Mental Health Archives - Live Life Liberated

Acceptance in an Ever Changing World

Acceptance is not inherently good or bad, it just is. So while this means sometimes we must dig up uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, it does not mean we have to dwell on them.

In our ever changing world there is nothing more comfortable than the familiar. Routine, nostalgia, and tradition give us a sense of stability, especially in times where life seems to be moving too fast. Familiarity however, goes beyond these things, it also has a powerful effect on our mind. Once we find ourselves with a comfortable thought or idea, it becomes very challenging to let go of it. Although in the short term this gives us great comfort, it could mean catastrophe for our ability to learn and grow. I believe that we have a powerful tool to combat this stagnation, and I believe that tool is acceptance.

Now there are a lot of ways one could define acceptance, the way I will define it here is “The allowance of a thought or idea to exist in the mind without repression or judgement.” There are many thoughts that we have, some good, and some bad. When I say without judgement that isn’t to say the thought itself should not but judged, but that its existence should not be. For instance I may have the thought “I am a bad person, people do not like me.” this thought is inherently negative and I don’t believe it should be given much credence, however, it should also be allowed to exist in the mental space without repression. This allows us to have a wider perspective on our thought process, and be more in tune with our own thinking. From that point of hearing the thought out, I can then decide whether or not it is important to listen to, in this case I decide it isn’t, and let it fade away of its own volition.

I have been practicing acceptance a lot lately, I find it has brought me a lot of peace. For myself, it usually involves emotional acceptance. I find personally I push feelings away, usually with prejudice, as opposed to letting them have their space. So the way I have been practicing is when I notice an emotion, is to simply let it exist, acknowledging its presence and the fact that it is temporary. This technique works for a lot of things besides emotions. Accepting differences in opinions, shameful thoughts or feelings, and events that have occured can bring a powerful change to life. With that said however, there is a large caveat that you must be on the lookout for.

Acceptance is not inherently good or bad, it just is. So while this means sometimes we must dig up uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, it does not mean we have to dwell on them. When first practicing this way of thinking I found myself stuck in a rut many times. I would just keep dwelling on negative events from the past. This is not acceptance, but only the opposite of ignorance. With acceptance it is important to allow things to just exist as they are, then to deal with them in that state.

I spoke earlier of our fast moving world and of comfort. I believe that many times when the world changes around us, we do not accept our new reality. This could be as small as not accepting an outsiders opinion, to something as large as not accepting the death of a loved one. Either way if we do not accept change as it comes then we will never adapt to our new reality, and thus we will never grow. It may be painful, it may be uncomfortable, or maybe even exciting but I believe that acceptance is the way towards exiting our comfort zone and truly growing into wiser people.

The Paper

Image Credit: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com

Paper, a simple invention. It is the representation of its writer’s power. This power can hold us back, or it can encourage us to take the next step. It can let us see with clear vision, or with no vision at all.

Yet I am not looking to write a post on the abstract power of paper. Instead, I hope to address one paper. A simple paper, single-sided, Times New Roman, double-spaced, and equipped with just the right-sized headers. Every six months I faced this paper. And every six months I faced the same issue. I was “forced,” more forced by myself than anyone else, to lie my way through the semi-annual depression screening.

The questions would always begin harmless. Have you had a poor appetite? Do you feel tired? Simple questions, but the simple answers are not what they are after. As clear as an inverse relation graph can show, with each question growing in significance, my confidence got smaller and smaller. The time between each question extended rapidly. Questions like, Have you been feeling hopeless about the future? and Have you been feeling blue? became trickier to maneuver.

This trend continued until I was stuck. I was stuck debating whether to answer with how I felt or with how I should have felt. What I actually thought or what I was told to think. I usually solved this issue by turning to my mother. She told me what I should think. She was good at that, always has been. She told me the excuses I needed to hear to feel normal. With her help I was able to maneuver and lie through the questions successfully for years.

