Your Job And Your Happiness Essay Example for Free

Your Job And Your Happiness Essay Happiness is commonly associated with pleasure and contentment. These are fairly subjective states of being, and their causes are equally subjective. However, when it comes to work or social life, employment clearly has the greater effect on happiness. Whether a job provides a social life, supports it, or interferes with it, it is tightly bound to happiness. For many people, work is their source of happiness in life. They follow their passions and don’t regard what they do as work. Their co-workers become their friend group, merging social life and work life into one. They often have jobs that make an impact on the world, and offer them contentment and self-fulfillment. These impassioned people see an outside social life as inconsequential, and they willingly and consciously give it up in favor of work they love. A job that regularly interferes with a normal social life creates an unbalanced life and lessens happiness. Hourly workers must often work overtime or on holidays, interfering with planned activities. Salaried workers frequently bring their work home with them, or they worry about their work responsibilities while at home. Others have to report to work at a moment’s notice any time of day or night. Some jobs require employees to work away from home for months or even years at a time. Conversely, an active social life rarely imposes on happiness gained from work. Positively or negatively, work has the greater influence on happiness. Passion-filled people draw happiness from their work. People whose jobs fund diverse life experiences receive happiness indirectly from their work. Those whose work encroaches on their personal lives also have their happiness impacted, albeit negatively. Work clearly has a more powerful connection to personal happiness than a social life does.

Depression Essay -- essays research papers

Depression. Depression is one of the most common psychological problems, affecting nearly everyone through either personal experience or through depression in a family member. The cost in human suffering cannot be estimated. Depression can interfere with normal functioning, and frequently causes problems with work, social and family adjustment. It causes pain and suffering not only to those who have a disorder, but also to those who care about them. Serious depression can destroy family life as well as the life of the depressed person. Impact of Depression:  Causes tremendous emotional pain  Disrupts the lives of millions of people  Adversely affects the lives of families and friends  Reduces work productivity and absenteeism  Has a significant negative impact on the economy.  Depression is a psychological condition that changes how you think and feel, and also affects your social behavior and sense of physical well being. We have all felt sad at one time or another, but that is not depression. Sometimes we feel tired from working hard, or discouraged when faced with serious problems. This too, is not depression. These feelings usually pass within a few days or weeks, once we adjust to the stress. Cause of depression: Clinical depression is a very common psychological problem, and most people never seek proper treatment, or seek treatment but they are misdiagnosed with physical illness. This is extremely unfortunate because, with proper treatment, nearly 80% of those with depression can make significant improvement in their mood and life adjustment. â€Å"You may have heard people talk about chemical imbalances in the brain that occur in depression, suggesting that depression is a medical illness, without psychological causes†. However, all psychological problems have some physical manifestations, and all physical illnesses have psychological components as well. In fact, the chemical imbalances that occur during depression usually disappear when you complete psychotherapy for depression, without taking any medications to correct the imbalance. This suggests that the imbalance is the body's physical response to psychological depression, rather than the other way around. People who have low self-esteem, who consistently view themselves and the world with pessimism, or who are readily shoc... ...treatment. This may involve encouraging the individual to stay with treatment until the symptoms begin to decrease (several weeks), or to seek different treatment if no improvement occurs. On occasion, it may require making an appointment and along with the depressed person to appointments with the psychologist. Invite the depressed person for walks, outings, to the movies, and other activities. Be gently purposeful if your invitation is refused. Encourage participation in some activities that once gave pleasure, such as hobbies, sports, religious or cultural activities, but do not push the depressed person to undertake too much too soon. The depressed person needs deviation and company, but too many demands can increase feelings of failure. â€Å"A complete psychological diagnostic evaluation will help you decide the type of treatment that might be best for you†. Psychologists†. Bio................. The National Institute of Mental Health Psychology Information Online , developed by Donald J. Franklin, Ph.D., provides information about the practice of psychology, features Continuing Education Programs and a Psychology Bookstore, and hosts the National Directory of Psychologists.

