Sam Schwartz

PERMA is the perfect model to follow in order to live the best life you can. The first element is Positive Emotion. It is extremely important to try to live your life with only positive thoughts. I can imagine my life being significantly better if I focused harder on thinking positively. Avoiding negative thoughts on a daily basis would have a major impact on making me a happier person. Positive emotions have a lot to do with having an optimistic view on life situations. Looking into the bright side of things and not being pessimistic both result in a happier life and stronger mental health.

The second element of PERMA is Engagement. Engaging in all activities you do on a daily basis helps you learn and grow as a person. I think it is very important for me to find the hobbies and activities that I am interested in and fully engage myself in these things. When I am fully participating and applying myself to what I am doing, I am learning more and increasing my capability to grow and succeed in certain aspects of life.

Relationship is the third element of PERMA. I think this may be the most important aspect of flourishing for me personally. It is essential for me to surround myself with great people who care for me, and who I know I can have fun with. The most important relationships in my life are the ones I have with my family. I look up to my older brother, and I am always in a better place when I stay in touch with him on a regular basis. Now that I am in college, I have to find time in my week to talk to my parents and let them know how I am doing. When my sister is happy, it makes me happier, so I talk to her all the time to make sure she is doing well as the only child now.

The next element of PERMA is Meaning. Every day activities in life are meant to be done with meaning, not for no reason. I know that I am in a better state in my life when I feel that what I am doing is meaningful. For example, what frustrates and stresses me out a lot is doing an assignment or a long project in school that I do not see much meaning behind. I feel a greater purpose for myself when I believe I am doing something meaningful.

The last element is Accomplishment. It is extremely important for me to set goals in my life that encourage me to work hard in order to do well and succeed. A sense of accomplishment almost immediately puts me in a better mood in my life. I think setting goals for myself pushes me to work hard in order to achieve these goals and thrive in my life. Accomplishment is one of the best feelings to have in life. It is very satisfying to know that you worked hard and it resulted in you achieving your goal. All five of these elements of PERMA help lead me to thrive and flourish in the utmost way that I can.

Getting enough sleep is one of the most important things to me in my life. It is extremely challenging with all of the things I have going on every day in my life. Sometimes it becomes so challenging for me because I waste a lot of time throughout the day by going on social media, talking to friends, and watching sports or tv. This results in me having to stay up late at night to finish my homework and make up for all the time I lost throughout the day. My sleep hygiene has been pretty good so far in college, but I would definitely like to improve it. I usually get at least seven hours of sleep during the week, and when I absolutely need to stay up very late to finish an important assignment, then I usually make up for it the next day by taking a long nap. During the weekends, I often stay up very late until 2 or 3 a.m., but I sleep in very late until noon or one. I get a lot more sleep on the weekends, but I stay up way too late. I really need to work my sleep patterns during the weekend. First, I need to start going to sleep at a much more reasonable time. Therefore, this would allow me to wake up earlier the next day, so I can take more advantage of the whole day on Saturday and Sunday. This would be very beneficial for me because it would allow me to get a lot of work done on the weekends. If I am able to be more productive on the weekends, then I can go to bed earlier on the week days which can keep me more fresh for my classes and attentive to my lectures. I can definitely tell when I am sleep derived. Sometimes I am barely able to keep my eyes open, and I can hardly focus on anything that is going on in my classes. When I am very tired, the only thing I am worried about in my classes is how much time is left before class is over, and I can go home and sleep. When I get a good night’s sleep, I am significantly more attentive and lively throughout the day. I wake up feeling well rested and having a way better attitude approaching the new day. When I am well rested I have very productive days where I eat good meals, go to Yates and get a workout in, and then I get a lot of my homework and studying done to put myself in a good position for the rest of the week. I definitely would like to change my sleep habits going forward for the rest of the semester and whole year. I will focus harder on managing my time more wisely, so I do not stay up late often, so I can sleep well and still wake up relatively early.

I went down to floor 1 in Lau to the maker hub to pick up a huge box of rocks to scatter throughout the campus. Most of the rocks had written on them: Kindness Rocks Project. Additionally, a lot of the rocks were promoting the facebook group on it that represents the project. Some of the other rocks had individual, unique messages on them that would offer a random little nice phrase or maybe something inspirational. I am very glad that I had the opportunity to help promote this Kindness Rocks Project. I think this project is a very good idea, and it was timed very well with the season of final exams arriving on campus right now. Many students are walking around campus all day to various study places and are preparing for their exams. This is one of the most stressful week/weeks of the year for students at Georgetown because large amounts of work pile up over a short period of time. I think students who are walking around campus really appreciate the effort of other people to take time out of their day solely to brighten someone else’s day who may be stressed out or worried. I think the goal of this project relates well to many important themes that we have studied this year in Flourishing. One of the main Jesuit values here at Georgetown that resonates well with me is the idea of women and men for others. It made me feel good about myself to take time out of my week to not think of myself but to think of how I can make others feel better during their day.

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