365 People 365 Stories Essay

Here is the essay I wrote for my English class about my blog and my reasoning for creating this project. Enjoy!

Since I have become a college student, I have begun to pay more attention to the connections that are created between people interacting with one another. On a daily basis, I have been observing the different ways in which I personally communicate with others around me both directly and indirectly. I order coffee from the barista at Jittery Joe's in the Miller Learning Center, listen to my professor give his lecture in my Human Geography class, and walk past the homeless man who asks for money in downtown Athens—all without realizing that I am communicating with other people. I noticed that I was unconsciously going through the motions of interacting with people in my daily life and not taking the time to listen to people's histories, perspectives on life, and future goals.

To examine my views and questions about humanity as a whole, I decided to create a blog project that would be composed of the biographies of 365 random individuals to determine what makes us unique as human beings even though we all want the same things in life. The title of the blog is appropriately named “365 People, 365 Stories” because I am going to randomly interview one person every day to hear his or her life story and then post a brief summary and picture on my blog for an entire year. Such questions will include but are not limited to: “What is your life story?” “What are your goals in life and how will you go about achieving those?” and “What is the most important thing in your life?” The inspiration for this specific project came from a moment when I was walking back to my Residence Hall with my friend, Chas Choran, and we were brainstorming possible paper topics for our English papers. Because I have a creative side to my personality and I love to journal, I have always wanted to create a blog, but I did not know what I wanted to write about. I wanted to be original, and this idea allowed me to be authentic because it was a topic that I have never heard of before. I am also interested in how people think and enjoy meeting people and hearing their stories and this blog is an outlet for me to do both.

The more people I meet, the more I realize that humans generally have desires to attain the same things in their lives. When I meet someone and ask what they would like to achieve in his or lifetime, the response is usually: to be financially secure, be successful, and live a happy life. Even though we wish to acquire these similar goals, our experiences and the people we encounter determine how we seek to attain our set goals in life. I think that everyone can recall one experience or person and say, “If I did not have this experience or if I did not meet this person, I would not be where I am today. My life would be completely different”. One of the reasons I began this blog was to observe how people's present lives are defined by their past experiences and how they will attain their ambitions. In order for personal growth to occur, taking risks and being spontaneous with our actions is a way in which we can manifest our desires to make these goals become our reality. I believe that everything in life happens for a reason—whether or not we know what that reason may be—and if one of the risks we take turns out to be a mistake, we will be okay in the long term because we can learn from our experiences and apply this knowledge to our future.

As a college student, I find that I am always surrounded by people. During the first two weeks of adjusting to this new lifestyle, people were friendly enough to initiate conversations and eat meals with new people. I find that as time has passed, however, people are not as willing to go out of their ways to meet other people. The person standing in front of me in line may be an employer who is looking for someone to hire and I fit his job description, or the person could be someone who just needed a positive interaction and I might be the one to brighten his or her day. I would never know these backgrounds unless I initiated a conversation with either one of them. I find that people are generally friendly enough to talk to, so why do we not take the extra distance to meet somebody new? Perhaps the reason people feel restrained to break the ice with others is because they already have an established set of friends, but I feel that the reason contains deeper levels. After analyzing my own personal mentality, I think that the fear of judgment is the number one reason why I do not introduce myself to others. I think that people do not want to be judged for who they are as a person because they are not one-hundred percent confident in themselves. I am not entirely certain this is the case for everyone on this planet, but it was applicable to me and my personal background.

I have noticed that since I have begun this project, my self-esteem has improved as far as being able to talk to people whom I have never met. I need a lot of will-power to ask a random person to tell me his or her life story, but I find that with each encounter I have, it is easier for me to be spontaneous and more carefree about preexisting judgments that I may have about myself. During my sophomore year of high school, I moved from California to Georgia and did not know a single person. The first six months of adjusting to my new Southern life was very difficult for me because I was scared to introduce myself to others without having fears of judgment. When I made the transition to break out of my shell and let my defenses down, I was able to meet new people and make lasting friendships. Even though I have overcome many fears about meeting new people, I still have insecurities about who I am as a person. When I began the process of interviewing people, I had the courage to only interview students from the University, however, since I have become more confident in my daily routine of meeting people, I have expanded my horizons to interview people not associated with UGA.

My list of interviewees contains individuals from all walks of life, including: someone from the Occupy Athens movement, a fourth grader, a resident assistant, my dog, a few Southerners, and a Greek-American captain among many other diverse people. Even though I said that I would interview people I have never met before, I find that I may not know people as well as I should. I recently sat down with my grandpa and talked with him about his life story for an hour and a half. His story of retiring and reapplying to the military and hearing some of his other life experiences inspired me and I was able to learn more about my family history. Had I not taken the time to talk to him, I may not have been able to hear his story from his perspective, so on this particular post, I asked my readers to sit down with their family members to hear about their histories. I am not sure if my readers have done this, but I hope this request urged them to think about their roots and how they developed into who they are today.

On day three of this blog project, I interviewed a girl named Robin who said that she lives by one of Plato’s quotes: “be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle”. We do not realize that people all around us are hurting; whether it is physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally. We are so wrapped up in our own lives and egos that we may not pay attention or choose not to care about others that are around us. I believe that if we are more conscientious of others and choose to pay attention to what “battles” they may be fighting, the world would be a more understanding and compassionate place. Removing all judgments sounds like an impossible thing to ask, but I hope that my blog project will be an inspiration for people to be more sensitive to others, to take more risks in their daily lives, and to say hello to a complete stranger.