(1) The topic that I picked for my multi-media project is resilience. Resilience, by definition, means that one is able to rise up in the face of adversity by using safe coping methods to result in a

(1)
The topic that I picked for my multi-media project is resilience. Resilience, by definition, means that one is able to rise up in the face of adversity by using safe coping methods to result in a positive outcome. Resilience is very interesting because it doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing to every person, it is circumstantial and relies heavily on the influence of our culture and environment.
I want to begin by discussing the movie that I chose for the topic of resilience. It is one of my all-time favorite movies, titled “The Pursuit of Happyness” starring Will Smith. This movie follows Smith, in this movie, as Chris Gardner, and his son Christopher, as Gardner struggles to make it financially in San Fransisco. The movie starts out on a low point, with Gardner becoming a single father because his wife left him to go to New York after he failed to make enough money selling his bone density scanners. This puts Gardner in an even more difficult position, and he decides to make the decision to rise up against the adversity and pain of his wife leaving him and being unemployed by gaining an internship position at a large broker’s office and working to stand out to acquire a more permanent and paid position there. The movie follows Gardner and his struggles to rise up to the face of this challenge and ultimately ends in him gaining employment at this business. Gardner set a goal and believed in himself in order to gain his employment at the broker’s office. He realized his own strength and had support from his son that carried him through to be resilient enough to succeed despite being extremely poor off at the start of the movie. Despite all of the challenges that were thrown Gardner’s way, and the extremely rough road that he had to navigate to get there, he was able to end the movie in a positive manner, showing resilience.
The news article that I chose for my topic of resilience is a bit of a personal topic. This news article is actually about someone I know. The news article I have chosen is about speed skater Erin Jackson. I know Jackson personally because I am an inline speed skater myself. Jackson has been a member of the USA World Team for inline speed skating but switched to ice speed skating in late 2017. Jackson then went on to compete in the U.S Olympic Team trials and secured her spot as the first African American member of the U.S long-track speed skating team (Shear, 2018). The reason I feel that this shows resilience is because of the fact she started training on ice just four months before the Olympic trials. While the sports are generally thought to be similar, the transition stage I know from first-hand experience to be incredibly difficult. Not only did Jackson have very little practice, but she was also fighting off a recurring injury in her back, as she has noted periodically on her social media pages. I believe that this shows resilience because despite there never being someone that has done what she did before, she believed in herself and set a goal to participate in the trials and she made history.
The tv show that I have chosen for my topic of resilience is Atypical, as seen on Netflix. In the show Atypical, the main character is Sam, a teenage boy that has autism spectrum disorder. There are many reasons why I have chosen this show to be my example of resilience. Sam struggles to maintain his relationships with girlfriends, friends, and his therapist because of his “atypical” behavior and language, but he never lets his setbacks get in the way of living his life. Sam is an extremely motivated, funny, caring individual who faces the challenges of the everyday life of someone diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder, such as bullying. Sam also points out that it is less likely for someone who has autism spectrum disorder to graduate college, but yet he takes it upon himself not only to go to college but to live in the dorms, away from his parents. These choices that Sam makes despite his struggles with autism trying to fit in as “atypical” make him resilient because, despite his fears, he has chosen to believe in himself and overcome what others say that he cannot do. In fact, Sam’s dad actually describes Sam as resilient, and Sam completes his sentence to compare himself and his resilience to the likes of a cockroach, which is fairly indestructible. Sam’s ability to overcome the people who say he can’t accomplish things simply because he is autistic is inspiring, and to me, a great example of resilience.
Finally, the book that I have chosen for my topic of resilience is The Fault in Our Stars, by author John Green. This is a novel following a seventeen-year-old girl with cancer by the name of Hazel Grace. Having cancer is an extremely negative circumstance, as we all can agree. Hazel shows resilience throughout the book in many different ways. First, at the beginning of the book, Hazel chooses to go to a cancer support group meeting, partially to make her mother happy, but also because she knows it’s important to have support in order for her to make a strong recovery. It is in this cancer support group that she meets Augustus, a boy who has also had cancer and falls in love with him. The two bond over their favorite book author, who lives in Amsterdam. Hazel suffers from a severe episode in which her lungs fill with fluid and she is sent to the ICU. She makes an amazing recovery, and despite her doctors and family telling her that she is not ready, Hazel decides to live as if she does not have cancer and travel to Amsterdam to meet this author. This shows a great deal of resilience to fight cancer and shows both incredible mental and physical strength to take such a daunting trip with such a serious illness. Hazel also shows emotional and mental resilience in the book when Augustus is met with the reality that his cancer has come back, and it is fatal this time. Not only does Hazel have to cope with her own cancer, but she also has to cope with the loss of a loved one on top of this. It is for this reason that I believe Hazel to be incredibly resilient. She could have chosen to live her life in fear and let cancer dictate her every move, but she chose to live and love and I believe that displays a special kind of resilience.
