So this is Life

  “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see,” -Henry David Thoreau I enjoyed Kawabata’s, “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket,” as it elicited great emotion and offered an interesting perspective. In the story, two people look at the same insect yet see two different types. This got me thinking. Isn't it quite often that people can see the same thing but interpret it entirely differently? At the most basic level, we have the never-ending dilemma of the glass being half-full or half-empty. It always has the same amount of water, but 2 people interpret it differently. We also have the opportunity-seekers. A renter tours a smelly home, it has an old kitchen, an out-dated bathroom, overgrown shrubs and thinks, ‘This house is a dump! I would never live in it.’ Meanwhile, the investor sees opportunity. They see that they can give the home a facelift with a new kitchen, an update of the bathroom, an investment in landscaping while make a profit doing so. Again, same hous...

As a non-English major/minor, it’s nice to be in a class that requires deeper thinking. I study Finance and marketing and often in these classes, especially finance, it’s usually black and white. The professor shows us what is right and what is wrong, you can transfer assets to your spouse tax-free but in most cases, you can’t transfer assets tax-free to your kid. Finance is a skill that will help you make money. However, having money is only the first step to a quality life.  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has five levels. (If you’re familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, feel free to skip to the next paragraph). At the bottom are the physiological needs, human’s most basic needs to merely survive such as food, shelter and water. Then you have safety needs such as personal security, healthcare and employment. The middle level, our love and belonging needs, require us to have intimate relationships with friends, family and a sense of connection with the world. Next, are self-estee...