Ever since I was little, I loved Winnie the Pooh. Though I adored all the residents of the 100 Acre Wood, I especially related to one character and from the smile on my face and my uncontrollable bouncing, you’d guess that I was Tigger or Piglet for my warm heart...and small stature- but you’d be wrong. My favorite character was Eeyore. I felt like we had a soul-to-soul connection, I too was the occasional Debbie Downer of the group, and had my own rain cloud that followed me around. We were completely alike - except for that tail. I have been called Eeyore by men, women, children, and domestic animals alike for my drooping eyes, pessimistic attitude, and self-thrown pity parties: where there is no cake, no balloons, only despair. And as much as we may hate to admit it - we are all a company of Eeyores - and we’re guilty of perpetuating negative attitudes and dramatizing in one way or another. So, I guess I am happy to be here today at our Mental Health awareness week assembly. Because our moping is more than just an attitude - our exaggerated apathy has become a part of our identities that we just can’t escape. Of course, some people do suffer some real clinical depression and that’s different, but for the rest of us, we need to learn how to get rid of this melodrama and start enjoying our lives like we were meant to. So, today we’re going to find out how to overcome our tendency to catastrophize, then we’ll look at how we tend to ignore the positives in our lives, and finally we’ll devise a plan of action so that we can easily manage our Eeyore syndrome. But before we can find out how to solve our misery, we must look at how we catastrophize. According to psychologist Chuck Falcon, those of us who engage in chronic negative tho... ... middle of paper ... ...le it may seem strange to focus on being happy for those of us who actually enjoy the dark and morose, we must allow ourselves to enjoy what life has to offer and just be happy. I know that this is not going to be something we can change overnight but in the end, adjusting our perspective will not only help us get through high school, but the rest of our rain cloud lives. We need to experience all that life has to offer us - the full spectrum of human emotions - downs, and ups! And don’t worry we can still be Eeyores, but we can also take good qualities from all the characters we love - we can be wise like Owl, kindhearted like Piglet and caring like Kanga. Just don’t be Tigger - well at least not all the time. And fellow students, please know that after Mental Health Awareness week ends, our rainclouds will not disappear. But we can all learn to enjoy the sunshine.
People push being happy on society as a total must in life; sadness is not an option. However, the research that has conducted to the study of happiness speaks otherwise. In this essay Sharon Begley's article "Happiness: Enough Already" critiques and analyzes societies need to be happy and the motivational affects it has on life. Begley believes that individuals do not always have to be happy, and being sad is okay and even good for us. She brings in the research of other professionals to build her claim that extreme constant happiness is not good for people. I strongly agree that we need to experience sadness to build motivation in life and character all around.
Depression has a major effect on a person life. The accumulation of hidden emotion could cause difficulty in life. The consequences could be irrational thinking, suffering in ceased emotion or lead to a total disaster. In “Horses of the night” by Margaret Laurence and “ Paul’s case” by Willa Cather, both authors introduce the concept of depression. Although both selections offer interesting differences, it is the similarities that are significant.
Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking and column writer for The Guardian, explores the human need to seek for happiness and its connection to the Museum of Failures in his article Happiness is a Glass Half Empty. Burkeman’s purpose to writing this essay is to give readers a new view on how to seek happiness – embrace negativity and expect the worst. Burkeman’s use of a friendly, almost informal tone to help relate to his readers is a brilliant attempt to catch his reader’s attention and hold it, therefore enabling the delivery of logic seem almost effortless.
It is the challenges we face that make it look dark and gloomy. The key to a productive existence is not the emotions we feel when presented with adversity, but in our ability to overcome, grow and evolve. In comparison, examine the Spoken Indian searching for hope in hardships, or the extraordinary taste and smell of the wine connoisseur who lacks sight. See the trial & errors or the young man growing to love both parents, and the college student whose heart is blistering with pain from the loss of his mother, but finds healing in his new home as an emerging scholar. We are all exploring methods to handle
While most people would agree that the situations adolescents have to deal with now are much more stressful and tempting than they have been in the past, not everyone knows how to deal with it. The stresses of families, friends, relationships, work, school, and extra-curricular activities leaves students with hardly any time to just relax and simply be a teenager. From all of the stress and lack of sleep, students’ emotional, spiritual, and physical health have begun to slowly deteriorate. While it is not always easy to minister to them, it is that much more important to reach out to the students who are hurting. They are crying out for help and love and attention but if it is not received, then the students are very likely to shut down emotionally from any adult advice or attention.
Sharon Begley, author of “Happiness: Enough Already,” proclaims that dejection is not an unacceptable state of mind and there are experts that endorses gloomy feelings. This reading explicates that even though every-one should be happy there is no need to ignore sadness, as both emotions share key parts in everyone’s life. Sharon Begley and her team of specialists provides the information on why sadness is supplemental to a person’s life.
