Overview Writing Prompt Similar to Product Review

Emani Booker

Introduction into Psychology

Professor Dailey

CRN Number: 40254

4 May 2023

The Butterfly Effect: A Small Incision Could Impact the Future for the Lives of Many.

Billions of people across the globe, from different ethnic backgrounds, gender, and race, all inherit similarities relative to the functioning of the brain and how it responds to stress. The average person usually does not spend time counting individual thoughts that arise in the mind, and quite frankly, does not plan to attempt. A blog from Northwestern Medicine states that “a piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and one-billion synapses. (“Northwestern Medicine”)” Bearing this information into a compartment within the mind, it serves well to keep note of the amount of stress we consume daily. Without constant maintenance and finding ways to manage these stressful situations, the turmoil of emotional energies could lead to chronic illness and disease of the mind. What can be done to eliminate stress completely from our daily lives and what efforts must be made to stay sane indefinitely? Unfortunately, the answer to this issue is that we can only mitigate stress factors and perfect the response to these ideal situations. The Butterfly Effect gives a fictional perspective about life choices: what if we could alter our decisions made through childhood memories to counteract the consequences we face currently? What changes would you make in your childhood if you had the opportunity to time travel knowing an intricate decision could obliterate many of the issues faced today? The Butterfly Effect movie exemplifies the action of keeping sanity in one way but only to make life outcomes unpredictably worse in another fashion. As the wise would say, “Let the past be the past and live in the present moment.” The presence is where I choose to devote my time and energy after accepting and living with the decisions I have made. The greatest decisions are made being fully emerged in the presence and not influenced by outside forces or past experiences. This would be the best relevant definition of sanity.

    Knowing how well the brain functions and the power it harnesses innately is encouraging to always keep my mind in good health and abstinent from harmful substances such as tobacco and cancerous consumables. I often reflect on the amount of damage I have done to my brain being young and close to insanity, but also, must gratuitously acknowledge the level of my mind’s functionable memory after the damage. The character, Evan, struggles to recall certain memories as he must revert to a journal he wrote while in his adolescent years. Difficulties arise when performing specific tasks, especially due to his black-out condition which occurs from being overly stressed. He has a flashbulb memory limiting his ability to remember details from his past, but quickly resolves the memory block through reading his journal. Knowing that life happens and we can only mitigate certain stressors, it is worthy to evaluate the minor causes of issues that weigh heavily on our emotions. As Evan was able to recall a memory with the help of other previous experiences, we must ask ourselves, what memories are we holding on to that cause turmoil or remorse? To achieve the goals of living closer to a stress-free life, implicit memory (being able to remember an event from past encounters) must be taken into consideration especially when making complex life decisions.

How important and relevant is the statement, “birds of the same feather flock together” in relation to the influential capabilities an environment has on an individual? Life itself presents many challenges and the environments we live and thrive in also play a role in how well we respond to stress. In the movie, Evan strays from the shy, hard-working youngster to a complete  jockey fraternity member as he ages into adulthood.  The neighborhood environment he is nurtured in is very different from college and as a result, experiences those traumatic events from the minor stimuli of his childhood while under the influence of the fraternity. The shaping and molding of our morals, belief systems, and personalities can stem from the environment of our upbringing and the people who are the most impressionable to us in the early stages of development. Therefore, it is imperative to be around like-minded individuals eager to see themselves establishing their own legacies and for our own comfort of receiving constant empowerment towards a sound mind and lifestyle. Successful people manage to surround themselves with a network of individuals dedicated to one specific task which is the principle behind embodying hard work and contribution to helping one another advance whether it is of spiritual, intellectual, or of motivational essence.

There are countless individual lessons that can be extracted from the Butterfly Effect movie, but one lesson in particular is most important: Be solidified in the present moment knowing that mistakes made in life constitute growth in learning and cannot be avoided. Such remorseful actions result in the wallowing of though patterns related to self-pity, denial, and unworthiness. In relation to psychology and biopsychology, the key aspects of the bonds established in different relationships give insight into the genetic build and make-up of an individual. For example, Evan’s father had similar issues with traveling in time to previous situations in his life for perfection of the future which was consequently passed down to his son. Fortunate for Evan, he was able to comprehend the challenges his father faced because of his own experiences, but in true reality, many of the individuals born and raised in crime induced environments, those who are forced to behave and carry themselves in a certain manner, and individuals who may never see outside of prison gates must all deal with the consequences of their actions despite of genetics. Education of the traits passed down from previous generations would be of little justification for outrageous behavior such as time traveling back to one’s childhood, but in all, we must hold ourselves accountable for our own sanity and the behaviors we inherit from being in multiple environments. It is accepted to be just an individual in society excluding the many behaviors, attitudes, and belief systems of the masses for one’s peace of mind.