Years went by and paper after paper I was faced with the same questions over and over again. Each time I read them, they got worse. Severity grew from 4 to 5, which later grew to 6 and then to 7. Questions that I could once confidently check off became questionable. Questions that were questionable now became impossible. Impossible until the normal was gone. Until the moment I accepted that I may just be “abnormal” after all.

On that day, that day when I accepted my “abnormality”, I looked at the paper and I answered the questions. I answered them all. It felt good to tell the truth. I didn’t really know why, but I just felt satisfied. Not an hour after leaving the office, I received a call from the nurse who gave me my semi-annual paper. I heard concern in her voice. Over the phone, she asked if I knew what I had written, how I had answered and what it meant. I said of course I do. She asked if I was getting help. And I said of course I was. She said okay, have a nice day, and hung up.

That was it. Years of fear from telling the truth… for that. For a two-minute phone call. It is amazing how extreme our imagination can inflate these situations. I mean come on, I was expecting something. No screaming or crying on the phone in protest of my answers? Not even a call to my parents informing them of my possible condition? Nothing.

Fear can be such an unnecessary emotion. Fear is the anticipation of pain and danger. Normal is also such a relative and frustrating word. Therefore, it can be concluded that fear from not being normal could quite possibly be the most pointless source of pain for anyone experiencing it.

Many people in this world live their day to day lives in fear of pointless social norms. In fear of standing out, and being vulnerable. These fears are destructive and limiting. I don’t know if they can be erased, but I believe they can be addressed.

I used to think sadness was weakness, so I lied. Now, I see it as neither good or bad, it just is. Instead, the power lies in the truth. The truth was that I was depressed, and the truth was not going to go anywhere until I addressed its power in the first place. Don’t let fear hold you from the truth because without our truths comes merely the power of our representation rather than ourselves.

Seeking Emotional Balance

A few months ago I began writing a journal. I would write one entry every day after lunch. People had told me that keeping a journal can be wonderfully therapeutic, I had never quite understood why. At first journaling seemed tedious, so much writing just to have a record of an average day.

I began the process in mid December and every day made sure to note two things; How I was feeling that day, and how I thought I would feel the following day.

The first week I found nothing special, it was as I had expected it would be. Following that week however, I caught myself thinking, “I’ve been in a real rut, I’ve felt this way for a while now.” then I realized that I can check my sources. I went back to the journal and read an account of how I was feeling a week before, and sure enough, I saw much more fluctuation in mood than I had expected.

Before journaling I was aware that our moods fluctuate pretty heavily, but I didn’t realize how permanent those moods could actually feel.

As I continued journaling I saw more mounting evidence of this phenomenon. There would be many times where I would predict that I’d stay in a bad mood for a long time and yet it would clear up within a couple of days.

What was interesting is this feeling was not mood dependant, whether the mood was good or bad it always felt more permanent than it was. Now of course this is anecdotal, but I would venture to say that I am not the only one who experiences this.

I believe that this phenomenon has a profound effect on the emotional balance we try to maintain in our lives.

Some people suffer tremendously wondering whether or not they will ever feel happy again in times of great sadness. Some people cling to the happiness they felt before so strongly that they don’t realize it is causing them pain. I’ve been both of these people before, as I feel most people have.

If we could just remember how fluidly our moods flow then we could start to find more stability in ourselves. Gaining this perspective has two components. To begin, one must record where there mood is consistently, daily recording is ideal. Following this, one must also make sure to reflect and truly represent how they are feeling at that given time.

In times of trouble I have found this to be a great help, though not a cure to emotional troubles it definitely helps bring perspective and ease some emotional pain.

Thoughts on the matter? Let’s discuss in the comments.

Just How Different is our Physical and Mental Health?

Imagine if broken limbs were treated the same as mental illness. A world where broken limbs were never talked about. One where a broken leg was ignored and avoided in all conversation rather than met with understanding and sympathy. One where a student’s cast was hidden under his jacket rather than being signed by all his peers with rainbow-colored markers.

