Paper: Being Personally Responsible
This is my final research paper for the GEN/200 “FOUNDATIONS FOR GENERAL EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS” at the University of Phoenix.
Being Personally Responsible
Nate Bachmeier
University of Phoenix: GEN/200
Faculty: Kel Allen
Being personally responsible is a way of life. Some of the key areas where this can be seen are health, communication, and time management.
The first area of responsibility is personal health. If one does not preserve their own health it will be difficult to maintain other areas of their lives. One example of this is sick people often miss work or the ability to participate in activities. This in turn leads to them missing valuable lessons both in and out of the classroom.
Proper diet and exercise are the crux of maintaining a healthy body and mind (Cuyamaca, 2000). This can be quantified as a Body Mass Index (BMI), using the formula BMI=705 x (weight/height2). A person that does not maintain a proper diet will become over weight and lethargic (Eriksson & Gard, 2011). This should be no surprise; “after all we are what we eat (Cuyamaca, 2000, slide 6).” The human body was not designed to live on processed food and junk from the vending machine (Asfaw, 2011).
It doesn’t matter how well a person diets and exercises, “if [they] are always drunk or high,” Bard’s lectures state, “this is because drugs and alcohol slow down the brain and make us feel sick and tired.” Additionally, they can prevent us from having spontaneity (Bard, 2012).
There are other impacting factors on a person’s life from intoxicants, such as recovery time (Gemma, 2009). If a person goes out drinking late into Monday night, they will still be drunk late into Tuesday. When a 200 lb. (90.7 kg) individual consumes a beer (12 oz. / 5 %), a glass of wine (8 oz. / 12 %), or a shot (1 oz. / 40 %) their Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) increases by 0.02 bac (Bard, 2012). Bard further explains, irrespective of sex or weight; a person will sober up at a constant rate of 0.015 bac / hour. At this rate, a person having 5 beers and 4 shots at 2am (0.18 bac) would not reach 0.0 bac until 3:30pm the next day. This same person would be considered legally intoxicated until 9:30am on the next day (Bard, 2012).
Blood Alcohol Content vs Time (Figure 1).
Another challenge that responsible people face is communication channels breaking down. In order to be responsible and successful, one needs to keep these channels open. According to McKoewen, when communicating on a global scale we need to assume the conversations will be unreliable, and because of this one needs to build protocols to address these erroneous conditions (McKoewen, 2012). Ellis would agree to this point and that we need to “wake up to diversity (Ellis, 2011, pg. 271),” accepting our heterogeneous environments and come up with a solution for keeping the dialogues moving forward. While this can be easily seen on a global scale, the same scenario occurs even in a simple setting, such as two branch offices within the same company (Bell, 2004). It is only through finding common ground to converse (Ellis, 2011, pg.274), it then becomes possible to create win-win scenarios thus making it advantageous for both sides to keep channels open (Maddux, 2005).
In order to keep communication flowing, a responsible person must also be punctual. Ellis suggests that this can be mitigated through keeping an up-to-date calendar on hand. This process is called the “ABC’s of daily to-do (Ellis, 2011, pg. 71).” This process mandates that as appointments or tasks come in, the priority and length of the task need to be estimated so they can be scheduled on a calendar. Upon scheduling the tasks, it is important to include buffer time for context switching and moving to the next physical location (Tae-Young, 2012).
A person who is not healthy will be sick and miss many opportunities. One easy vector causing sickness is from intoxicants, as the effects can last long after. However even a healthy person cannot succeed unless they can communicate in the global world around them. Even if the communication protocol is known and understood, it will do no good if there is too much unexpected latency. To remove this problem a person needs to deliver on time and have reasonable time management.
Appendix
Figure 1. Blood Alcohol Content versus Time.
Statistics derived from Dr. Bard’s ADIS seminar, show the length of time required for a person drinking to reach sobriety. The y-axis is scaled at 100 * bac, the x-axis shows time between 1am and 6pm. Two additional reference lines of .08 and .04 bac have been added. These lines were selected as .08 is the federally mandated line to be legally intoxicated. .04 is considered a “strong social buzz” and is up to an officer’s discursion if the person is intoxicated.
References
Asfaw, A. (2011). Does Consumption of Processed Foods Explain Disparities in the Body
Weight of Individuals? The Case of Guatemala. Health Economics, February 2011, v.
20, issue. 2, pp. 184-95
This paper examines the impact of processed food on one’s diet. The author’s argument is presented from the perspective of the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
Bard, A. (2012). Alcohol and Drug Information Seminar [Course]. Associate Behavioral Health.
Bard is the founder and CEO of the most successful chain of substance abuse school in the Seattle area. He designed ADIS as a 8 week information series that is now mandated by all Seattle courts for any drug or alcohol charges.
Bell, D. (2004). Communicating across Cultures [Video file]. Retrieved from eCampus
Website: https://portal.phoenix.edu/medialibrary/videodetails.50V101227000125761.html
In this video Bell describes some of the hidden challenges associated with being a global company. He then gives examples he has encountered in his position as director of People Pearson. Solutions to these problems are identified in the context of management and human resources.
Cuyamaca University. (2000). Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
http://www.cuyamaca.edu/collegesuccess/PowerPoint3rdEd/12.Health.ppt.
These PowerPoint slides explore nutrition and other aspects of healthy living. The presentation is provided from the perspective of a college level health studies course.
Ellis, D. (2011). Becoming a Master Student (13th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth
In this book, Ellis provides many examples and best practices to common issues that students face. These problems are often the same ones that people encounter in life outside of school.
Eriksson, S. & Gard, G. (2011). Physical exercise and depression. Physical Therapy Reviews (PHYS THER REV), 2011 Aug; 16(4): 261-8.
In this article Eriksson and Gard examine the effects of exercise and correlate it back to mental stability. Their research provides a scientific study showing that exercise is essential for mental stability which in turn leads to a successful life.
Gemma, P. (2009). Alcohol hangover: a critical review of explanatory factors. Human
Psychopharmacology: Clinical & Experimental; Jun2009, Vol. 24 Issue 4, p259-267
In this article Gemma provides an explanation of the effects of alcohol and the human body. It goes into details such as the physical changes that occur and issues that arise from excessive drinking.
Maddux, R. (2005). Successful Negotiation: Effective “Win-Win” Strategies and Tactics. Crisp
Learning; Chapter 5.
In this chapter, Maddux explains the essentials of communication and conflict resolution. These examples and suggestions provide a useful roadmap to effective communication.
McKeown, N. (2012, October). Intro. To Computer Networking [Video]. Stanford University
Website: https://class.stanford.edu/networking/Fall2012
In this online course McKoewn examines the construction of the Internet. The communication model of the Internet draws many parallels to communicating amongst the diverse individuals on a global scale.
Tae-Young, C. (2012). Task Scheduling Algorithm to Reduce the Number of Processors using
Merge Conditions. International Journal on Computer Science & Engineering. Feb2012, Vol. 4 Issue 2, p255-266.
Tae-Young examines factors that reduce accurate scheduling of tasks. The paradigm of scheduling algorithms on processors maps closely to the scheduling problems encountered with a limited number of resources (ex: time).
OpenAuth.RequestAuthentication – NullReference Exception Explained Paper: Communicating Across Boundaries (Windows Internals/Driver Model)