The subtle symbolism of light and dark means more than the broad explanation of happy and sad: “…from within there appeared, in the first place, like
Everyone wants to be “happy.” Everyone endeavors to fulfill their desires for their own pleasure. What makes this ironic is, the fact that most don‘t know what the actual definition of happiness is. “In Pursuit of Unhappiness” presents an argument, which states that not everyone will be happy. Darrin McMahon, the article’s author, explores the ways our “relentless pursuit of personal pleasure”(McMahon P.11;S.3) can lead to empty aspirations and impractical expectations, making us sad, and not happy. Rather than working to find the happiness of others, we should all focus on finding what makes ourselves happy. It is easier to find happiness in the little things
We know that the mind clings to the negative — but research also shows us that 3 times more positive things happen to us than negative things every day. At any given time, a lot of things are going right in our lives. Either in our career or in our personal lives. It could be that you enjoy what you do at work, are grateful for the paycheck, or appreciate your organization’s values or benefits. It could be the joy you derive from your family, hobbies, sports, or community service. When we savor our experiences, we derive more pleasure and satisfaction from them. Spending time enjoying and feeling grateful for what is going right in your life will help you weather the rest. Caroline spent hours every week devoted to a community service activity from which she derived the joy and strength with which to face her other
the point where if someone is not happy 100 percent of the time, they are told to seek immediate help. But what is the point of having thousands of other emotionssadness, anger, and fearif a person is only supposed to feel one? Positive psychologists believe that instead of being sad or having neutral feelings, individuals should be happy. From another point of view, Susan David, author of “Don’t Worry Be Gloomy,” and Sharon Begley, author of “Happiness: Enough Already,” both agree that having “negative” emotions is not as defective as people portray them to be. Experiencing other emotions is just as important in life as happiness , and should not be shunned, because these emotions contribute to thinking clearly, encouraging perseverance, and, in the end, making people unintentionally happy.
Notwithstanding happiness has long presented a conflict for the complex human condition. This is because the ideas we have about happiness are inherently paradoxical. If pleasure is what ultimately what brings us happiness than we are ignoring a crucial fact; in life pain and suffering are inevitable. Life can be described as a series of highs and lows. We are constantly apprehended by uncontrollable forces of nature. Unfortunately we can’t dismiss the fact that our human experience is rife with things like natural disasters, illness, and death.
As it has been proven, students and depression across campuses are becoming more common daily, and it must be taken as a serious matter. There are many causes that result in depression, such as personal stress and academic stress. This severely influences a student’s life and can bring about extreme negative outcomes like suicide or eating disorders. Luckily, there are cures for this major issue. Counseling centers and mentors in the classroom and in residence halls can impact a student’s overall well-being and attitude towards his or her daily life. Depression, in conclusion, is an extremely dangerous mental illness that, if not cured with the correct treatments, could become detrimental to students across the globe.
Marano, Hara Estroff. “The Season of SADness?” Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC. Psychology Today, 1 July 2002. Web. 26 November 2011.
Mark G. The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness. New York : Guilford Publications, 2015. Print. In this source four qualified specialists describe how typical endeavors to "think" our way out of a terrible temperament or simply "push our feelings aside" lead us into chronic unhappiness. The author explains how being mindful, confronting and considering your most troublesome feelings and backgrounds, can assist you with breaking the cycle of chronic unhappiness. Part III of the text is titled, "Transforming Unhappiness." In this chapter the text provides the reader with tools on how to become a happier you. This source is potentially useful to my research topic because it is providing the reader with actual tools on how to cease chronic unhappiness. It can also be a guide for ones who are already happy to maintain their happy
When we are young children, we are introduced to the concept of "living happily ever after". This is a fairy-tale emotional state of absolute happiness, where nothing really happens, and nothing even seems to matter. It is a state of feeling good all the time. In fairy tales, this feeling is usually found in fulfilling marriages, royal castles, singing birds and laughing children. In real life, an even-keeled mood is more psychologically healthy than a mood in which you frequently achieve great heights of happiness. Furthermore, when you ask people what makes their lives worth living, they rarely mention their mood. They are more likely to talk about what they find meaningful, such as their work or relationships. Research suggests that if you focus too much on trying to feel good all the time, you’ll actually undermine your ability to ever feel good because no amount of feeling good will be satisfying to you. If feeling good all the time were the only requirement for happiness, then a person who uses cocaine every day would be extremely happy. In our endless struggle for more money, more love and more security, we have forgotten the most fundamental fact: happiness is not caused by possessions or social positions, and can in fact be experienced in any daily activity. We have made happiness a utopia: expensive, complicated, and unreachable.