Jonathan Kozol has been around for quite some time writing

Jonathan Kozol has been around for quite some time writing hard-hitting journalism about flaws in this country. His book Savage Inequities is more of the same with the focus on education. Kozol's strength as a writer is being able to put a face on his topic, anywhere from education to homelessness, etc. He makes the issue real and attaches human faces and real people that the reader can relate to.  In order to write this book, Kozol spent a lot of time traveling around visiting schools. To name a few, he visited schools in New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, Washington D.C. and many others. During his visits, he spent time observing in the classroom as well as interviewing teachers, students, parents, and administrators. What Kozol found out was that schools today are as separate and unequal as they were before the landmark decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954. he determines that the reason for these inequities lies in the way that American schools are funded. America funds its schools with property taxes. The problem with this is that rich suburban areas pay much more property taxes, which makes their schools unrivaled. While in inner city schools, the property tax base is much lower. Therefore, mostly minority kids attend schools without much money. Kozol takes the reader into these schools to make his point. In Chicago, there is a school with no library. They are overcrowded, understaffed, and lack even the basics of resources and equipments. He takes us to a high school in the Bronx where the rain pours in. For example, Kozol states, â€Å"The science labs at East St. Louis High are 30 to 50 years outdated†¦The six lab stations in the room have empty holes where pipes were once attached. ‘It would be great if we had water,' says a physics teacher (Kozol 27). He later hits the reader hard questioning why our country allows this to happen.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"Almost anyone who visits in the schools of East St. Louis†¦comes away profoundly shaken. These are innocent children, after all†¦One searches   fro some way to understand why a society as rich and, frequently, as      generous as ours would leave these children in their penury and squalor   for so long-and with so little public indignation. Is this just a strange    mistake of history?†¦why is it that we can't at least pour vast amounts of      money, ingenuity, and talent into public education for these children? (140).  He literally bombards the reader with real horror stories of his visits and travels in order to put a face on the poor state of education.   It isn’t just about education and schools and teachers; there are real kids involved here who are not getting what they need. Of Patterson, New Jersey, he states, â€Å"The city is so short of space that four elementary schools now occupy   abandoned factories. Children at one wood-frame elementary school,   which has no cafeteria or indoor space for recreation, eat lunch in a section of the boiler room. A bathroom houses reading classes (Kozol 106).  He compares these schools to suburban ones where conditions are much better. Teachers are paid much more, libraries are stocked, and technology abounds. He does a fantastic job at showing the contrasts between the wealthy schools and the poor schools. With the pictures he paints for the reader, the reader cannot argue with him. He also makes a plea for America to value equality and fix its schools. â€Å"And yet we stop to tell ourselves: These are Americans. Why do we       reduce them to this beggary – and why, particularly, in public education?      Why not spend on children here at least what we would be investing in   their education if they lived within a wealthy district like Winnetka, Illinois, or Cherry Hill, New Jersey, or Manhasset, Rye, or Great Neck in   New York? Wouldn't this be natural behavior in an affluent society that      seems to value fairness in so many other areas of life? Is fairness less    important to Americans today than in some earlier times? Is it viewed as    slightly tiresome and incompatible with hardnosed values? What do   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Americans believe about equality? (Kozol 41) Kozol ends the book with a vivid picture of an elementary school in a neighborhood of Cincinnati. He tells the reader that atmosphere was polluted with factories, prostitutes were near, and â€Å"Bleakness was the order of the day.