Mental illness is a worldwide problem that leads to millions of deaths every year, but it appears that nobody is discussing it. Well let me clarify, scientists and mental health experts are talking about it… but what about everyone else? Conversationally, in day to day life, this topic doesn’t seem to exist. There seems to be no casual way to bring up one’s schizophrenia, or no simple understanding of how to talk about depression.

The ironic part of these illnesses is that they are no scarier than the flu when broken down. The flu is a disease that infects anywhere from five to twenty percent of Americans each year (CDC Foundation). Of those infected people, approximately two hundred thousand are hospitalized and thirty-six thousand die (Wiegman, 2012). This disease infects the body so that it can no longer function properly and will sometimes result in death if it is not treated properly.

Mental illnesses work in a similar fashion. Using depression as an example, this is a disease that affects the brain of its victim so that the natural flow of emotions is limited to unrelenting sadness. With approximately seven percent of the American population suffering at least one major depressive disorder each year, it would appear that this issue is a lot more common than first anticipated. With experts estimating that thirty to seventy percent of suicide deaths are due to depression (Koskie, 2018), which is the tenth leading cause of death in America (Nichols, 2017), it would appear depression alone is as deadly as the flu.

Why are these two diseases treated differently? Why is one disease as socially accepted as a broken body part that just needs time to heal, when the other is treated as an unnecessary cry for help? I believe the answer lies in the fact that one affects the respiratory system, while the other affects the brain. The only difference I can see between these two categories is in the name, health compared to mental health.

The problem I see is that physical health is commonly called health, rather than the specific subcategory it really is. By simply calling it health and not categorizing it, it illustrates the idea that mental health is lesser than physical health. It is this social construct that makes physical health appear to be the true health we must maintain, while mental health is more of an option.

This mindset must end. It must end because people are dying and many of those deaths could have been prevented if we had openly spoken to one another. I am not saying that mental illness can be cured simply by talking, but I’m saying it is a start. It is a start to see mental illness at its face value, as a disease and not a weakness. I believe the day we feel comfortable enough to talk about our mental issues is the day they begin to go away because once everyone starts talking we will realize just how alike we all are.

Seeing mental illness for what it really is might rid the shame and guilt that so many people feel their entire lives till the day they die. We will all begin to see just how powerful these many illnesses are that exist in the shadows of everyday life. Rather than having a world where broken limbs are in some way superior to mental illness, let’s have a world where all illnesses are as accepted as easily as a broken limb.

Work Cited
CDC Foundation. “Flu Prevention.” CDC Flu Infographic, www.cdcfoundation.org/businesspulse/flu-prevention-infographic.

Wiegman, Stacy. “How Many People Get the Flu Each Year? | Cold and Flu.” Sharecare, 2012, www.sharecare.com/health/cold-and-flu/how-common-is-influenza.

Koskie, Brandi. “Depression: Facts, Statistics, and You.” Health Line, 2018, www.healthline.com/health/depression/facts-statistics-infographic.

Nichols, Hannah. “The Top 10 Leading Causes of Death in the United States.” Medical News Today, MediLexicon International, 23 Feb. 2017, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php.

Can Expecting Happiness Ruin It?

Image result for really happy families on christmas

Looks like it’s that time of the year again. Where Santa Claus runs wild, capitalism does what it does best, and an unnecessarily large meal is served. Exciting, right? To an extent it is. But at the same time, it isn’t.

From what I’ve experienced, the holidays bring this expectation of a perfect, happy family gathering around a large meal where we have exciting, loving conversations. All holding hands, singing kumbaya as one, the best people in the whole world gather together and have a lovely meal together. But… that’s how it works. That isn’t reality.

No family is happy at all moments of the day and they most certainly aren’t always civil with each other. And at least for me, it can be awkward sometimes. The bonds of family are unique. With most other relationships sharing common interests and/or goals as the central force holding everything together, family operates a bit differently. Instead with a commonality of blood, biology and last names, no family is guaranteed to be as perfect as the Brady Bunch.

