1. When I first read the piece I was kind of confused by the fish story but as I read I started to understand it. His first main point is that we need to understand where someone’s point of view is coming from when we disagree with someone about something. Wallace mentions that people “never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from”(Wallace 3). When we disagree we usually don’t bother to understand the other person’s point of view but he is saying that it is okay to think someone is wrong. But if we don’t know why the person has that point of view we can’t be certain the person is right or wrong. The second point is that we need to be aware of our uncertainties and ourselves. A large amount of what we think we are certain of may be wrong but we don’t realize it and become arrogant(Wallace 3). People are not going to be right all the time and sometimes we don’t realize that. The final point is that you can choose how you think of a situation. You can think of the situation as something that is creating a problem for you or you can think of it as getting in the way of someone else more than you. Wallace uses the example of traffic. He says that “in this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in the past” and have a “huge heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive”(Wallace 6). He is emphasizing that we are not the center of the universe so we need to realize that there are people struggling worse than us. 
2. I agree because I too believe that people often get caught up in their frustrations and not consider that other people may be going through a harder time than themselves. I see all the time people getting frustrated over food taking too long or upset about standing in line somewhere. I too have felt that way too, so I think it is a valid point.
3.  He talks about how we need to consider how other people are feeling before we begin to complain about the problems we are having. I don’t think that is empathy. I consider empathy to be feeling what others are feeling. He does not really talk about feeling what others are feeling, but rather considering how others are feeling in a situation other than yourself.  
4. I had a strong response to the quote “we rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth”(Wallace 3). I agree with this. I have never actually thought about how we are so naturally self-centered because it is so normal for us to feel like we are the most important thing in the world. I don’t think we think about what other people are dealing with very much because we think we have it the worst and that makes us the most important.