Self Reflection #3

I am extremely passionate about the food system in America specifically. I am drawn to this topic because the sheer amount of misconceptions, misinformation, and direct cover ups the government has done to our food system is appalling. The government takes advantage of us, and is mainly the source of our obesity problem in this country, and subsidize foods that are not healthy for us just because the companies behind it bring in money for the government. However, that is barely scratching the surface of it. Due to these commercial meat farms, it is causing cultural eutrophication, or in other words, causing algal blooms (that cause die offs) that greatly affect our fishing industry and the well being of our oceans. People are being exploited illegally too, but that is mostly kept under wraps. Many more issues occur because of this, and there is definitely more we do not know. 

My result aligned most with (I took it a second time because I don’t think I understood it the first time) Stoics. I know from personal reading and high school that I align more with nihilism. However, because we live in a society, I do have to separate my nihilistic values from what society expects of me. As for stoics, I do believe I align with them (separating my nihilism). I am a very go with the flow person, and accept things in the present moment, and always want to solve things using logic and trying to escape emotional interference in order to do so. Although, I can get emotionally fueled sometimes, but I try to avoid that when debating or trying to solve a problem. 

Stoicism would connect to my “beef” about the food industry, because this is mainly not for the animals involved, except for the way that they are killed. We are omnivores for a reason, and although I have nothing against veganism or vegetarianism––because we do need to lower our consumption of meat here in the US––doing it for the animals is not my main reason. Hunting is an extremely sustainable way to get meat for example, and although I could never do it considering how much I love animals and would not want to personally kill a living thing, I can accept it. It is more humane than what commercial slaughterhouses are doing in this country. Killing things inhumanely is generally not accepted by our society, and therefore it is wrong. I worry more about that, and the exploitation of workers over our southern border. 

Trying to figure out problems in a logical way connects me back to my Talent Themes. I have Input, Achiever, Ideation, Learner, and Context. Four out of those five are under the strategic thinking talent theme, which could link back to stoicism of not wanting to involve emotions into general problem solving. I know a considerable amount about the food industry, and I retain that information through my “input” strength.

The source of power that pertains to this issue would be institutional or possibly structural power. The government, along with other corporations and lobbyists is hiding information from their constituents. For example, it is illegal to film or document anything in a commercial slaughterhouse these days, which is extremely suspicious. 

This information about me definitely contrasts my service proposal, which will be more focused on reproduction health and not the food industry. Reproductive health is more emotionally connected to me, which is ironic considering what I discussed previously, however, it does have immense logical basis to it. I know I can work with the logical base of this service proposal though. 

The relational leadership model connects with social responsibility because it is an ethical way to go about working with others to achieve something greater. Some people believe in social responsibility, and I think it is important, considering we live in a society, and therefore we should help each other. The relational leadership model, along with social responsibility would help us defeat oppressing sources of power.