How to make life meaningful Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

How to make life meaningful - Essay Example Since the stated goals of positive psychology are to create thriving people and lead to a more fulfilling life, the interests of positive psychology are no longer treating people with disorders or illness but making the life of a normal person more fulfilling and flourishing. Hence, the mission statement of positive psychology accompanies the act of pursuing a meaningful life. The mission statement states: A Meaningful life is connected to positive functioning: work enjoyment, satisfaction in life, hope, general positive effect as well as happiness and a higher degree of well-being. Research has demonstrated that people have a propensity to create stories as a means of understanding occurrences in life with a life story being a means of imposing meaning on life and therefore connecting people to occurrences (Loewenstein 46). In regards to the manner in which meaning in demonstrated, understanding loss appears as more important during the adjustment process subsequent to the loss while recognizing the benefits may be a more long-term process that takes place over time with the biggest benefits becoming evident later on. There is a consensus that individuals should remain true to what matters and themselves in order to get a meaningful life (Baumeister and Bushman 435). Various strategies exist that can be used by individuals to uncover their true selves and identify and challenge their obstacles that hinder them from seeking their dreams. Three significant steps towards making life meaningful include: For most of the people, simply understanding who they are is a challenging endeavor and based in research that has been conducted previously, approximately forty percent of all the people in America have not yet identified a sense of purpose as far as their lives are concerned. It can be easy to tell people to live life on their own terms, but if they have not been able to identify their own terms, they may develop the feeling that they are drifting

The biblical banners Essay Example for Free

The biblical banners Essay In this New York Times article, â€Å"In Texas, a Legal Battle Over Biblical Banners†, Manny Fernandez, a metro reporter, argues whether biblical banners should be allowed or banned due to the law. He develops the claim by first providing details about how Mr. Weldon’s community got enraged. Then he provides information saying Weldon banned the biblical banners out of concern that the signs were unlawful and amounted to school sanctioned religious expression. Towards the end, Fernandez points out that the case centers on whether the banners amount to private speech protected by state and federal law or government sponsored speech that can be regulated and censored. Fernandez’s purpose is to answer the reader’s question about biblical banners and if the should be allowed in order to educate the public and provide knowledge about the situation at hand. He establishes an informative tone for concerned citizens who may want or be against biblical banners. Fernandez provides the reader with facts and statistics, for example in paragraph 4, â€Å"the district received a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin based group of atheists and agnostics.† The effect of such details serves to lend credibility to the author’s assertions since it is impossible to argue with the facts. In addition, negative diction in paragraph 7 conveys a negative feeling towards the banners and the marquee outside a church. Finally, the use of biblical allusions throughout the article is used to defend the use of biblical banners. This work is significant because it challenges and reminds us all to be aware of aberrant issues regarding biblical banners.

Hemingway & the Crack-Up Report :: Fitzgerald Hemingway Essays

Hemingway & the â€Å"Crack-Up† Report Works Cited Missing Between 1935 and 1936, F. Scott Fitzgerald suffered a mental breakdown, which would be referred to as the â€Å"Crack-Up.† Many things precipitated this meltdown including tuberculosis, alcoholism, Zelda’s deteriorating condition, and â€Å"his [troubled] sense of himself as a man† (Donaldson 189). During this period, Fitzgerald had been advised by his doctors to take time off work for the sake of his health. Heeding their advice, he decided to relocate to western North Carolina, most notably, Hendersonville, for some fresh mountain air. His confessional â€Å"Crack-Up† essays were first published in Esquire Magazine in November 1935. The most well known essays were â€Å"The Crack-Up†, â€Å"Pasting It Together,† and â€Å"Handle with Care,† published in February, March and April of 1936 (www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/facts/facts1.html). These essays were touted as being candid, with the intention of ‘exploring Fitzgerald’s â€Å"dark night of the soul†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (Donaldson 194). In fact, much of the truth is omitted; Zelda’s illness is not mentioned as a possible factor, and the role of drinking is not credited as a part of Fitzgerald’s increasingly serious problem. The most powerful and literary part of his essays is his compelling use of metaphor, most markedly in his referral to himself as being â€Å"a cracked plate† (Donaldson 195). Fitzgerald believed that he had no real self, and the Fitzgerald who existed consisted of borrowed personaliti es. His â€Å"intellectual conscience† was derived from Edmund Wilson, and his â€Å"artistic conscience,† from Ernest Hemingway (Donaldson 195). Hemingway disagreed entirely with the way Fitzgerald handled his breakdown. In a letter to Maxwell Perkins, Fitzgerald, Hemingway observed that Fitzgerald, has â€Å"a marvellous talent and the thing is to use it- not whine in public† (Donaldson 196). Hemingway also cited two of Fitzgerald’s other flaws that contributed to his downfall, both mentally and as a writer. First, Fitzgerald was plagued by a lack of courage; second, Fitzgerald never grew up and â€Å"jumped straight from youth to senility without going through manhood† (Donaldson 196). Hemingway never directly wrote to Fitzgerald with criticism. Instead, he more publicly humiliated him in his short story, â€Å"The Snows of Kilimanjaro.† Published in Esquire magazine in August 1936, a passage from the story directly implicates Fitzgerald, [They] were dull and they drank too much, or they played

