A topic I could speak every second about, my friends can confirm, is “childhood“. So to give you a clue why I love this topic, I’m generally aware of the importance of childhood. It is the base of your character and your personality. You will probably always have a special connection to the people you grew up with. Your parents, a good friend or other family member. In your childhood, you gain your first experiences and your main memories build up. In some cases your childhood shows the direction your life will take, you find out which hobby’s you like the most and your character traits show. Well I guess we all can agree that we aren’t fix individual personalities after our childhood, we find out other things we like or where we are passionate about. It can also happen that we are completely different to our younger selves, which is totally important and ok in my opinion. When I went to preschool and to kindergarten I was a very active child. My plan all day was to play soccer and be outside with my friends. I also loved to do things with my parents and my family. For example, play board games or go on trips. I did my homework and my tasks on time and straight. I was happy about who I was and what I made in my freetime. This life spirit kind of changed when I came into High School. High school starts with the 5th class in Germany so I was 10-11 years old. I didn’t want to do all this annoying school stuff and a voice in my head told me, I won’t need it later in my life so just relax in school and come home and enjoy your life. Well that is an attractive offer for a young boy, who got his PS4 a year before on Christmas. So my grades became worse. In the 5th class my grades were pretty much the same as before, but one year later my grades dropped. That wasn’t the only big change, I also didn’t have the energy to do sports in my free time anymore. Usually I spent half the day on the soccer pitch. So I wasn’t as sportive as a year ago. At that time I recognized that my parents were disappointed in me and I didn’t liked the atmosphere at home at all. Yes, that escalated quickly, you may think, but I knew I wanted to change something and today I know even to recognize it, is often the hardest part of it. I asked myself if this is the Konstantin I know and when one of my best friends, who I have known since I‘m three years old, told me what is going on with you, you are not yourself. I kind of had the urge to change again. It gave me confidence that my friends and my family actually knew differently from me. I decided to look back and started to act like the old Konstantin, because I knew I wanted to be different than at the moment. And it worked, nowadays it is just a bad short period of my life and I‘m happy with myself. My grades are good, I do much more with my family and one of the main things in my life is to be sportive and healthy. It even went so far that I stopped eating candies and I specifically tried to do more Sport and to take every opportunity to work on. To think back to my childhood, also helps me when I realize that I use my phone too much. My inner voice pops up and asks for the actual reason, why I’m on Insta and not outside with friends. So my advice for you is, that your older self can help you to change when you don’t feel good about your current situation. A few friends of mine disagreed with me, because for them you always have to improve, always the next step and in their opinion it‘s bad to keep behaviors.
However, I guess everyone has their own truth, mine is to have a good mix of experiences from the past and the curiosity about the future. Konstantin B
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When I think about traveling the first thing that comes to my mind are the family vacations in Europe my family does every year as long as I can remember. I associate summer with going to Italy or France, Winter with skiing in Austria or Switzerland and Fall with staying at the German coast. But what does traveling really mean to me? What does traveling mean to all of us? Nowadays I think traveling is often seen as something „Insta worthy“, it didn’t happen if it isn’t uploaded on Instagram. And of course I do this too. I do post my travel pictures for my friends to see and I love to look at their’s but I still feel like sometimes we should take a step back and think about why we are actually traveling and what benefits it brings to ourselves. We are not traveling for anyone else right? Traveling actually affects our mental health in a very positive way as explained in this article (insert link here). By breaking out of our routine our brains get to rest but not too much. They are still challenged by all the new impressions, food, music etc. we see everyday when we are in a different country or even just in a different city. Our brains get challenged in a good way and at the same time we are getting some rest. While traveling we can learn a lot about different cultures. My family went to Italy during summer when I was about eight years old and I remember having to go into literally every museum, church or monument. At that young age my parents often had to win me and my sister over with some ice cream to get us into the next attraction or on the next walk through the old cities. But I also remember that we started talking about the artists and the buildings I saw that year a couple years later in school. And I remembered a lot more about it than I expected. The older I got the more interested in other cultures I got and I was looking forward more and more to our family vacations and not only because of the ice cream, but because of all the different impressions I got and all the new things I tried and saw. It was pure excitement and it still is. Whenever we travel to a new place we get to experience so many new things. And not just that, we can also get to know new people, maybe even find new friends. And that’s, in my view, the best part about traveling. Traveling must not always be expensive. I feel like when you’re traveling on a budget, your experiences can sometimes even be better. My cousin made an Interrail Trip through Europe this summer, he stayed in cheap hostels, spend a lot of time in trains and even had a rat in his room in Paris, but when he came back at the end of summer, he told everyone that it had been the best trip of his life. He travelled with two of his friends, but they got to know many new people, they are still in touch with. I had a similar experience a few months ago. I travelled to the German coast and stayed in a really tiny village with five of my friends and even though the time we spend in multiple trains and busses nearly felt as long as the time we actually stayed at the little house and there was literally nothing going on in the village the whole weekend, it was one of the best vacations of my life. I had so much fun with my friends, we talked to the local people, walked along the beach and just had a great time breaking out of our routines. The relaxed and happy feeling most people develop while traveling can last up to five weeks after returning from your holidays. So I can only encourage everyone to go and see the world. Or even just your own country. Sometimes it only takes a two hour car ride to spend and amazing time with your friends or to make new friends. There is so much to see in the world, so much to experience and I don’t want to miss out on any of this. I am really thankful for everything I have already seen in the world and I am exited to see so much more.
