would calm down and everyone would be back to normal in the morning. I don’t remember much about what words were exchanged between the three of them, but I do remember hearing our mom make some comment regarding the example he was setting for me. I had looked up to my brother my whole life—he knew that. And bringing me, his little sister, up into the conversation only made things worse. That’s when the crying started—he first, and then I. And then, my doorknob turned. I heard my mom yell at him not to go in there, but it was too late and our mom and dad followed him in. My brother looked at my parents, accusing them of fearing him, and said, “Do you think I would do anything to hurt her?” And then, he gave me a hug and told me he loved me (a gesture very out of character for my brother—he and I are not the hugging-type of siblings). In tears, I hugged him back because I wasn’t afraid of him—not at all. Just heartbroken. Just obliviously hopeful that love could fix him.

            The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism report that over 150,000 college students in the US develop health-related problems from alcohol consumption. As lucky as my family is that my brother does not continue to drink as heavily as he did in college, a lot of other families and individuals are not as fortunate. Of those 150,000 students, 1.2 – 1.5 percent have admitted to trying to take their own lives while intoxicated. The reality of college drinking is scary and disheartening. It is a part of the college culture that too many students hold most important to their four-year experience. Despite the number of students who don’t fall into habits of alcohol abuse, things need to change—because nobody should have to watch somebody they care about fall victim to something that love cannot fix. 

            Today, my brother doesn’t like to remind himself of those moments when he was out of control and unrecognizable, and neither does the rest of our family. But now that the two of us are of age and can go out for drinks with our friends, it never hurts to remind him that the way he used to drink was stupid and irresponsible, to say the least. And when I do, he nods and leaves it at, “I was an idiot.”

Myer Briggs

“Have you taken the Myer Briggs Test?” You have to take it!

When my roommate asked me this a few days ago, I scurried to look through my results from the test I took a few years ago.

The Myers Briggs test boils one’s personality down to four simple letters. The first letter deciphers extraverted vs. introverted(HumanMetrics). The second defines one’s preferences of sensing or intuition. The third letter represents one’s inclination to think versus feel. The final letter reveals one’s preference for judging versus perceiving. The combination of these letters amount to sixteen distinctive personality types(Humanmetrics).

Remembering that I saved my personality results as a document on my laptop, I looked through all of my files to finally I found my results.

I distinctly remember the feeling I had as I took the test years prior. Like millions of others, I took the test in hopes of becoming more self-aware and as a means of soul searching (Atlantic).  

 I recalled that as I finished the test, I felt understood and more confident in the reality of my strengths and weakness as a person. My results equated to the personality type, INFP: Introversion, Intuition, Feeling and Perception.

On the website the introduction of my personality stated

“Forming around 4.5% of the population, INFP personalities are usually perceived as calm, reserved or even shy. However, such an exterior can be deceptive – even though INFPs can be somewhat cautious, their inner flame and passion is not something to be taken lightly. People with this personality type are really affectionate, a trait not often seen in other types(16Personalities).”

Expecting to once again self reflect on my strength and weaknesses in reading the detailed personality description, the results before me were quite simply outdated.

The Myer Briggs test gives you results assuming that the results can decipher one’s personality down to a simple static formula. As I pondered upon my results from sophomore year, I realized the impact college has had on my personality. While my values and morals have remained, I have challenged aspects of my personality results that were once prominent weaknesses that in many ways stifled me.

While the test can be self reflective, I believe it is crucial to understand personalities can evolve. Humans are complex and should never be stifled by a test that believes it has you indefinitely figured out.

As expressed this to my roommate she replied, “My mom said she had the same personality as me when she was younger but has a completely different result now in her 50s.’

If in these short four years my results have changed, I cannot even bear to grasp the amount I will grow and evolve for decades to come.

