Amanda’s my name, and I’m a Freshman at Purdue University in Indiana. At the beginning of my English 106 class, the students were asked to choose a topic that had meaning to us. Although difficult to decide at first, I ultimately chose to write about natural medicine. Natural medicine has definitely changed my life in more ways than one– it’s caused a shift in my personality and how open I am to new things, and it’s also made me more knowledgeable about the products and food I inspect, use, and ingest today.
How did this all start? Well, about two years I was out of a job, and through a couple connections, I was hired at a local, privately-owned health food store. I started my job as a major skeptic and non-believer in the products around me, and I was harsh and cynical in my opinions towards them. I didn’t feel right for the position I held, because I was selling products that I had no information or belief in. However, I’ve learned so much about health, natural medicine, and alternative therapies from my job and the research I’ve done this semester.
There have been several small examples when I’ve looked at something in the stores, and I’ve realized, “Ah, I know what that is! I just learned this the other day!” or my relatives have asked me about particular products or recommendations and I’ve actually retained some basic knowledge to give them. However, the biggest example when I’ve realized that I’ve obtained so much influential knowledge occurred at Disney World during the early summer of 2008. A mother-daughter trip consisting of my aunts and cousins, we took one day to explore the Epcot theme park. We went on an attraction called “Living with the Land”, which is a short, 14-minute boat ride that explores agricultural advances in the rain forest, Africa, and beyond. We passed artificially-made landscapes of deserts and rain forests and observed all the plants growing on vines, the ground, and down from the ceiling. I recognized almost all of the plants by name or by appearance, and I was bumbling in amazement to my bored cousin sitting next to me about each one I saw. Ultimately, this particular attraction is not for enjoyment, and the average child or teenager would find it absolutely boring. I’m sure that if I didn’t have the knowledge I had then, I would’ve found it boring, too.
Although I have all this knowledge and a better open mind towards new experiences and products, that doesn’t mean that I completely believe in natural medicine. I do believe that there’s a bridge between natural and conventional medicine that can be used effectively and evenly to help people. In fact, much of my counter-argument against natural medicine is similar to how I used to feel towards natural medicine. I still harbor a couple a negative opinions about some alternative therapies, and that’s probably where many of my arguments against natural medicine come from (check the “Learn About This Blog” page, if you haven’t). However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have any faith in natural medicine.
For the record, I’m not a doctor or health care professional– I’m a student that works at a health food/supplement store. I’m not trying to offend, attack, diagnose, or cure anybody reading this blog. It’s for information and room for friendly counter-arguing.