Lina K For more on this subject: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/how-travel-affects-mental-health Everyone has something they are passionate about. For me it's a sport but for some it might be a creative activity or something social. My passion is field hockey. It is a very intense teamsport with a lot of different methods to handle the ball and techniques to play toward the goal. Even though there are lots of different personalities in a team, in the end everyone has to work together and support each other. The small, hard ball makes the game, together with the stick, very fast. That makes it not only a physical sport but also challenging for your mind. I grew up always playing in the same team with the same people over the years. Since I am in Canada the sport gave me many opportunities to get to know new people and feel welcome. That is something for which you always will get the opportunity if you do a sport, especially a teamsport. It will help you everywhere in your life when you are new there. How does my sport help me in my daily life and for the future? It takes a lot of discipline to manage practice, school, friends, family and not completely lose your feeling of time. Without the passion it wouldn't be that easy to concentrate on all of that but if you really want to reach your goals, you will do everything to reach them. Sometimes it is hard to get back from practice at 10pm and then still having to do homework and having to go to school the next day with just a little sleep. But when the weekend comes and I have a game and the adrenaline kick comes shortly before it, I realize again how much I love what I do and that every single second of exhaustion is worth it. It is an amazing feeling that is impossible to describe. In every situation in my life where it's not that easy in the beginning it helps me to stay strong, to not give up. It will be worth the hard work and to fight for my goals. There are always opportunities to challenge yourself more and never stop learning, for example to have the goal to play for the national team one day. Why is the aspect that it's a teamsport improving my growth even more? Teamsport means that you do your sport together, with other people. It means fixed practice times so being on time and if you are late or miss something not only do you have disadvantages but also your teammates. That's something that also helps me in my life because I always have in my mind, not to be late. During the games and during practices you learn to communicate with your teammates, which helps a lot to communicate to people in moments of performance where you normally would just do what you are 100% comfortable with, instead of thinking about all the things you learned.If you are in a game in a specific situation keeping a cool mind and really thinking through what you want to do that's a great success. Also, if I am in a game and short before making a pass, I have to see the free space in the crowd of people and decide between possabilities very fast on which one is the best. So if a situation in my life happens where I have to pick out of many opportunities, it's sometimes easier to decide on the right one based on my way of thinking through field hockey. What are some difficulties and challenges?