Who is responsible for Willy s demise

He cannot accept the fact that he is no longer a successful salesman, that his sons are not successful as Charley son (Bernard), also that he has been unfaithful to the only person who ever loved him no matter what, his wife Linda. His reason to committee suicide may have been influence by the factors in his life that I just mentioned. Wily is the only one who takes actions of desperation and hopeless. It is his hubris, his inflated pride and ambition o consummate the American dream that leads him to his destructive action, his inability to remember the value of his own life.He thinks that he can't longer maintain his families future, and that he is worth more dead than alive. Pressure society also can be blamed for Wily Loan's demise, claiming to be the best of all in the salesman or business world and earning great amounts of money†¦ Wily Leman was just another man stuck with this dream but in some way the salesman or business world took a big part of his life from him. When h e became a salesman at an age around eighteen or nineteen and he dated in this business up to the point of his death, which is the same day he was finally fired by Howard from the company where he was working as a salesman.When he was fired he was at the age of sixty-three this unfortunately happened. This means that he put a greater amount of his life into the salesman world, in the pursuit for richness and respect. Approximately 45 years of his life were spent on pursuit of these things, but unfortunately his pursuit of richness and respect, never have been effective, he wasn't successful at all. Do you think that this is tragic? Of course yes!. But he needed to face the truth of his peripatetic. Perhaps these things are which led him to try committing suicide numerous times in the car by trying to crash and hoping that he dies.Wily was a very unsatisfied and mainly unhappy man, who had lost most part of his hope. How ever Biff is notice to embody everything that Wily admires: he has great personal charisma, is very popular with other boys, is a leader, demonstrates physical strength but not just as a sportsman also in his body image and demonstrates confidence. The allegations between father and son is loving, warm and full of mutual admiration. He'd invested a lot of this hope into his son Biff too, who unfortunately let him down as well.Wily had such high hopes for Biff becoming the success he himself could never achieve, however Wily failed to take into account what his son desired, which was the outdoor American dream. Another reason why Will kills himself is because would be that Biff discovered his affair with the woman, disinterment which ruined Biffs future this made Wily feel in some way painful and miserable because he made Biff to going back to summer school to graduate, also because he was unfair with the only person that actually loves him and care for him, her wife Linda.Wily Leman was a never success The American Dream guaranteed things to Wi ly that he would never have had before. However to achieve to have these things he had to spent his whole life work hard to afford them and not being rewarded for that hard work, it was a factor that led to his end. So who really is to blame for Will's hamster, and can the fault be relied on Charley, Biff, Linda and Howard the nest that through society carried the job to tear apart Will's dream, hopes and his character or personality and eventually his life.As we know that Wily makes his son embody all his negative values that here passed on by Ben to Wily, his sons will also be a failure as Wily. Not so much in the case of Biff but more in the case of Happy. This is because we can notice how Willis temperament and characteristics resembles on to Happy. Happy has the same younger example of what Wily was as when he was growing up. Maybe the reason why Wily treated Happy as he treated him was because his way was the way that Will's father treated him and paid more attention to his el der brother Ben.