† Kozol said he â€Å"rarely saw a child with a good big smile (Kozol 230-31). He leaves the reader with a bad taste in his/her mouth at the state of schools. This he does in hopes of spurring his readers to action. His research methods would be described as informal because his analysis comes from observations and interviews. There is no standard form that he uses, but he gets the material nonetheless. He devotes a chapter to teach area he discusses and gives the reader a description of the city as to understand why the schools are the way they are.  His findings are extremely significant to America as he clearly delineates the problems of American schools. With the images he creates, no one can argue with him. The pictures of these inner city schools are bleak. A criticism for Kozol is that he does not concentrate on any other problems in education besides inequality. Not that the inequality of schools is not a huge problem, but there are other problems that lead to poor achievement as well. No Child Left Behind plays a role. If those kids don't do well on the tests, more funding can be cut. Inner city schools do not tend to keep their teachers, With high teacher turnover, it is even harder for students to learn, and there may be large gaps in curriculum. There are also many forces at play outside the school, such as the home lives and parental involvement of these students. Probably the biggest criticism of Kozol is that he offers no solutions; he only identifies problems. He would probably say that solutions aren't his job, and he would leave that to the educational theorists. But after reading his condemnations, it would be nice to hear some of his ideas for solutions. Kozol doesn't tell the reader this, but The relationship between funding and academic achievement is unclear. However, it does not take a genius to figure this out. Will more money alone solve the problems in schools? Of course, it won't. However, more money will help. Money will help schools fix dilapidated buildings, buy equipment and resources, hire more teachers and aides to promote lower class sizes, attract better teachers who are more qualified, and a myriad of other things. But throwing money at the problem is only a start. These schools need help. They need more community and parental involvement. They need after school programs and tutoring programs and teachers with the knowledge and compassion to continue in the profession. Kozol doesn't mention other solutions except to give the schools more money, but there are many other things needed. Even money will not solve the problems of segregation. Inner city schools are made up mostly of minority students. How is that problem solved? Yes, more whites who fled to the suburbs are finding their way back to the inner city, but this is not always a good thing either. They are uprooting established communities in the process of gentrification and displacing people who may have nowhere else to go. This is why Kozol focuses on the money, because as difficult as it will be to change the way we fund schools, it will be harder to desegregate communities. Kozol makes good sense when he speaks of getting rid of the property tax funding for schools and finding a new way to fund them. If education is supposed to be democratic, and it is, America cannot continue to fund schools this way. The system America has virtually guarantees that parents who can afford to buy big houses in the suburbs will send their children to better schools. For school administrators and all personnel in schools, there are many things to be learned from this book. the most important one is that as educators, we should be fighting for democratic schools. Administrators should be out there fighting the property tax system and leading the charge to find other, more equitable ways to fund schools. Administrators also ought to be required to take a look around at the world. They should be required to visit inner city schools to truly understand what other educators go through on a daily basis. Administrators should value quality teachers all the more after reading this book, and go out of their way to keep their quality teachers. Truly, everyone even thinking about becoming an educator should read a book like this, and visit these schools.   Most of us do not even know what a crisis we are in, right now in America.   And hopefully, future educators will be the ones to fix this crisis. Work Cited Kozol, Jonathan, Savage Inequities, Harper Perennial, 1992.

