I Was Right

When I first enrolled in Family Relations, I was really nervous since this is my very first semester of college, and I’m taking three other multi credit courses at the same time, AND I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to juggle all of those in my schedule.  I also felt like I would not be able to keep up on the blog posts since I’m not much of a talker.  I can be a talker when I want to be, but that’s beside the point.  My point with the blog is I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to write enough subject material to get full credit.  I considered dropping the class to focus on my other classes, but I came to the conclusion that I should at least try the class for the first week and see how it goes.  The first two weeks passed by pretty slowly, but I was incredibly intrigued by the level of knowledge and enthusiasm that my professor had on the subject of marriage and family relations.  After I had made some friends in the class, and after some serious consideration, I chose to stay in the class.  

Now that the class is over, I understand why I needed to stay...and not just because it was for my major.  

I learned of an interesting phenomenon before I ever took Family Relations.  This phenomenon is called “frequency illusion” or the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.  It is a cognitive partiality in which, after one notices or learns something for the first time, there is a tendency that one will notice it more often.  In simpler terms, “frequency illusion” is the idea that when you learn or notice something, it begins to pop up literally everywhere.  

Now that you know what the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is, here comes my next thought: once I started learning all the concepts of Family Relations, situations began popping up that ultimately was making me internalize all of those lessons and principles even more.

For example, a couple I knew was engaged.  They would mostly bounce between each other's apartments, and I thought they had everything figured out at the beginning of the semester.  They seemed to be fairly in love, knew everything there was to know about each other, and more.  But as I began learning, and observing behavior, I quickly deduced that they would call off their engagement.  Most of their conversations led to bickering, and either him or her storming out of the apartment.  They despised each other’s families.  Sure they would cuddle on the couch, and she would beg for his attention while he was making dinner for them both, but deep down, I knew that it was not going to last long.  Sure enough, the day came when one of my friends that also knew them came to me and asked, “Did you hear that they called off their engagement?”  All I had to say was, “I saw it coming.”  It sucks for me to say that, and I wasn’t about to step in and involve myself in something that was none of my top secret, personal beeswax.  Maybe I could have helped them out, maybe it wouldn’t have worked.  Honestly, I would rather have seen their relationship fall apart before marriage than have seen them get married and then get divorced soon after.  All I know is what I learned in class, and what I learned is to stay away from such behaviors. 

Keeping this blog has been a blessing and a curse.  It’s allowed me to continue to learn and teach what I have learned in class.  I now know that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it.  It’s also been a curse because I can be kind of a loose cannon in the way that I use my colorful language. But overall, it’s been fun doing this blog and to whoever has read these and actually learned something: thanks for reading.