With this high expectation, it is common to feel as though the holidays are a time of inevitable disappointment since they are rarely as perfect as we make them out to be. My question is why is this the case? Why do we put these pressures on ourselves? Why do we feel that any emotion other than happiness is an issue, especially during the holidays? It seems we have this idea that if something is not living up to its expectation, then it’s a complete bust. That if we’re not happy, then we are the problem, not the expectation.

I believe the problem lies not just in happiness, but in the expectation we have for all emotions. When people die, we expect everyone to be somber and grief-stricken. When you ace a test, we expect people to rejoice, but at the same time maintain a certain level of humbleness. Take the Amanda Knox case for example. According to police, she wasn’t mourning the death of her roommate in the way they felt that she should, which then caused them to accuse her of the murder of her roommate. Even with no evidence, no motive, and a strong alibi, Amanda Knox and her boyfriend were prosecuted for a crime they did not commit, all because they did not mourn in an acceptable way.

So not only are our expectations of emotions affecting the success of the holidays, but it is also affecting the way we act on a day to day basis. We let these expectations control our thoughts, emotions, and actions. They dictate our norms and make us only show and address the feelings we are supposed to. I believe this is why “negative” feelings are mostly ignored and never revisited. Not only does this cause a level of numbness, but it also causes an inability to truly address and heal the problems we experience.

The thing that many people forget is that sadness exists for a reason. We biologically learned to feel sadness so that we could properly feel a certain way when things that matter to us are taken away. It creates an understanding of what we care about and what is worth fighting over. To not have sadness would mean nothing could get you sad. Nothing could disappoint you, nothing could bother you, but most importantly, nothing could matter. Something not worth fighting for is nothing at all. And a world with nothing is definitely one I don’t plan to live in.

So yes, holidays are filled with ridiculous expectations. And yes, most families do not meet or experience anything close to how we feel the holidays should be. But this doesn’t mean that they should be tainted or unenjoyable. We just simply need to let go of expectations and take advantage of the fact that we live in a subjective world. To let our emotions be present no matter the situation and address them accordingly. Whether it be getting ready for the inlaws, or waiting for Santa to do his thing, just remember that you should feel however you want to feel, not how you’re meant to feel.

Conscious Reflection

It had to have been around mid spring, I left a routine therapy appointment and just kept staring up at the treetops lining my way home, immersed in thought. Throughout the course of the session, I tried to recount the parts of my life that brought me the most joy. As I thought about this I realized that there were things I loved doing, such as writing and playing music, yet I never made any time for them. I wondered to myself “Why? Why have I not been seeking out the things that I enjoy?”. I soon realized that most of the time I am not putting active thought into improving my life, but instead am sitting idle and letting life pass me by. It was then, on that walk back home from the therapist that the importance of self reflection really hit me.

Around two years ago I became dead set on becoming a clinical psychiatrist. Following that decision I began constructing a plan on how to get there, I laid out all the steps early on and stayed true to them for quite some time. Plans change. It is not in the nature of life to be predictable, there are always obstacles that go unaccounted for. It is when we come to face these obstacles that self reflection is most important.

I should probably clarify what I mean by self reflection. I use this term to say “Using full concentration to look into oneself in order to discover personal motivations and to answer questions that could not have be answered with simple or casual thought.” I find myself reflecting on life constantly, but what is interesting is that much of this time spent reflecting is not done consciously. Most of the time I find myself really digging deep is when I’m listening to a powerful song, or when I’m out taking a walk. These times of effortless deep thought are vital to mental health, and to making important life decisions, however they are not what I really want to focus on here. Instead, I want to focus on the deep thought conjured up by conscious effort and determination.