U.s. History Honors Summer Reading - 2423 Words

U.S. History Honors Summer Reading 1. According to Ellis’s preface, explain what is so phenomenal about the founding of the United States? According to Ellis it is phenomenal that the United States decided to rule as a Republic. Never before in history has a new empire or country ruled as a Republic and succeeded except for the Roman Empire. Also the colonies had no strict adhesive keeping them together as a nation, but they still managed to survive. 2. Analyze what the author calls â€Å"the paradox† of the revolutionary era.†¨ The â€Å"Paradox† of the revolutionary era was a dilemma that can be viewed as â€Å"near-sighted† and â€Å"far-sighted†. These were the two different ways of justifying becoming an independent nation. The people who were more â€Å"far-sighted† could see the many possibilities the nation held in the future and let this influence their actions in attempt to create a completely independent and free nation. However, the â€Å"near-sighted† way was mostly arguing against the authority of Parliament; they were against centralized political powers ruling other areas from faraway places that weren’t under its immediate supervision. 3. Examine some of the criticisms of the Constitutional Convention. Some of the criticisms of the constitutional convention were that, firstly, the Convention went beyond its purpose, to revise the Articles of Confederation, and instead replaced it with an entirely new government. Secondly, that the sessions were held in complete secrecy. This is untrueShow MoreRelatedWelcome to Honolulu, Hawaii Are you wondering about, if is there a place like paradise to visit600 Words   |  3 Pagesis the capital of Hawaii( more than 75% population of Hawaii lives there). Today I am going to tell you about some of the history of this astonishing place, the wonderful beaches that you have to go there, and some other interesting location for you or the tourists to visit. I hope for you to find it interesting as you keep reading about this amazing city of Hawaii. The History of Honolulu, Hawaii, is very interesting. The word Honolulu means shaltred ba or peace of shelter in Hawaiian. ThisRead MoreThe Journey of Crazy Horse1415 Words   |  6 Pagesbuffalo. As Light Hair was growing older, his skills grew close to expert level. In the summer of 1851 his camp moved south closer to Fort Laramie, a checkpoint along the Oregon trial. As Light Hair and is friend, Lone Bear, grew tired of watching the fort there was a meeting with all the neighboring Indian nations and the whites, which would later be the Treaty of Fort Laramie 1851. As summers past, Light Hair was out on a hunting trip as he returned to find a ransacked camp. On the wayRead MoreThe Geography Of Inequality : Why Separate Means Unequal Essay1360 Words   |  6 PagesI was one of the 16.8 million students in the United States that were educated in a suburban school (U.S Department of Education as cited in Anyon, 1997). Fitting nicely into the figure of 90% of student that did not receive free and reduced lunch in the suburban setting (Anyon, 1997). My background, socioeconomic status, race, geography, and culture all have a meaningful impact on who I was as a student and who I now am as a teacher. Geography played a huge part in my experience with K-12 educationRead More Robert E. Lee Essay3612 Words   |  15 Pages Robert E. Lee Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Few episodes in history are more painful to Americans than the Civil War, fought between the North and the South. This biography, Great American Generals - Robert E. Lee, by Ian Hogg, takes the reader through the life of one of the greatest heroes of that war, Robert E. Lee. It is a thorough, in depth record of the life of Lee and begins with a detailed account of his family history and his birth, through his college years, military experience and hisRead MoreMartin Luther King Memorial Essay1993 Words   |  8 Pagesthe newest memorial to be built in Washington D.C. The memorial was finished with construction in the summer of 2011. This memorial celebrates the life of one of the most influential leaders of the Civil Rights era, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is a reminder of Dr. Kings’ powerful impact on the country and even the world. It was only right that a memorial was built in Washington D.C. to honor the life of this powerful man. Dr. Kings’ memorial is located on 1964 Independence Avenue. The streetRead MoreDiscovering Vinland in a Viking Age2002 Words   |  8 Pagesspeech to encourage people never stop discover new possibilities and appreciate to the spirit of exploration. It makes us think of the Leif Erikson, one of the greatest medieval leaders who composed an unbeatable chapter in global history. From the printed-image, the U.S. comm emorative stamp issued on October 9, 1968, named â€Å"Leif Erikson Day†, his gallant shape along with his double-edged sword and rhombus shield, we can tell that Eriksson was the man and legendary explorer who sailed toward an unknownRead MoreGideons Trumpet3150 Words   |  13 PagesEarl Gideon, Defendant. What says the State, are you ready to go to trial in this case? Mr. Harris (William E. Harris, Assistant State Attorney): The State is ready your Honor. The Court: What says the Defendant? Are you ready to go to trial? The Defendant: I am not ready your Honor. The Court: Did you plead not guilty to this charge by reason of insanity? The Defendant: No Sir. The Court: Why aren’t you ready? The Defendant: I have no counsel. The Court: Why do youRead MoreAmerican Colonies : The Settling Of North America By Alan Taylor1776 Words   |  8 PagesStefan Jen Summer 2015 Reading Assignment AP U.S. History American Colonies: The Settling of North America by Alan Taylor Introduction:Why does Alan Taylor believe that it is important to revise our traditional view of colonial history? The American Colonies draw upon three especially productive lines of recent scholarship: an Atlantic perspective, environmental history, and ethno history of colonial and native peoples. Alan Taylor believes in order to understand North America you have to viewRead MoreMichigan State University and Texas Christian University Essay1805 Words   |  8 PagesMichigan State University Michigan State University is located in East Lansing, Michigan.It is a public research university. The colors of Michigan State University are green and white. Michigan is affected by the Great Lake’s region, winter and summer climate is moderate. Currently, Michigan State Universitys campus covers a total of 5,200 acres, of which two thousand acres have been developed. A total of 556 buildings on campus: where 100 academic purposes, 131 for agricultural purposesRead MoreTomb of the Unknown Soldier4192 Words   |  17 PagesPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania and was erected in 1866 to honor those soldiers who died during the American Civil War. The history of Tomb of Unknown Soldier begins in modern times in 1920. A Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was erected while burying an unknown soldier who had fallen, unidentified, during the First World War. The soldier was buried to commemorate all of the unknown soldiers and was laid to rest in the famous Westminster Abbey. Throughout history, Westminster Abbey has been the burial place for