I am a very ambitious person who loves challenges in any kind of way. Sometimes it was a bit hard because not everyone in my team was so ambitious than me. That's why it would probably be way easier for me to do an individual sport where I am independent of what others want. Anyways I found my way to handle it through taking responsibility. At my team in Germany I am the captain which gives me the responsibility to motivate not only myself but also the other ones which definitely made me grow as a leader. SInce last year I also started to coach little kids, as it gave me the opportunity to teach other people my passion. In the beginning it was not so easy to explain things you know nearly your whole life. Especially to someone who has never heard of it before, but with time I found my way on how to do it. But in the end all those difficulties and challenges helped me improve my resilience in many ways. Slowly I am beginning to understand the quote my grandma always told me: your body is connected to your mind and your soul and they work the best together. Even though I love doing all those things, there are a lot of people who can't stay under this pressure of performing and end up to stop doing their sport. I think that they still will take their experience with them.So if you have never done a teamsport in your life before, I highly recommend it to you. You will get a new experience and growth in your mind out of it which definitely will also make you a better leader and help you with your personal development. Paula H Patience is probably one of the things I lack the most which is one of the very important traits that a leader should have. I believe that being the eldest child has made me the way I am. Being the eldest sibling comes with a lot of pros and cons, and has also been a huge reason for my short temper and lack of patience. I think my upbringing and home life have been a great factor in why I don't have much of it. I have grown up as the eldest sibling. Being the eldest gives you a lot of responsibility, but also a lot of freedom that my younger siblings do not have. Parenting my younger siblings, and just living with them in general, has affected my patience. Let's be honest, what older sibling has patience for their younger brother or sister? Not very many, but I know that I certainly do not. I try to work on being more patient every day, knowing that it's something I have to work on. To be a good leader you need to have patience, it's a must. I know that patience is something I have to work on based on how I react to certain situations. I notice that I tend to snap at my younger siblings when they upset me over something small and unimportant. Such as asking me to help them with a simple task or taking my things without asking me in advance. I need to change those habits because they can get me into trouble a lot of the time, which is something I obviously don't want, but is sometimes deserved based on my response. Those are just a couple of examples of many times that I will over react instead of responding in a patient and orderly manner. I hope to one day become a more patient person. I hope to learn to not over react as much as I do now. My grandpa is probably the most patient person I have ever met so I can try to learn from the best. He is a very selfless person and is always doing things for other people, no matter what. I will continue to look up to him in hopes of being as patient as he is one day. He is a gem. I have always been told to be patient and to wait for things, and hearing those words always made me feel more impatient. I would sit and tell myself to just be patient, but I then realized sitting there and thinking about it made me feel worse and more stressed out. I think this happened because I would be so incredibly focused on trying to be patient that it just started to upset me. Some things I have been trying to do to improve my patience is to not hyper fixate on things, I'm trying to “patiently” wait for. I also try my best to think before I speak, which prevents me from snapping or getting easily triggered by small things. Becoming a more patient person is definitely a difficult task but has gotten easier considering I have been more aware of it. If you can relate to having a difficult time being patient try not to focus so much on things and just let it happen naturally. I have realized over time that good things come from being patient. Yes it does sound a little cliché, but it's true.
Amelia H Public speaking comes naturally to some people, but for others it can be extremely hard. It can be scary when you're in front of lots of people, especially if you dont know them well or at all and are expected to talk. It’s really common to have a fear of speaking in public which is mostly caused by anxiety, and worrying about what others think of you. When you start to feel anxious your body goes into the fight or flight response which can stop you from performing confidently and comfortably. For some people it goes deeper than that when they can even start to develop a fear of fear, where they are worrying about how their anxiety may affect their speaking. I've found talking in front of people hard for a long time. Since elementary school my report cards have all said Quinn needs to speak up more in class. I’ve tried working on it in a number of ways but the thing that helped me the most was acting classes. Acting was something that I never really thought about and was definitely out of my comfort zone. I tried it out last year to challenge myself to do something new and I was really nervous at first. But it was a group of people who were all there to learn something new and it felt safe. I kinda just had to get over my nervousness about it because we had to speak on camera, and pretend to be someone else every week. Overtime I got more comfortable talking in front of people and it was a lot easier to speak to people after that because I just had to be myself. There are many ways to improve your speaking skills, some being things like acting or public speaking classes. With classes like that you know that everyones there for the same reason so it's a safe space to make mistakes and get feedback. We have infinite resources on the internet making it easy to find help. I really liked this ted talk. I found it really helpful how he explained why you're nervous and what you can do to help your anxiety when you're speaking. Public speaking is an important skill and will help you alot in life so it's good to practice it . It can be harder for some people but there's so many sources to improve.