For my individual media assignment, I chose to write about Altruism. Altruism is loosely defined as doing something for someone that benefits that person. There are three types of altruism that include Reciprocity-based altruism, Care-based altruism, and kin-based altruism. Reciprocity-based altruism is basically helping someone in hopes that they would return the favor if needed. Care-based altruism is where you are helping someone because you have empathy for that person. Kin-based altruism is closely related to care-based altruism, except its relationship is with family members. There are two driving motives for this behavior. The Egotism-Motive is doing a good deed for someone in hopes of some sort of personal gain. Researchers for many years have said egotism “fuels altruistic behavior” because we benefit from caring for others. (Lopez, Pedrotti, & Snyder, 2019) It makes us feel good. The other driving force behind this behavior is empathy. Matching the emotions of others makes us feel for them and in turn, we want to do things to make them feel better and to better their well-being.
For my first media assignment, the TV show that I selected was My name is Earl. In this TV series, Earl Hickey is a no-good thief that wins the lotto. After he wins the lotto he is hit by a car and loses his lottery ticket. While he is in the hospital, he learns about Karma after watching a television talk show. He wants to be happy and so he decides to live his life by Karma so he sets out to right all the wrongs that he has ever done. This is the classic example of the Egotism-Motive. He makes a list of all the wrongs that he ever did and sets out to make them right and sometimes bad things end up happening to Earl in the process. In one episode, he attends the trial of Joy. This is her 3rd strike and as a character witness and her friend, he doesn’t want her to go to prison so he falsely confesses to her crimes and ends up getting sentenced to 2 years in prison. That was an example of the empathy motive. Not only does he do things so good things will come to him, but he also starts doing things for others without thinking of himself first.
For the movies, I chose Finding Nemo. This is a movie that we are all too familiar with. Marlin is a clownfish whose son Nemo is swept away by divers. He ultimately goes on a quest to find him. He is joined by Dory, a Blue Tang fish with short-term memory loss. Dory is absent-minded, and but is a true definition of being altruistic. She sets out to help Marlin and although She does not know Marlin or his son, she jumped right in to help. They faced many dangers together, but she stuck by his side. There was nothing in it for her.
The news article that I chose to write about came from the Today Show. They were running a segment from The Sprout Network that was having a Kindest Kid Contest. One of the entries was a 5-year-old boy named Tavin. Tavin was from Arkansas and lived in a neighborhood where a tornado had come through and caused major destruction. As he saw what had happened around him, instead of going on about his life and not giving much thought to others, he took $100.00 from his own savings account and gave it to some of the survivors. This boy melted my heart. If only we as adults could see kindness and compassion through a child’s eyes. His altruistic behavior is empathy-motivated as he was not expecting anything in return. He also worked on a coat and blanket drive. (Kim, 2014)
The Book that I chose for this assignment is called “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. In this book, there is a little boy that grows up doing many things with the tree. As the boy ages, he spends more time away from the tree, and every time he comes back to visit, he is sad and wanting more out of life. Every time he comes near, the tree gets happy and still offers him more. He offers him apples to take back to the city, tells him to use the branches to make the man’s home, and offers the trunk to make a canoe. The tree just keeps giving and giving to the now elderly man until it has nothing left to give. At the very end, the man is old and all he wants to do is sit somewhere and the tree offers up the remaining trunk to use as a spot for him to sit and rest. Barns and Noble (Collins, 2014) described this as unchecked altruism and I could not agree more. The tree never tells the man that he has given too much, and he is always happy to help him in his time of need. What a pure and simple way to teach our children about helping behavior at such an early age. Children are sponges and they soak up what we teach them.
IN 4-5 LINES, RESPOND TO THIS TWO DISCUSSION BOARD