Perspective. No matter where we go, what we do, or how we feel, we all have the conscious ability to choose our perspective, our outlook on the events that transpire- on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. I feel as if Happiness has become a sort of fairy tale in recent times. Recently I've been reading the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and he makes a great point- in the past thousand years, we have come a LONG way in terms of technological and social advancement. Yet despite all of these "new" and amazing things, it doesn't seem as if much more of us are any happier. In my opinion, I feel like people are only getting sadder. There seems to be this increasingly pessimistic view of the world permeating the planet- just turn on the news, and there you are greeted by the most recent tragedy. Drugs are becoming an ever increasing problem in our society, just as substance abuse with things like alcohol, cigarettes, nicotine, etc. So that's where the r...
Stress. The dubious figure who it seems like we all know far too well these days. Whether it be about our health, our futures, our circumstances, or social, personal, or political issues, we all stress- far, far too much. There are many universal truths in the world, like the fact that the world is round and that water is wet (let's face it folks, it is...), yet more and more I get the sense that the newest overwhelming truth is stress. Let me just start by saying that it is OK to stress. It's actually perfectly human and animal, and in many circumstances it can be what saves your life (reference the fight or flight response). Second, this isn't going to be a scientific article. It's going to be one that hits your heart, not your brain- so just fair warning. Personally, I was always a really stressed out kid. I constantly worried about being perfect- literally. Like so much so to the point that I got mad when I had a 101% in a class instead of a 102%. Yes, it...