#8

Every week, after I turn in my journal I realize that I forgot to talk about several things in my journal. So I am going to try my hardest to make sure I do not forget any of my journal thoughts in this one by keeping a running note that I started on Tuesday in class. Procrastination has deeply set in, these journals were once upon a time being written over the course of the week, but I realize that my thoughts flow better when I do it all at one time and I’m spending less time just staring at the screen and more time actually typing. I don’t know if it is because my brain knows we have no choice anymore except to write the journal or what but it works. In this week’s reading, The Education of Cyrus was interesting because it is structured differently than the few other ancient texts I have read. With them explaining the way the boys in Persia were educated by separating it by level and activities that they partake in was a nice way to structure it and set it up to talk about Cyrus himself so we have a better understanding of why he turned out the way he did. Especially with how they showed how he excelled in all levels of school. Way different than the underdog approach that a lot of writers have used. I understand that this story is a romanticized version of the ruler that was greatly adored across his empire as well as across the world for many centuries. Even if this is a hyperbolic story, it still shows how amazing he was as a leader if people are out here making up stories where he supersedes all expectations and shows how highly he was regarded. He must’ve been the bee’s knees because no one is writing about a ruler that was booboo or even just average. Cyrus was still with his faults though, or faults could be seen in his leadership depending on how you look at it. An example would be the situation we talked about in class with the little boys and the jacket and how he wouldn’t let him have what he wanted, but that goes into how you look at people’s personal agencies. A lot of what we talk about goes along with what we’re talking about in my ethics class and I love witnessing how the information can be applied to situations outside of the class itself. I cannot find the section in the story where the jacket situation happened to make comments directly pertaining to that but to go off of that situation and think about the personal agency that each person is owed or situations, where someone should have agency over someone, are parents with children, doctors with a patient, teachers with students to name a few. Even these situations though have a limit to how much control someone should have over another person’s life. I think at certain points in a child’s life there are times when parents should have full agency because they literally cannot make any choices for themselves and as the child gets older showing they have the range to be able to make different personal decisions the parents relinquish more of that agency over to the child. The things that a parent controls for the longest of the child’s life I would say should maybe be the things, within reason, that fall into the Basic Necessities categories on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Doctors w/ patients and Teachers w/ students would be way different than parents and their child with how much agency one has over the other because the situations are way different and have a more specific reason for their relationship if that makes sense.

From a young age, Cyrus displayed signs of leadership even in his smallest gestures. An example would be with how he would always include the people around him like when his grandfather took them out to hunt, or how he makes sure everyone is taking care of like when he was giving all of his grandfather’s servants pieces of food because he didn’t want them and showed gratitude for them while doing so. Except for Saca, he had beef with Saca. He would always place himself as an equal among his comrades instead of as someone better or higher than them like him purposefully playing games with them he knew he was equal or lesser at in skill than them. These were later shown in more grand gestures with how he led his grandfathers nation to a victory or when his uncle asked for his assistance and he was able to rally an army and speak motivating words into them. He would always take care of others and people naturally loved him for it. Are the qualities we look for in a leader the same or similar to those that of which we look for in a significant other. This thought came to my mind after Artabazuz was wanted to kiss Cyrus badly. Then thinking about the qualities that we talked about that a leader must have and then physical characteristics of what people look for in a leader and like dominant, attractive, competent, and trustworthy all sound like characteristics someone looks for in a significant other, but my next thought is maybe we just look for the same things in a person no matter the situation. I don’t know though because I’m not really looking for some of those qualities in a friend, because they aren’t really important in that instance to me. Another thought that arose from Artabazuz is how open they are in the ancient world with their feelings and thoughts and how someone expressing their feelings whether happy, sad, subdued, or expressed loudly it is never seen as being out of place and is usually embraced. Not necessarily positively but they are acknowledged and typically responded to compared to how we are very private about our feelings and anything that’s a deviation from happy or neutral is looked at as out of place in a lot of situations, from professional to casual. We are very repressed emotionally. Another thing we talked about in class that greatly juxtaposes between our two societies is how we view people asking for/wanting recognition for the things that they do. In Ethics these past few weeks, we have been talking about Utilitarianism v. Deontology and how you look at people wanting recognition for something they have done depends on which view you more closely agree with. I personally think someone wanting recognition for something they have done sometimes isn’t a bad thing as long as their main purpose for doing something was not to do it to gain recognition, but I can understand why someone would take a more deontological approach with it and say the reason why they are doing an action is more important than the outcome of the action, but is wanting necessarily a bad thing?

The advice of trying to be like a Physician, Guide, or Sea Captain like in your leadership was sound advice Cyrus was given. We literally put all of our trust into these people. They have our lives in their hands! And if you can be trusted as much as them then that is a major accomplishment. Someone in my life that I can say has shown the most leadership in their life is my mother. She has been raising kids since she was a little baby at 19. She always tells me how having us changed the whole course of her life in a good way, but she has faced many challenges in her course of motherhood that have tested her strength and will but she has always persevered. Our whole lives she has always put our needs before hers and made sure we were taken care of first and foremost. Growing up in a two parent household with my uncle she would always try to make sure we were surrounded by the same amount of love and care that she had growing up and I believe these skills of survival, nurturing, and whatever else can be translated into many different circumstances.

Throughout the story, we saw how Cyrus was always looking out for others and making sure that they were taken care of, but we never really saw a moment in the book where he had to put himself first and the talk he had with his father seemed like the final infinity stone that was necessary for his leadership development to me. He seemed to be perfect in every other way physically and mentally but protecting his own behind was never really something he had to worry about because growing up he always had someone watching his back. If it was not for his grandfather, it was his uncle or someone that worked for his grandfather. He was also used to people around him just being reliable since he always did right by others, others would naturally do right by him so it was never a concern of his. So, when he was coming close to actually being in a leadership role it was important for him to understand that there are snakes in the grass sometimes and he can’t assume that everyone has the best intentions for him because trusting others too much could be the cause of his own demise, but this to me is also a very important part of leadership because if you are not taking care of and being a good leader to yourself then it could be very hard to do the same for others because good practices start at home.