Quinn E They say high school prepares you for life. Well, I graduated yesterday and I’m still terrified of my future. Technically I didn’t graduate yet because I still don’t have my diplomas and I have another two weeks or so of french. But still, I wore the cap and gown and I walked across the stage. It was a lot more underwhelming than I thought it would be, but I guess that’s because I walked in front of about twenty people rather than hundreds of them. After it was over, everyone I talked to asked me one question: “So how does it feel to graduate from high school?” After being asked this question about twenty five times, I started to reflect. How was high school? When I think of the ups and downs of high school, my mind is drawn to the negative. I certainly had my fair share of downs. I fought with (and lost) friends, I struggled with keeping on top of my school work and extracurricular activities, I argued with family and I battled some mental health and confidence issues. I had bad teachers. I let people down, I let myself down. There have been times when I have been a shitty friend and student. I worked through a lot of negatives. There were days where I wouldn’t have a place to eat so I’d walk around until I found someone I knew. There were fights where I walked away as I thought about punching my best friend in the face. There were times that I felt really self-critical and times that I felt self-conscious over nothing and proceeded to feel guilty about that. But haven’t we all? Isn’t that what high school is about? The more I think about the bad experiences, the more I come up with reasons why those led to better ones. I grew through every single one of those experiences. Good and bad. I learned about toxicity and what that means for me. I learned about what kind of person I am, and the kind of people I like to have in my life. I gained a best friend for life. I grew closer with my parents and my brother. I became a better friend. I am becoming a better student. I am learning how to take care of myself. I’m learning how to bite off an amount that I can chew. I dealt with bad teachers, classmates and co-workers, the way I will have to for the rest of my life. I learned how to hold my tongue and think before I speak. I learned that sometimes the truth hurts. Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth and that’s okay. You can’t control people. And that’s okay. I learned, I grew, I matured. The person I am on my way to becoming, is born from these high school experiences, through trial and error. There’s no way to teach this. There’s no way for you to study and learn this without actually doing it. You have to go to school, be a kid. You’ll make mistakes, you’ll be an idiot, you’ll get in trouble. That’s life. Maybe high school academics don’t prepare you for life, maybe it’s that not so obvious personal development, that secret “becoming a better human” that does. When I think about all of this, of how prepared I actually am and the people I’ll have in my corner, the future doesn’t look so scary after all.
Nevada J What is procrastination? Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something. Why would I write a blog about procrastination? Well it's simple I had all year to write this blog and here I am 5 days before I have to turn this in. Almost everyday for the past year I’ve had this blog on my mind asking myself “when do I want to work on this?” This might just be me, but It’s the worst having the same thing to worry about for months on end. It makes it even worse knowing that you're the reason why this thing isn’t getting done or that you're the reason why you're stressing so much about it. If I think about it, I’ve made it worse for myself just by delaying it. At the beginning of the year I said to myself I have 9 months until this is due so I can just wait till the last minute. That was the worst decision I’ve made this year. Everyday after I get back from school my brain has a reminder telling me to work on this blog, and who would’ve guessed ... I said “I’ll do it tomorrow” every time. This isn't the only thing I’ve procrastinated on and it definitely won’t be the last. I promise you everyone has procrastinated. No one has never not procrastinated. Have you ever been asked by your parents to clean your room and instead of doing it, you just said “I’ll do it later”. That right there is procrastination. Or have you ever been so tired lying in bed and you tell yourself “5 more minutes'' instead of getting up? That also is procrastination. I believe that there are two types of procrastination. This idea I actually got from a Ted Talk I saw about Procrastination by Tim Urban. It's a great Ted Talk and it’s funny at the same time while you learn about procrastination. Tim Urban explains that the two types of procrastination are the “Deadline Procrastination” and the “No Deadline Procrastination.” Now the deadline procrastination is a lot harder to deal with because it’s on your mind a lot and you know you need to do whatever it is you need to do. But you're always holding it off. But with the non-deadline procrastination, you don’t ever have that worry because there is no deadline so you always just keep holding it off forever and ever until there is one. Tim Urban explained the deadline procrastination like this. In our brain we have two things: “Rational Decision Maker” and the “Instant Gratification Monkey.” The Rational Decision Maker part of our brain always knows what needs to be done but whenever you decide to do whatever it is you need to do, the Instant Gratification Monkey takes over and says, “hey let's do this instead.” An easier way of understanding this is to imagine it like two sides: the Rational Decision Maker has a side called “whatever makes sense,” and the Instant Gratification Monkey has a side called “easy and fun.” Sometimes these two sides overlap and the two agree sort of like a Ying and Yang. But sometimes there's a conflict and the procrastinator just wants to do whatever is easy and fun and lets the monkey take over. Later when the deadline is closer, the procrastinator realizes it and all of a sudden the Panic Monster wakes up. Keep in mind the Panic Monster is always dormant until he has to wake up to yell at you “Hey the deadline is soon. You have to do something.” The monkey is also scared of the monster and runs away when he wakes up. Normally the Panic Monster and the Rational Decision Maker work together but sometimes usually when the Panic Monster takes over, you generally can’t seem to get any work done and usually just sit staring at a blank page. But the Rational Decision Maker will make sure the work gets done now that the monkey is gone. And once the work is gone, the Panic Monster goes back to sleep because there's nothing to panic about. For the non deadline procrastination there is no Panic Monster because there is no deadline to worry about. And generally you have the Instant Gratification Monkey that takes over for the most part but once he gets bored and goes off to do whatever he wants, the Rational Decision Maker will take over. However sometimes though, that might be too late and whatever you want to get done just goes away and you can’t do it anymore. That’s not a deadline, it's just forgetting about the thing you want done, or it’s just not important anymore and doesn’t need to be done.
