Influence: Bad Is Stronger Than Good?

Every individual has an inner drive to succeed over some challenge in their life. Individuals can experience motivation in different ways, whether it is from a good or bad situation. Even though good influences do have an impact on our lives, motivation is found to have a stronger impact from negative experiences. Negative people, especially, can have a huge influence on our lives, but this negativity can be turned into something useful and good. It is this motivation that keeps us striving to achieve our goal and which also promotes our nature of self-confidence and self-efficacy. A strong confidence and self-efficacy inspires an individual to take action and partake in change. These experiences enable us to self-evaluate ourselves and help us realize that each of us are able to live a happy and better life. In the two different mediums, “A Story of an Hour,” a short story by Kate Chopin and The Awakening Conscience, a painting by William Holman Hunt, show that the same person that can be the source of one’s downfall can also be the same person who is the inspiration for one’s redemption or awakening.

Bad is Stronger than Good

In the article by Anna Dixon motivation is defined as “the psychological forces or energies that impel a person towards a specific goal.” Motivation occurs because of many different sources, which have different effects on individuals. However, Katheleen D. Vohs suggests that bad influences have a stronger effect on our motivation than the good ones. This is not to say that good cannot overcome bad, but when bad and good are at equal measures than the bad seems to override the good in our lives. For example, when one experiences plenty of good things in his or her life than the bad things are irrelev...

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...an be turned into positive reinforcements and motivations. transition here to conclusion→ Experiences shape our lives; the good and bad, have altered our outlook on life and our future. Experiences that we encounter influence our thinking, perceptions, ideas, and beliefs and how we react to our experiences shape our lives. Problems are inevitable and hard to avoid, but it is our ability to turn bad situation into something inspirational and good in our lives that says a lot about our character. Instead of focusing on the problems in our lives, we should focus on the opportunities given to us to learn from the experiences. Change will only happen in our lives when we have a change of attitude towards the negative situations in our life. The ability to turn a bad influence or situation into something positive opens up new behaviors and the chance for happiness.