Nature and Nature in Cognitive Development Essay

Why are both nature and nurture important in perceptual development? How do both help a baby’s brain and sensory organs to develop? The question of whether nature or nurture is more important in terms of perceptual development has bee long debated. In general, there are two theories that explain how humans develop these perceptions. The Nativists claim that our brains are built or hardwired to recognize certain stimuli by both design and construction. In contrast, an Empiricist would say that we learn through experience how to perceive things. There was an experiment done by Nativist researchers that sought to determine how very young mammals are able to perceive. The data concluded that early infants were able to perceive quite a lot before they really had a chance to learn anything. Gibson and Walk’s the â€Å"visual cliff† experiment was one such experiment, in this test both young animals and 6 month old human infants were taken to a side of a visual cliff, the test subjects would avoid the clearly deep drop. This indicated that children can perceive visual depth and that visual depth dominates even touch information. Additionally, studies have been done that show babies can recognize faces and that they often prefer the visual stimulation of carton faces as opposed to the same features arranged at random. In other tests it was shown that babies can also recognize whether or not and object is coming directly at their face or not. These experiments show that even the undeveloped infant brain has considerable capacity for perceptual capabilities. In contrast, several Empiricists experiments have been done as well. In one such study, scientists sought to determine the effects of depriving developing animals from perceptual stimulations. These tests have consistently shown that the longer the subject is deprived, the more severe the consequences. For example, humans are sometimes born without sight, due to a clouded cornea. Later in life some elect to have surgery to repair this clouded cornea. The result is sight, these people can see but they cannot perceive what it is that they see. As time goes on they slowly learn to distinguish one object from another, but this is however quite easily interrupted. Often changing an objects position or context is quite enough to slow down or prevent recognition. To conclude, although some argue that perception is due to nature, while others argue for nurture, it may in fact be that the two factors are interdependent and rely on each other. Support for this idea comes from an experiment that studied rats and found that those raised in a perceptually restricted environment had smaller brain development than those raised in an enriched environment, suggesting that while we are born with innate capabilities we need the environment to ensure we develop our abilities to perceive well. The perceptual capabilities we have at birth must be strengthened continuously through perceptual stimulation, furthermore, it would seem that perception in general follows the use it or lose it principle. Just as unused muscles become week, so to do our senses if left unused. Nature and nurture are both essential to health y perceptual development; stimulation begins in the womb and quickly follows all the way through adulthood. Sources. â€Å"Nature and Nurture in Perceptual Development. † . www. indiana. edu. Web. 11 Feb 2013. . . â€Å"Experiencing Sensation and Perception. † . physch. hanover. edu. Web. 11 Feb 2013. . Arterberry, M. â€Å"Perceptual Development. † . Colby College. Web. 11 Feb 2013. .