Now I never thought of procrastination like this until I saw that Ted Talk. It actually really helped me open my eyes to different things. I now know that whenever I’m about to procrastinate or that I am procrastinating, I’ll remember the Ted Talk or even this blog. And instead of waiting to do something and making it worse for myself, next time I’ll get it done sooner. I’m not the only one who should be doing this though. I hope that this blog helped you get a better understanding of procrastination as much as It did for me. Just know that the next time you get a deadline for something, it’ll be best to do it sooner rather than later. Austin M Tim Urban's Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator As a young kid, I had always loved and admired animals. Although I had never had a pet or any knowledge of how to care for one, I still adored them. Four years ago, I had gotten a horse to further my riding career as I fell in love with the sport. She was the first animal that I was ever responsible for. She helped me grow in so many aspects of my life from my confidence to my physical skills, and many things in between. Looking back on those years, it still astonishes me how much a fifteen hundred pound animal that doesn't speak English, can teach things I didn't realize about myself. It was only recently that I had finally, after years of asking, adopted my first puppy. I love him dearly, but having a dog is a lot of work. Work that pays off in the end. Two years ago when I was fourteen years old, I had read a flyer in a local coffee shop, looking for volunteers to help at a therapeutic riding association. One look at the title and I was instantly captivated until the fine print stated there was an age requirement of sixteen years old. Since then I couldn't wait till I turned sixteen to finally volunteer here. But of course, we are living in a covid era. Who would have thought? Anyway, I applied to volunteer at the same place I had seen the flyer back during the holiday break and was stoked to start which was postponed until later this year. The big factor that influenced this decision years ago was that this equine therapeutic association was created for kids with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. The amount of power a horse could have to teach these kids to not only learn about the animal itself but to grow and learn about themselves. For these kids, horses teach them physical, psychological, social skills that other activities can not. I continue to love volunteering here, learning each story of the kids that ride here inspires me. This is the website where I volunteer, for more information on therapeutic riding, visit this page. Physical benefits can include:
Here are four of ten things many different animals can teach us about being human according to Psychology today:
My experiences with working with many different animals and people have taught me more about them and even more about myself. As Well as volunteering with animals and people alike, learning from animals can teach us about the ways of being human that we can forget at times. Madison Conversation is inevitable. A conversation holds much more power than we think it does. As humans we yearn for human connection; interaction. An exchange of energy, where both are paying attention to one another. Here is where we begin to deepen the moment, inspire change and build trust. I have had many eye opening events happen to me in the past few months. I will be sharing what techniques and thought processes that have led me with the mindset I have now.
The last couple months before hitting 2021 have been on the crazier side. For all this to make sense I will have to start at the benign, of late September. My dad was faced with many losses on his extended side of the family. With my grandparents being ill, he consciously made the decision to go see them. Within just a week of my fathers arrival, my grandfather passed away. In Albania, when there is a death there are gatherings. With covid lurking in the corner, it was just a matter of time. After about a week and a half after, my father and most of the imitated family got covid. Leading to my grandmother's death in mid November. Unfortunately my uncle was unable to be there. It was hard to see him lose his parents and not be able to grieve properly. I often went to my uncle's house to make sure he was doing good, but i was told not to talk about what was going on. Searching for a way to grief with the loss was only possible when my dad got back. It is very important to mourn the losses of loved ones. During this time, I was working mercilessly. Working six to seven days a week, working the next days of my grandparents death. When living far away from family and not having them in your daily life, it's easier to forget. When my dad first got back he was an absolute mess, emotionally and menatally. It's hard for anyone to lose their parents. My father and I sat down and he was telling me the conversations that he had with his father and mother. He explained to me how they passed, showed me the funerals and explained everything. Hearing about how my grandmother passed was very upsetting. Seeing how truly painful and uncomfortable she was is devastating. My father explained to me how it was much easier to grieve for his father than his mother. The reason being, he was able to have conversations, share his thoughts and feelings with many people. He heard new stories about his father that he hadn't heard before and they were able to talk about the situation. I had let go of my “obligations” and took a step back to figure out what I wanted for my life. By taking a moment to reflect on time, conversations, myself and others. What really helped me doing that, was finding a space that was isolated and that was enjoyable. Somewhere I felt comfortable and expressed any emotion freely. I also found myself using techniques that Mr Hortness discusses in the class. I think it is very important to take advantage of the