We are the sculptors our our own lives, and much like nature itself, our lives are very fluid. If we have the will, and the resources, we can mold our lives into any shape that we find fitting. It’s a tragedy when one decides that they will be complacent to the ebb and flow of life, they will let their life be molded for them in any way that life takes them. I allowed my life to be molded for me for a long time. I created my plan of action and made no effort to change it, no effort to account for the slings and arrows of life.

What a wake up call it was that day walking out of my therapists office realizing that during all that time I was making no effort to fight my depression at all. It had never dawned on me that the plan I had set for myself was not concrete and that I could actually revise it to account for my own mental health. If I had taken the time to sit, to think, and to open myself up to new possibilities not only would I have been less depressed in that time, but I would have achieved my goal more efficiently as well.

I think reflection is great for mental health but it’s also great in terms of productivity. Life becomes a lot easier if one sits down to ask, “Are there things that bother me? Can those things be fixed?”. In my car the rear-view mirror began chipping away, and although functional, it drove me fuckin’ mad. To end my insanity I just had to buy a replacement online. I did a twenty minute installation and voula, my driving experience improved tenfold. This is a minor example, but it shows that there are so many things in life that cause such minor annoyances, and we never realize that there’s a fix until we really sit down and take the time to think about it.

The beginning of the day is the hardest time for me. Depression seems to thrive the more one has to think about the future, for me that’s thinking about the day ahead. I fight this, however, with some effortful thought. I think on what I would enjoy the most that day and how I can get it. I reflect on times that were good and remind myself that times can be good again. As I dig deeper into myself I come to understand ways to improve my life, and through those improvements life becomes a little more bearable. What I’m saying here is, sculpt your life, all it takes is a little time and a wish to move forward. After you’ve done this, sit back and take a look at your sculpture again, you just may find it looks a little bit better.

Making Your Dreams A Reality

Just do it! Yes, you already know what type of post this is. Buckle up for yet another motivational speech on how you should follow your dreams. And I know you have probably already heard this a million times, but this time it is coming from me and honestly, it’s important to hear.

So where was I? Oh yeah, just do it! I swear it is that simple. I am a firm believer in doing what we set our minds to. Not only does it build reliability and trust between people, but I feel it will also lead to a more motivated individual. By setting a goal and not allowing the million excuses that we are capable of creating get in our way, we become more encouraged for another goal since the one before actually paid off.

I suppose you could see it as either a negative or a positive loop. When we set a goal and do it, it encourages us for the next. And so around and around this positive loop grows. Alternatively, if we set a goal and don’t carry it out until the end we may start to feel that we wasted our time. For instance, if one wants to lose weight and sets a goal to work out every morning for thirty minutes, the negative loop begins on that sixth day when they tell themself they’re too tired. Feeling guilty all day, they then have a bad night’s sleep, wake up tired again and the excuse repeats. Circling lower and lower, just as positive loops form, so do negative ones.

This is why when we set goals I really can not exaggerate the significance of carrying that act through. Goals, in other words, are personal promises and just as when you break a promise with someone else, you lose trust in yourself as the promise is broken. Not only that but goals and motivation can also make your dreams come true. You can actually turn the “someday” into today.

Here’s a personal example: Last year I was majoring in industrial systems engineering. I found the major to be a good fit for my skill set, as well as a safe major to choose. The likelihood of me getting a job once I graduated was very high. Yet there was a problem, reducing costs in a factory is not my dream. My dream is to help people. Not in the sense that I wanted to be a therapist or a social worker, but instead that I would work to improve the lives of thousands through societal change. I have found problems within our society as a whole and wish to help change them for the better.

Now at first, the dream seemed like a fairy tale. The magical Jake West will float around and spread his pixie dust on the world until all of the sadness has vanished. I will not deny that at first it was a fictional story, one that had little practicality to it. A story that was simply a thought, and nothing more. Then, in one moment, no different than the moment before, that fairy tale became a reality. One day I decided I had had enough pretending like I would be okay with simply working for a paycheck. One day I made my decision, I was going to try to help the world.

