This Is Kookie Jar

How does one live a compassionate life? People live their lives not truly understanding the environment that they are surrounded in. They unconsciously walk through their daily lives without much thoughts, just like how David Foster Wallace depicts in his fish story. It is very ironic that people are surrounded with same things in their lives, but they don't truly understand their surroundings and just take them for granted. We, humans, must be aware and conscious of our environment. People must start to take control of their thoughts and give compassionate actions to others in the "water". Instead of living our long and orderly-structured lives, Wallace teaches the audience about a new perspective that all people can have in life. Just by thinking about other people's perspectives can change a person's attitude to a big degree. "Maybe that person is in more of a rush than I am." Just a slight thought like this can cause a person to act differently and think more positively. 

Humans have a built-in hard-wired default-setting inside their bodies since the day they were born into this world. Life tends to make people slip naturally into the habit of being irritated or frustrated. People judge. People think negatively. People become angered easily. People believe that the world revolves only around themselves. Thinking that they are the center of attention in the world is the reason why people only think about themselves and never think about other people's perspectives. We are all too self-centered and too absorbed into our thoughts. Wallace says, "It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out"(Wallace 238).We all need to take the time to understand the fact that in this world, we are not the only busy and frantic ones, but others are just as busy and frantic. It's not going to be easy to try to not fall into the natural habit of the built-in default-setting in ourselves, but the effort to do so will be the first small baby step in changing the world to be filled with more compassionate people.

You're not the only person fighting a hard battle.

The world needs to be filled with compassionate people.