lessons that are taught in this course. Especially the lessons that help with self improvement. But also how to take the lesson and tweak them to work better for you. One technique I used was the gratitude journal. However, I didn't necessarily write them down, it was more menatlly. It is the single most powerful source of inspiration that any person can tap into. Another one that I found useful, was surrounding yourself with things that keep you inspired and change your mindset, “choose what to consume.” As humans, we can be brainwashed with everything we consume. It changes our perspective, our mindset and the way we live the rest of our lives. I took the time and extracted those that I compared myself, who were not adding value to my life. As much as possible I started consuming content and following people that would most help me fulfill my purpose. The things we consume we think about and eventually we become. My mother was taking care of our close family friend that we have known for the past 20 years. She was diagnosed with cancer about a year ago and she was unable to care for herself when her symptoms got worse. And snice one of the obligations that I had let go was my job. I assisted my mom and helped her with all that needed to be done. This included, grocery shopping, talking to pharmacists and doctors, and dealing with whatever problems arose. My mom would go five times a day to make sure she was taking her pills and would cook and clean for her. She has since passed, and with no family close by, we have been left dealing with her affairs, and trying to figure things out as they go. Finding myself in adult conversations and running around like a headless chicken. My mother and I were in a game of catch up. I would go from packing things in boxes to showing potential buyers the house, consulting with lawyers, and meeting all of the people that were close with her in the community. The only way I was able to succeed with these tasks was because I had a beginners mindset. When facing new challenges with a beginners mindset, you need to be able to put embassament aside and not focus on that feeling. And be comfortable with conversation. Many of the conversations I was having at this time were with the elderly. As most of them have lived out the majority of their lives, and me just begging to start mine. I headed into these conversations with a beginners mindset. Having an attitude of open mindedness and eagerness to learn, I asked questions. Started gaining insight and listening to people's past. Encouraging to share more and more with me. Let me tell you something you already know. The world is not all sunshine and rainbows, it's a mean nasty place. Nobody hits as hard as life.There are moments where you're going to doubt yourself. There are rough times that are going to come, but they have not come to stay, they have come to pass. It's important to know that. It's about how much you can take and keep moving forward. Gotta be willing to take da hits. I learnt that the past and future don't exist, they are not real. Your past is just your memory, and your future is just your imagination, it's only real in your mind. The only real moment is the present. But since then we've been taught to look at life as past, present and future. Many are missing the one moment that truly exists. We need to eliminate the past and get rid of the future and “be here now or otherwise you'll miss your life.” -Buddha https://thedashpoem.com/the-dash-poem-printable/ Albuna M 2020 is an unforgettable year in human history that has entirely messed up our “peaceful” society. But have you ever thought about the fact that our human beings have never lived in a peaceful world? There are tons of potential dangers we don’t know are affecting our society that can lead to war in a sudden. Therefore, it is time to improve our stress resistance right away in order to avoid unexpectations.
Overall, I think the most important tip is still your experience in society. Pandemic is a “superclass” for anyone, because most of them have experienced such a sudden event in their life. Nevertheless, it is not a bad thing either, maybe we will never encounter this kind of situation in the future without pandemic. This time we have no reasons to be scared in front of any difficulties because they are so easy to confront compared to pandemic’s influence. My dad told me a word when I was young, “Everything you’ve done and experienced is meaningful.” Once we experience them, nothing is valuable to be scared of.
Jerry L Let’s face it, this past year during the pandemic has not been easy on anyone but as a teenager, it has been really hard. When I complain to my parents they always say, “You are learning to be resilient and that can’t be taught.” After rolling my eyes a few times, I finally looked up what “resilience” means. The Webster's Online Dictionary defines resiliency as, “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” I have spent some time thinking about how this applies to me as a teenager, during this pandemic. I asked myself, “What am I learning almost by accident during these crazy Covid times?” How am I being resilient? This is what I have come up with:
When I reflect on all of these things, I see that my parents are probably right (even though I won’t ever tell them that). I can see that the pandemic has taught me a lot of important skills that I will be able to use as I grow up, start my career and in my future relationships. We have all gained resilience from this pandemic. This is a skill that will help us in the future. Resilience teaches us how to grow from negative experiences and changes, and during the pandemic we have gone through more than a few changes in our lives. We have learned to make the best out of bad situations and without even realising we will be positively impacted in the future because of the strength we have gained. Maybe when we think back on this pandemic in fourty years, only then we will realize all the skills we have learned.