Getting right to work, my first thought was what I wanted to do, followed by how I was going to make it happen. By visiting six different academic departments and switching my major more times than I can count, I finally created a plan that was logical and ideal. I am currently a major in statistics and sociology with the intention to become a social researcher in an effort to bring about political change. I knew what I wanted to do, and I made it happen.

I feel as though many of us look at this career issue the wrong way. I see a majority of students picking a logical career and then finding their purpose within it. I propose that we find our purpose and then make it logical. Without purpose, no job is logical. Without purpose comes lack of motivation for that job, and personally I do not care how much work you put into a career you have no interest in, if you do not care about your job, then the business will not care about you.

I do what I set my mind to because if I do not, then I will never do anything difficult. I will never reach for the stars, because unless I try it will always seem impossible. This is why I will say one last time, just do it. Understand that a dream is possible if you believe it is possible. Yes, you will probably have to modify this dream. Yes, you will probably have to compromise. Yes, you may get paid a whole lot less, but I truly believe it will be worth it.

At the end of your life, you are not judged by the money you make, or by the number of wins you have. You are only judged by yourself. You judge how you lived your life and what you succeeded in, that meant something to you. Pursue your dreams because if you do not then why would you have them in the first place.

My Celiac Story

Image result for river

I woke up feeling amazing. Taking a deep breath, I let the fresh Alaskan air fill my lungs. Hearing the crackle of a nearby fire, I knew breakfast would be ready soon. Unzipping my family’s four-person tent with a smile, I stepped out into the sixty-degree wilderness. The sun was bright, the clouds had left the sky, and the river continued its hectic, yet organized pursuit downhill.

I was on my family’s Alaskan white-water rafting trip. Finally basking in the sunlight, my year of nervous anticipation seemed well worth it. Preparing to start another amazing day, a sense of peace fell over my body. I believed at the time it was from the fresh air or the feeling of the wild. But no matter the reason, all I cared to know was that I simply felt better and stronger with every day that passed. And when it finally ended, the trip left me with a feeling of true happiness, a feeling I lost touch with a few months prior.

Integrating back into normal upstate New York society, I steadily began to lose my high spirits and drive. I felt myself returning to a passive, empty state. The feeling that my naive mind had thought I had overcome.

Returning to my normal schedule, I went to visit my psychologist. I visited
her every week to discover the source of this feeling of emptiness that slowly ate at me. She was alright. Mostly focusing on childhood issues and daily inconveniences, you know, the therapy things, we would get nowhere fast as the minutes rolled by.

That day we spoke about my emotions throughout the trip. I explained how I felt like my old self. For those five days, I returned to my cheerful self and badly wanted the feeling to return. We shared thoughts and possible reasons and explanations, nothing really stuck.

After the session, that same night, I found myself up late pondering the simple question, “What changed? What had changed since the trip and where I was now?” And that’s when an idea struck me. Only a guess, yet enough to give me hope. Other than the obvious lack of excitement in my daily life, I realized a difference in my diet.

My mother was diagnosed as a celiac ten years prior to the trip. Since space on the raft was limited, we only packed gluten free food. Therefore, for the first time in my life, I was not eating gluten. On top of that, I remembered how my mother felt prior to her diagnosis. She described a feeling as if she were slowly dying, and eventually went to the doctors assuming she must have a form of cancer. They quickly ran tests and determined she had Celiac Disease. This meant that any ingestion of gluten acted as a poison in her body. I believed this could be my solution, so within days my blood was being tested to possibly cure my growing feeling of emptiness.

The results came in a week later and my problem was cured. I instantly stopped eating gluten without a single complaint. Everyone was surprised with how well I was dealing with the situation, but what they didn’t realize was how thankful I was for it. Within days I felt my body regain strength and drive. I felt amazing again, like I had on the Alaskan river. I felt in control. By the next week I stopped going to the psychologist and started living my life with my head up again.

