How Can I Improve My Relationships?
People who know themselves intimately well can meet and embrace potential partners much more easily than those with an unclear vision of themselves.
Continue reading "How Can I Improve My Relationships?" ›What Should I Be When I Grow Up?
When you grow up, you should be the person you’ve always admired or the person you would admire if he or she existed. Some kids admire their doctors because they made them feel better when they were sick. These kids have a special, parental trust with their doctor and are calmed and relieved the moment they enter the waiting room. It is this type of person that, if they have any aptitude towards medicine, goes on to become a successful doctor and inspires others to go into the field.
Continue reading "What Should I Be When I Grow Up?" ›Ridding Your Life Of Negative People
Negativity is a cancer that appears in many forms. Ridicule, guilt, prejudice, condescension, intimidation, and self-doubt are only a few of the ways negativity manifests itself. While some kinds of negativity come from within and cannot be easily controlled, most are caused by other people. I believe that everyone is entitled to rid themselves of these negative people in order to enjoy happier lives.
Continue reading "Ridding Your Life Of Negative People" ›Dreams And Your Inner Child
Although your inner child may seem like a very distant concept, it is really just you with all of your layers of adult consciousness stripped away. Every night when you go to sleep, your mind gives you another opportunity to visit that inner child as it sinks deep down into your most natural state of being, exposing all of your fears, worries, and most basic needs. When you wake up, it is like emerging from an underwater solitude and climbing up onto a higher, dryer ground. The height that you scale before finally coasting on with your day depends upon how removed you are from your inner child. Some people, the most proper and adult among us, quietly ascend mountains before proceeding with their controlled existences, no longer able to detect the roaring waters of childhood they have subconsciously swum through just moments ago in their sleep.
Continue reading "Dreams And Your Inner Child" ›How Important Is Physical Beauty?
Even though most of us recognize the fallacy of placing too great a value on appearance, our desire for physical beauty is so ingrained in us that we cannot disassociate ourselves from it. Why is physical beauty so important?
Continue reading "How Important Is Physical Beauty?" ›The Feeling Of Specialness
Growing up, my parents always paid an extraordinary amount of attention to me. They vigorously encouraged my interests, causing me to believe that I could be anything I wanted to in life. The affirmation I received from getting good grades in school and being accepted socially further confirmed my feeling that I was, in a way, blessed. Not even the low points in my adolescence aroused any real self-doubt in me, for I felt that despite whatever was happening, I was still very fortunate.
Continue reading "The Feeling Of Specialness" ›The Value Of Active Thinking
The most interesting people I know all have one thing in common - they think about things. While thinking may not sound like a special activity, very few people use their minds actively; instead, they go through life making passive associations, allowing whatever words or images float to the forefront of their minds to convey their thoughts. This tendency to live blurrily, rather than with acuity and awareness, inhibits communication on a large scale in our society. The result is that everyday interaction has become much less meaningful than it could be.
Continue reading "The Value Of Active Thinking" ›Coping With A Fear Of Death
One major trait of Peter Pan Syndromers is a desire to remain eternally youthful. A natural corollary to that characteristic, which I embody perfectly, is a strong fear of death. I am inconsolably afraid of death - so afraid that I cannot even allow it to float around in my mind as I can with other fears. When its dreary countenance comes to the surface of my mind, an instinct kicks in that automatically expels it before it has time to infect my other thoughts.
Continue reading "Coping With A Fear Of Death" ›Returning To Who We Are
Every time we go out in public, we engage in a series of elaborate social scripts so that we can get along with other people. Pleasantries, formalities, and personal space conventions are all examples of automated behaviors that we exhibit because we seek approval from those around us. They are a common ground for us to stand on, a compromise of our natural inclinations for the sake of civility.
Continue reading "Returning To Who We Are" ›Our Quest For Security
Security is the unacknowledged object of all of life’s journeys. Most of us are born with it, owing to the fact that our parents bring us up and care for us; but slowly, at distinct points in our adolescence, that security gets chipped away. The first time we realize that we cannot depend on our parents for money, protection, or encouragement, we lose a piece of our security, and each successive time, we lose a little bit more. Finally, we are forced to fill in the gaps by seeking out our own sources of security. Finding a job, making new friends, and seeking a life partner are quests that we commonly pursue, and all for the single purpose of reassembling the security that once was ours.
Continue reading "Our Quest For Security" ›