Alexa K What is the most important thing to youth these days? You could argue many things, friendships, happiness.. But one of the possible answers would probably be something along the lines of “Fame” or “Social Media Statu s”. While neither of these things are inherently bad they can potentially breed one of our worst traits: Pride. What is pride? Pride itself can be good and bad, it is the feeling of accomplishment and feeling good. But this is a double edged sword, as it can also mutate into an inflated feeling of superiority and power. Pride keeps us ignorant, if we feel like we know everything, then we feel no need to learn more. Entire wars have been fought over pridefulness; you could take the crusades for example. The idea of superiority and pride of one's side's religion started a brutal conflict. This is why pride is one of the worst sins under human potential. However, as to everything in existence, there is an opposing force to pride: Humility. The antithesis of pride Humility can be described in many ways. I understand it like this: There is always more to learn from every aspect of every moment. No matter from what or whom, there is wisdom and strength to be gleaned. Consequently, this means you would have to lower your view of your own importance. You may think, “That's not right, I see all the time posters saying: Believe in yourself!” To answer that I turn to a quote from C.S Lewis, True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. This means that instead of spending so much time worrying about yourself, take the time to worry and learn from others. That way, you will improve yourself without even trying. Take Language as a basic example, you could believe that you have mastered english and there is no need for you to learn any more. Or, you could apply the speakings of different people and literature into your own lexicon. Therefore improving your understanding. We could perhaps take a more relevant example. People who think they are amazing drivers, superior drivers, tend to crash more often. While humble drivers are people who view themselves as just a driver, and that every driver makes mistakes; so they should be always cautious. There are unlimited examples of pride in our everyday life, just not enough examples of humility. That's why it's so important to practice it yourself. How to be humble It stems from realizing your own self worth. As a human, you are worth more than any amount of money, but you aren't superior or more valuable to anyone else. Same goes for ideologies, political standpoints, religions, none of these things are superior to each other. A truly humble person could learn something from each one. Back to the topic, you need to realize what you are unintentionally believing. It is commonplace in society to be told that you should be proud of yourself and to accomplish higher and higher status. While these aren't bad superficially they ride a fine line between excessive pridefulness and just being proud of yourself. In order to be humble you need to walk this fine line, I'm sure there are humble people who are proud of their accomplishments. It's just important you don't let that pride swell. Here are some steps you can follow to develop humility.
Why this is important to me
Its great to have supportive parents right? What happens when they are too supportive, you get me. For all my life my parents have been telling me that I am an incredibly great, intelligent person, destined for greatness. While praise is good, excessive praise is not. As a child, there was nowhere for this praise to go other than my ego. As a teenager, my pridefulness swelled as I believed I had superior intelligence to anyone else (which is obviously wrong). Even now, I struggle with trying to be humble. But it's important. Without humility, you are destined to push others away from you as you believe you are more and more important and superior. It's only because I realized what was going on that I managed to stop myself, and I'm glad I did. As I said before, no one is superior to anyone else in any situation. I will continue to practice Humility as I strive to be myself. *Disclaimer. I am in no way bashing my parents, I'm sure they thought they were doing what was best for my growth. *Disclaimer 2. There is another blog here about Pride, it talks about Motivation and Accomplishment, in other words. It seems that the author is simply proud of themselves, and is not a prideful person (in a bad way). Ross B I can still vividly remember leaving school on March 13th; I remember the nervous buzz travelling among students, the uncertainty in the air, and finally, I remember thinking the sole consequence we would face due to COVID-19 was an additional two weeks added to our spring break (something which greatly excited me). Cut to the 299th day stuck in quarantine, and I can’t help but reflect on the time spent indoors, the time lost, and the changes made not only to our everyday lives, but to our health, both mental and physical. One of the most notable changes we’ve experienced as a society is the lack of social interaction, and the limits/boundaries surrounding seeing your friends/family, or people in general. Humans are inherently social beings, and require an extent of social interaction and stimulation to reach their full potential i.e. happiness. This is not an observation, but a fact: when interacting with another individual in person, our brain releases large amounts of dopamine and serotonin, two key components in producing happiness. When lacking social interaction, our brain is unable to produce serotonin and dopamine as quickly as it normally would, resulting in diminished moods, and in extreme cases, depression. This, combined with a fear