There are still times I feel empty like before. I feel as if whatever eats at me isn’t completely gone and never will be, yet now I have the strength to control it. Whatever sadness I thought was beyond my control could now be tamed.

From this experience I learned to never give up. I learned that there is always a solution and that I just need to continue looking for it.

I also learned the value in things. Little problems don’t affect me like many of my peers. I’ve learned that life will have its challenges and to just laugh through them because happiness is the most important trait to have. If I can maintain my joy in life I can solve any problem and overcome any challenge I face. So, what about you?

Everyone has their own demons and challenges. We can either run from them or we can conquer them. We can own them. I learned how to fight mine and fight I did. This fight will never end, but the more weapons I can bring to this fight, the better off I will be.

So, what weapons do you have? What weapons do you plan on getting? Only you can fight for your happiness. Others can show you the way to happiness, but it is you who will take those steps. Therefore, get your weapons, find your path and start exploring. Life is a constant war, but the more you fight and the more you win, the closer you will be to nirvana when that war finally ends. Nirvana is not in the clouds, it is all around us.

Feeling for Now, Thinking for Later

We live in a very high stakes world where wasting anything is rarely practical. Capital, time, love, or anything else that we value requires us to plan ahead so that we can use it efficiently as our life unfolds.

Our current economy makes us work for and save our capital to survive. And this currency pays for everything, so we treat it with care. So yeah, you might wanna go downtown and buy shots for the whole bar, but you typically don’t. It’s not logical for your future happiness to spend like this because unless you are Bill Gates, you will not enjoy how your bank account looks the next day.

Other examples include time and love. Same as capital, these are things we must value and treat with care as well. In some cases, one can be in a great relationship with a significant other, yet have to end it. It has to end because although it may be good at the moment, it won’t be in the future.

Trying to benefit our future selves is simply something we must consider to live a long, happy life. The problem is we do not live in the future, we live in the present. I don’t know about you, but the “now me” hardly even aligns with the future me. Yes, I probably should not spend the rest of the night watching Netflix, but if the mood strikes, now me might do it anyways.

We are creatures of the moment. In short, it is because for thousands of years, the present is really all that mattered. It was not until recently that our biggest fears went from a bear eating us to not having an updated resume. Being in the moment and feeling in the moment makes sense, but it can also make life incredibly difficult. It is a lot harder being a motivated blog writer when my stomach keeps reminding me that I haven’t eaten all day.

My confusion on this topic branches from the idea of where this “logical” side is even derived from. I use quotes because if we do live in the moment, then why are our future actions the ones we care about? And what is to say that these “logical” actions are even going to help our future selves?

I believe the answer is that life is a gamble. We take actions for our future self because, theoretically, our impending self will eventually become our present self. We do not know for sure, but that is where the statistics and logic come in. I can die at any moment in my life, but statistically speaking it won’t. So, if I won’t die soon, then I should probably plan for my future self. The best way to do so is by evaluating the important parts of my life now and taking the necessary steps to increase my chances of achieving them in the future.

There is no guarantee any of these plans will work, but what is guaranteed in life? This lack of guarantee is why I believe both our present self and future self matter. A balance, in my opinion, will ensure the happiest, most fulfilling life.

I encourage you to balance your life. You should strive to make your present self happy, but also understand that sometimes your present self needs to suck it up so that your future self can hopefully be happy as well. You probably shouldn’t shop online until your credit card breaks, but maybe if that is really what you want to do then put a limit on your card, and find the best bang for your buck after a long day of work.

I believe we should shoot to optimize how happy we are. Sometimes that may involve going out with friends or it may involve working a late-night shift. We live in the present, and I’m okay with that. We need to learn how to balance our now selves so that our future selves will be happy as well.

How to Develop Empathy

Let me begin this post by stating the fact that I love kids. Having said that, I was wondering if anyone else has noticed that kids can be little psychos.