Analytical Essay Sample on Internet Censorship Key Concerns

Analytical Essay Sample on Internet Censorship Key Concerns Nowadays, Internet is commonly regarded as the most widely used source and the fastest way to exchange information and knowledge all over the world. However, the freedom and democracy on Internet, being one of its greatest beauties and drawing features, is apparently abused by the population online. Pornography and hate literature are commonly used to lure Internet surfers attention and to generate profits. Representing the rights of the public and the power of a country while owning and operating the Internet, the government has the absolute responsibility to censor the internet so as to protect its own citizens from harmful and false information, thus in order to prevent any possible decay of social and moral values, though the extent of Internet censorship should be carefully measured to ensure the freedom of speaking of people. Since the invention of ARPANET in 1962 by the Department of Defenses Advanced Research Project Agency in United States, Internet has developed tremendously during the past half century with the improvement in modern technology with government sponsoring the researching program. It had formerly been made only for military and research purposes, where in 1974, the general public gets its first vague hint of how networked computers can be used in daily life as the commercial version of the ARPANET goes online. Hence it is quite obvious that without the financial investment and political support from the government, Internet, being such a new technological invention at that time would never achieve as great a success as what it has achieved by today; it is apparently wrong to say governments did not build neither did they own the Internet. As a result, being counted as partially a property of the government, Internet should absolutely under governments control. Besides to exchange information and knowledge and to facilitate communication, the most important role of Internet is to enrich people intellectually. This requires a clean and abundant source of information on the cyberspace that is provided to the public; it should be apparently free of indecency and obscenity that may cause any social problems, which eventually attributes to the decay of moral values. Human beings live in communities where easy access to indecency stimulates many people to adopt these lower moral values, as seemingly it is quite normal and perfectly okay to do so; the idea of Everybody does so and Everybody says so exerts a detrimental influence on peopleÐ ±Ã ¿s minds and that is what people are libeled to believe when the exposure to indecency becomes so common. What draws even more concerns of ours is of the children. We all know that children can easily be scarred and manipulated by all kinds of information. Parents can have some control over which books their children read as they can easily tell what the books are about; they do not have worry that their children will turn a page and be confronted with obscenities or other forms of indecency. While with the Internet, there is a whole different scenario. Anyone can flick a page and be presented with porn, denigration, discrimination, fraud and misinformation. As parenting is not only about chaining a child to a parental censor but about creating a safe environment for children to grow up in at the same time, an uncensored Internet is apparently not a safe environment for children. Due to the above reasons, it is my opinion that the flow of information should be filtered from anything that contradicts any of the abovementioned reasonable purposes. This includes filtering indecent expressions and obscene materials from access to the Internet. As a result, only the government has the power to take such actions so as to ensure the Internet is not over polluted by indecent garbage. However, it is very difficult to take modest steps in this sensitive issue of Internet censorship. Some people may say that certain information on the net, which might be viewed as obscene or indecent, are actually useful and helpful to people who are mature enough. This includes those obtained from adult sites. Though young people are not ready to get access to such information that may lead to their moral decay, mature adults certainly do not encounter the same problem. However they may be banned from acquire what they need from the net due to the possible existence of government censorship. Moreover, as community standards vary from community to community, it is not possible to find a guideline for the decisions of what is acceptable to be made upon; neither is it easy to be implemented. Furthermore, nobody is able to take full responsibility on such issues. Some people may argue that teaching children to deal with indecencies may shield them better and prepare them for the real world. And that the rights of free speak should never be violated. Yet that does not mean that we can do nothing about the existing and possibly occurring problems on net; government censorship is still necessary at this point of time and may have to go on for a certain period of time. In order to make sure desirable results can be seen, what seems to be necessary is the corporation and communication between the government and Internet surfers. General guidelines of censorship can be discussed and decided with efforts of both parties to reach a compromise. Feedback sites and forums can be set up to serve such purposes online. Eventually, the issue of Internet censorship is always controversial as the interests and concerns of different persons can never be the same as others; it can only be eased with internet surfers carrying out their social responsibilities. I think for government to step into the problem currently and help censor the accessibility of certain websites containing things such as adult materials is a modest measurement of control over Internet.

War and Peacemaking

War and Peacemaking Free Online Research Papers Throughout the course of this semester we learned a lot about war and peacemaking in this class. Knowing about wars and peace in the Orthodox Church is very important to any Orthodox Christian. Christ taught us to turn away from evil and evil works of the devil and demons. The church also forbids any clergy member to bare arms and who ever sheds blood even by accident to step down from the clergy position. The church also understands that there must be some form of government like the police and armed forces, which may need to bare arms to protect the people. The words â€Å"An eye for and eye, and a tooth for a tooth† have been used to express retributive justice, which is also known as the Latin law lex talionis, in English means â€Å"the law of retaliation†. The way the law got formed was to make the punishment of the crime be fit to the crime. We have all felt this way about criminals, when ever I hear about child molesters or pedophiles getting arrested I have always said if they had sex with a little boy or girl they should cut off their genitals. I know that this is not Christian like of me at all but the principle of lex talionis has always been around and has been put in to people’s head. For men to live a more Christ like life today they must renounce all evil. Christ teaches us to do so when he gives this sermon to the apostles. Christ lived this way his entire life to show us how to act. If Christ were to become evil and hit one of the soldiers when he was getting whipped or when Christ was getting arrested and one of the men he was with pulled out his sword he said put away your sword, if you live by the sword you will die by the sword. When someone does something evil to another person like punching him or her in the face the person who got hit should not fight back. When they fight back they are becoming more evil. When people fight evil with evil they spread evil, when people use love and peace to fight evil good always wins. If a person responds to evil in anger or self-defense, he becomes attached to the evil and it can dominate him. If everyone lives this way and fought evil with good then this world would be a lot better to live in. Through our prayers and hope this world one day will be peaceful and there will be no more fighting. Sources Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_for_an_eye Research Papers on War and PeacemakingHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows EssayCapital PunishmentWhere Wild and West MeetUnreasonable Searches and SeizuresAssess the importance of Nationalism 1815-1850 Europe19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraQuebec and CanadaThe Effects of Illegal ImmigrationComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoTwilight of the UAW