of the virus itself, and stress (both externally and internally) make it quite difficult for anyone, regardless of gender/race/age to cope healthily and successfully during this pandemic. As a 17 year old, I’m lucky enough to be with family and not completely isolated, but the struggle of having a drastically different life than last year is something that I still have trouble processing. I would consider myself to be a fairly social person, or an extrovert, and am used to often being with my friends, or going out - it feels wrong to be indoors all the time, and I feel as though I’m doing something wrong, or wasting my teenage years by spending all my time inside. Because I’m a high school senior, I also feel a great deal of frustration at the timing of this whole ordeal; I’ve spent my childhood and the last four years of my life looking forward to this year and graduation, and the fact I’m spending most of my classes isolated from my friends and unable to spend time with my classmates is a thought that honestly makes me really sad. Anger is a very prevalent emotion for me recently, and I notice myself dwelling on what could have been, or what I’ve missed out on, as well as self pity and deprecation. It helps to remind myself that others are in the same position, and I’m fortunate enough to have it better than many other people right now. All seriousness aside, one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced over these past nine months is boredom, and ways to deal with all the free time recently amassed. What follows are fun and healthy ways you can safely spend your remaining time in quarantine:
I hope these 10 suggestions are able to help pass time, and I hope 2021 brings us all a lot better than 2020 did! Stay safe, stay home, and wear a mask! :) Callie F https://dailyillini.com/special-sections/2020/04/09/bored-in-quarantine-twenty-ways-to-kill-time/ Throughout our lives, many little things make us feel uncomfortable. It can be as simple as sitting at a new desk or meeting a new group of people. No matter the scale, this feeling of discomfort forces us to step outside our comfort zone. Any new little thing that makes us uncomfortable can be scary, but being uncomfortable is a normal occurrence in our daily lives. Many people are born with the ability to be in the spotlight and are not afraid to put themselves out there. Unfortunately, for many others, it does not come as naturally. Putting yourself out there involves a different process for each person, but it is possible for everyone. It can either be excruciatingly hard or relatively easy, depending on how you feel in public and with new situations. Talking about putting yourself out there is an easy thing to do, but initiating the task in real life is not as easy. Last summer, I experienced a situation where I had to step outside of my comfort zone. I was asked to help volunteer coach field hockey for two little girls in my community. At first, I was ecstatic with this job since I love the sport and showing someone my passion always puts a smile on my face. However, the more I thought about it, the more nerve-wracking it became. Even though I view myself as more of a team player than a leader, I won't hesitate to speak up if needed. As I tend to stay more in the background, putting myself out there with planning and leading practices and drills was not easy. During the practice, I sometimes felt scared and nervous when providing feedback and helpful tips. I didn't want my input to offend or discourage the girls if taken the wrong way, even though I'm trying to help them by giving my advice. Within the first few weeks of practice, I had to learn to be more confident and not be afraid of the response I would get with voicing my opinions. Being more confident in myself was not an easy obstacle to overcome, yet the results of doing so have been quite beneficial to me. I might still be shy from time to time, but I find myself acting in ways to build my confidence on an everyday basis. Here are a few things I found that helped me become more confident:
For more ways or steps that help you with stepping out of your comfort zone, I recommend visiting these websites:
Kaya D There are a ton of websites that are dedicated to the hack, the short cut, the magical cure to "not having enough time. SPOILER ALERT, there is no such thing. Unless you are into some deep physics or you believe in a different universe than time is the same for all of us. So how do leaders, or anyone for that matter "make time" for anything new? Well we have talked about routine before and we have touched on habits as well but one thing that we have not looked at is what are those leaders doing with their time. If you google habits of leaders you will get a ton of sources that talk about pretty much all of the same things:
While you will eventually learn that multi tasking is not possible there is a way for you to combine two activities, one that is on auto pilot... like walking, taking the bus, sitting in the back seat of your chauffeured car (thanks mom and dad) and one that is beneficial like either reading the good old fashioned way or what I do to "make time" for reading. Right now while you are reading this, take out your phone, open your app store and download Blinkist and Headway. These two apps summarize a book a day for free. Usually under 15 minutes, you will get a totally random choosing from these companies. If you like the apps you can upgrade obviously, but 15 minutes of free learning giving you someone else's thoughts to add to your own is an easy way to adopting a habit that all great leaders have. "Never stop learning." How's that for "making time" Richard Hortness |
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