All About Me

Howdy! My name is Dallas Rayburn, and I'm a junior at New Auburn High School. Well, it's sort of our middle school too, because we're too small to have different teachers for both. I moved here in eighth grade, and I can't imagine having to go to high school anywhere else. I really like the small environment because it gives us more one-on-one time with the teachers and also because everyone knows everyone else. I live in a family of four, my mom, my dad, and my younger brother, Austin. Austin is exactly two years younger than me, so we've always had to share the same birthday. To fill my time I enjoy running, writing, reading, playing music and making you-tube movies.

One thing that has really shaped me as a person is my religion. I've grown up with Christian parents, Christian grandparents, and Christian great-grandparents. This alone has changed my life in a lot of ways. Having Christian parents has affected the moral standards that have been set in my life. The rules they make for me have always based on what they believe are 'Christian Values.' From the TV shows and movies I watched, to my bed times and dating relationships, they have all been set by my parents standards. And the more I grow in faith, the more their standards have become my own personal standards too. Furthermore, being a born-again Christian has affected me in more than just my parents rules. My beliefs affect every decision I make in life. It's my goal to please God in everything I do, and because of this, every decision I make is based on the bible and my religion.

I think studying psychology is important because it helps us understand how the different mind frames and values we hold affect the way we live our lives. If we understand the way education, religion, family values, and society affect our lives, we will be able to have a better understanding in the way our mind works.

The definition of psychology is similar to what I wrote in the paragraph above. I'd say that in as good of a guess as I can give, psychology is understanding the way our minds work through the everyday situations that affect our lives.

When it comes to reflective writing, I think it is a time to write our true thoughts and feelings. It's a place where we should be able to write our own personal views and opinions, but probably not a place to try to force our thoughts on other people. It's a time to write in a more casual tone, writing it almost as if we talking out loud.

Finally, I think psychology shows us how free we are, by showing us that we aren't as free as we think. That's a confusing statement, but what I mean is that we think every decision we make is entirely up to what we personally decide to do. What we don't realize, and what psychology shows us, is that our thoughts and decisions are affected by what happens in the world around us. What we are taught in school, the religion we believe in, or the country we live in are all involved in affecting the decisions we make. For example, if we have to decide where to go to college and we live in the U.S., we can choose between many different schools. If we live in a poor nation somewhere in Africa, the choice is much more limited. Living in a poor nation could also affect your decision whether or not to go to college, because you might not be able to afford it. This part of psychology is closely related to the sociological studies of our minds. Overall, I believe the choices we make are still based on our own free-will, but the different options we choose from are based on what happens in our daily lives.