Journal Entry #2

In this journal entry I mainly want to talk about the book we are reading for the class, Soul of a Citizen. First off let me say I like the point that Loeb is trying to get across. Being active in society and trying to make a better community for all of us would/could make us happier and a better person all around. But I do not like the tone he uses making this point. He makes it seem as though there is no alternative to making our lives worth while. Like there is no other way to be happy and the best person we can be, or like there would be a huge hole in our hearts or chunks missing from our soul if we didn't do something to help out our community. I disagree with this entirely. You can live a very successful life, have an amazing family and do everything to support them and just love your job, never once having done anything for society or spoken out against something you didn't like and still be perfectly fine. You wouldn't be affected at all in my opinion. But like I said before you can definitely lead that same life and be happier or less happy, having done something for society. I think it all depends on the person and the situation.
Apart from this I find the book very hard to read with all the repetitive stories and life lessons. He starts his stories different but they all end with the same moral or core value. I find it very annoying and makes the book very hard to get through. I almost find it as an oxymoron. Him preaching these stories almost makes me not want to go out and do something to change society. Being told over and over again to go do something to make a change or your life will be incomplete makes it almost counter productive.
However I do seem to connect with some of the stories he mentions throughout the chapters. There was one in particular about a young man who was wasting all his days getting high with his friends and not doing anything with his life. I do not by any means go out and get high, I've never even smoked once, but I feel like sometimes my life is missing something. My life gets really repetitive and boring every once and awhile. Wake up, work, class, friends, video games, and then sleep. My life is on too much of a schedule right now. I need change. I feel like I'm just stuck in a routine. I'm not saying I need to go out and change the world to feel like my life is going somewhere at the moment, but I am saying that without some change you may end up like the young man who wasted his days getting high and not doing anything to change it. Some people may find this change by voicing their opinions to other people about things in the community that bother them and fighting to get things changed. Loeb would agree with that. I partly do. I definitely think that this route is for some people and not for others. I don't think that you need to try and be active in society to make something of yourself and live an effective life.