-Karen

 http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/people-love-the-myers-briggs-personality-test/404737/

https://www.16personalities.com/infp-personality

The Muslim Problem Of United States

On my way to The United States about five years ago, I was anxious and excited to experience the American public. In comparison, Iran was a third world developing country and the societal situation and eight years war since the revolution still had everyone on the edge, and given that, I was expecting every single American to be super friendly, kind, and well educated. After all, even the Iranian people knew of the basic history of terrorist organizations and how they completely differ, in every way, from the Muslim norms. It’s my fifth year in The United States now, and it pains me to say that I felt safer in a third world battered developing country ruled by autocrats. I have met many generous, genuine and well-educated Americans, but I’ve also met some of the most vile, racist and bigoted individuals as well, that frankly induced the same amount of fear in me as any jihadi terrorist. In no way could I have ever imagined such individuals existing in the American public, as I never encountered anyone with such racist or bigoted ideals in Iran. Even the hardcore extremists in Iran don’t have a supremacist ideology that is found in these individuals, since they put their extremist ideology behind a nationalistic and political view. It was soul crushing to meet such individuals, and it has becoming worst and worst every day, with now one of them being the frontrunner candidate for presidency. Donald Trump’s plan to ban all Muslims for the time being is questioning not the nationality, not the allegiance, not the ideology, but the faith and identity of 1.3 billion people worldwide. When I was in Iran, of the first religious lessons in school were the difference between believers, and those who seek to use our faith for evil deeds. Of the first lessons taught were how “killing any individual is equal to killing the whole of mankind, and how saving an individual is equal to saving the whole of mankind” as stated in Quran 5:32. Muslims have been fighting these terrorist organizations long before United States War On Terror. These terrorist organizations never existed before America’s intervention in the Afghan-Soviet War, where the CIA created such organizations by training and hiring leaders such as Bin Laden as stated by The Guardian, to fight the soviets. Right now, almost all the forces fighting ISIS practice the Muslim faith. To ban all Muslims from entering United States is to equal all Muslims with these terrorist or extremist organizations, and to see that almost half of United States supporting that plan is quite heart breaking. Currently, according to PewResearch, the Muslim population of United States is about 3.3 million, less than 1% of the total population, and extremist slogan made by someone like Trump can bring an atmosphere that Jews experienced during the years of Nazi Germany. All things considered though, I have the right to practice my faith in The United States, and rights and opportunities such as this are what make America great. My hope still remains that soon; the American public will come to realize the facts and not the propaganda presented to them.

Ahmad Mir Mohammad Sadeghi

Are We Present?-Maria Blanc Zoco

After reading stories in the supermarket aisle, I questioned the power of attention in our society. While reading the short story all I kept thinking was about times where I have been in the supermarket and seen people interact. Nowadays, unless a person has a specific question to ask, conversations between customers are practically inexistent. You might think, “well I talked to this one person in the line” But did he or she actually tell you a full story about their past or their culture? Probably not, because it was most likely an awkward conversation where you tried to reached to your pocket for your phone but at that moment you didn’t know where it was. It happens to me all the time. So I decided to look why our lack of stories in the supermarket is connected to our phone use.

 Victoria Woollaston from the Daily Mail states that the “average number of times a user checks their phone is nine times an hour”.  When I do groceries I am either looking at my phone or sprinting through the aisles trying to get the five items on my grocery list. I have never stopped in an aisle more than 10 minutes to find something; if I can’t find it then I probably won’t buy it.  I never go grocery shopping and take my time looking at products because I find that a waste of time.  However, I do think that my lack of “care” is linked to my urge to be on my phone.  How many notifications I have? How many likes? Why haven’t they answered me yet?

It is interesting how much face-to-face conversation has dropped since the device that is on our hands has taken that power to replace “the other person”.  Nowadays, we use our phones more than we talk to another person. In other words, we have master the task of multitasking to the point where we can be in two places at once.  Sherry Turkle from The New York Times reiterates the idea of our generations phone usage to explain that we use it as a scapegoat. “ Now they use it when they want to be both with their friends and, as some put it, “elsewhere”.  We are trying to live life through media at the same time as we try to “care” about what our friend story is about.

This is amusing because we use social media to tell the stories that we could be telling at the grocery store. However, we feel less judged when they are 140 characters and you have people liking them or retweeting them.

Our society is clearly raised by the power of technology and social media, however we shouldn’t allow that consumed our quality time with strangers or friends.  I believe that we still have to find a balance between face-to-face conversations and the time we spend in social media.  Many stories aren’t being heard and that is because we prefer to stroll down Instagram than to listen to someone explain why they prefer kale to romaine.

Works Cited

Turkle, Sherry. "Stop Googling. Let’s Talk." The New York Times. The New York Times, 26 Sept. 2015. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.

Woollaston, Victoria. "How Often Do You Check Your Phone? The Average Person Does It 110 times a DAY (and up to Every 6 Seconds in the Evening)." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 08 Oct. 2013. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.