I have been a lifeguard for the City of Glens Falls for the last three summers. The job essentially entails card games, eavesdropping on people’s conversations and the occasional save. I mean, it’s not my fault. I am literally paid to watch these people play in the water. Therefore is it only natural to hear the occasional small talk.

One day I was listening to a conversation between a mother and her son when a realization dawned on me. As I watched the son, once again, splash his mother in the face after repeatedly told not to, she responded with an ultimatum. Either splash me again and we go home, or stop splashing me and have fun. In response, the son whipped as much white water into his mother’s face as possible. His mom, infuriated, told him to sit on the sand and that they were going home. The son walked up to the beach and began to cry.

As he sobbed, I noticed that the intensity of his tears was directly connected to whether his mother was looking at him. As the mother began to collect the other children, the displeased son would dramatically increase his sadness with every glance the mother gave him. Finally, after a minute, the mother could not stand her son’s emotional state and told him he could get back in the water if he did not splash her again. With instant joy and achievement, the son bounded into the water and was back to having the time of his life. Not ten minutes later did I witness him splash his mother again as the cycle began once more.

It was at this time that a realization hit me harder than any belly flop I have ever been paid to witness. That disobedient son was simply playing his hand. He knew that his mother didn’t want to be splashed, and he knew she would threaten to end his fun early. Yet none of this mattered since he also knew that he had the ultimate ace card. He knew a couple of fake tears and a hardcore frowny face could turn her decision right over.

I thought about this for quite some time until I came to the conclusion that our empathy towards others is knowledge that must be learned no different than math or any other subject you learn in high school.

After three years of watching similar showdowns commence, I found that almost all the kids had that same ace that their parents lack. They possess the inability to understand how their actions affect others. They know that their actions will make others sad or happy. Yet they do not feel or truly understand the effect that emotion has on the person’s well being. The son understood that fake crying would make his mother sad. Which would then get her to go against her own statement and allow him to continue having fun. What he couldn’t comprehend was how she felt.

Another example is that these children do not realize the mental consequences of stating that one person is better than the other. I believe this is why little kids are the bluntest tiny humans out there. They simply do not understand what will psychologically happen to these people as they hear the unrelenting truth.

Personally, I have always considered empathy to be a trait that you either have or don’t have. Yet, since we learn it, I now consider it closer to a skill. Nobody teaches you how to feel happiness, but somewhere along the line, we must have been taught how to feel for others. If not taught directly, we may have taught ourselves through life experiences.

And like any skill, some people can learn it quicker and easier than others. People who are labeled as psychopaths, for instance, never learn this skill. Just as some people have the inability to read, these people have the inability to feel for others. On the other end, we have the altruists of society. People are so good at understanding others, they seem to identify with everyone around them as much as themself.

Empathy is the skill to understand how actions will mentally affect others. I think children are little psychos simply because they have not had enough time to learn this skill yet. Like any skill, some kids will learn it before others, or some may even go their whole life not learning it at all. Yet most will learn at their own rate and they will understand the feelings of others more and more with every year that passes.

If empathy is a skill that can be taught, then let us teach it. Yes, some will struggle more than others, but struggle or not we all learned fractions. And if we learn math, then we might as well learn how to care about one another as well. I mean come on, do third graders really need to know how to find the area of a fenced-in backyard or do they need a thorough explanation that other kids feel the same as they do when their toy is taken from them.

We should have a class designed to teach these much needed social skills to these very psycho children. I am not saying to get rid of math, but maybe we have a class called social life. One that teaches us to be empathetic for others. As well as teaches us how to handle breaks ups properly, or explains the ins and outs of awkward conversations. This class would simply teach us how to be mentally stable in a way that makes everyone else feel good as well.

Yes, you can learn these skills on your own, but if I was told to learn math on my own I don’t think I would have made it to triple integrals. I probably would have figured out addition and subtraction and then called it a day. This is how we currently handle these much needed social skills. We learn the basics and then suffer through the rest. I say we fix that, what do you think?

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