Stress Who?

We all get stressed every now and then; especially around this time of year as we’re scrambling to get things ready for the holidays so that winter break can hopefully be relaxing. Stress can be an obstacle that prevents you from doing what you want, and sometimes even being who you want to be. There are many things that can cause stress: school, work, family, friends, social obligations, and countless others. There isn’t any real way to completely avoid stress because it is a part of life that everybody will experience. However, there is good news. Once you have accepted that stress will be part of your life sometimes, you can experiment with a number of different ways to relieve or reduce the amount of stress you have to deal with.

How to Deal
There is no right way to deal with stress because we are all different. Some people find that music (listening to, playing, or singing) is a good way to relieve stress. Others find that just driving around can be a very calming experience. One of my personal favorite ways to alleviate stress is to lose myself in a good movie or tv show and just escape reality for a little bit, because often once I return to it I find that things aren’t as bad as I thought they were. What’s your favorite way of dealing with stress? I’m interested in finding new methods.

How NOT to Deal
Even though there is no right way to deal with stress, there are some wrong ways. Anything that involves hurting yourself or others is an unproductive and dangerous way of handling a stressful situation. If there is any question in your mind whether or not the way you are handling your stress is dangerous, chances are you should find a new method.

When Stress Becomes You
You may be wondering what stress has to do with your identity. Being stressed is an emotion, not something that defines you, right? To a certain extent, yes. However, like any emotion, if you don’t know how to control it, stress can consume you and define how you live your life. Being stressed can lead to problems with your mental and physical health, and can also affect the way that you treat the people around you. As I’m sure you’re aware, people who are under a lot of stress aren’t always the most pleasant to be around. None of us want to be known as that grumpy person, so as an early new year’s resolution let’s promise to find healthy ways to reduce the amount of stress in our lives.

My Life, My Religion

Currently, in my English and History classes, we are studying the Islamic Revolution. We have watched the film Persepolis and are currently reading Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, two different works that teach about Islamic culture and the oppressive regime that the people living in Iran during the Revolution faced. We are also using blogs as a means of information about Islam to get perspectives that we may not get elsewhere. However, not all blogs about Islam are purely for educational purposes, as I found when I stumbled across faithfreedom.org. This blog contained different articles, poems, and charts about the Islamic faith that I found highly offensive. For example, there is a chart labeled “differences between Jesus and Muhammad” that makes Muhammad seem like a heartless murderer and Jesus seem flawless. Even being a Christian who worships Jesus, I have a problem with this chart because the author is skewing the story of Islam to make Muhammad seem to be something he is not.

My Beliefs
For many people, religion is a part of who they are and plays a big role in their daily life. People don’t go around questioning why you have brown eyes and two sisters; they just accept that that’s who you are. So why should your religion be any different? Unfortunately, there are people in this world that think that their way is the only right way, and anybody who disagrees or has a conflicting idea is wrong. There are these closed-minded people in every faith, so there is always going to be somebody who disagrees with your beliefs or values. The important thing to remember is that how somebody else feels about your religion doesn’t matter.

My Choice
What’s really important is that you stay true to your beliefs because they are a big part of your identity. Even if you don’t completely agree with every aspect of your own religion, that is something you should recognize and accept. When people say cruel things about the beliefs that make up who you are, such as the author of faithfreedom.org, it is okay to get mad or feel hurt because it is a very personal attack. However, you can’t allow these cruel words to lead you to question your faith because then you are letting other people decide your identity for you. The judgments that others pass about you or your beliefs can be a limitation to your identity that isn’t always easy to overcome, but stay true to yourself because those strongly-spoken people don’t have any authority to tell you what to believe.

More to Thanksgiving than Turkey

As I’m sure you all know, this past Thursday was Thanksgiving. I find Thanksgiving to be a very interesting holiday because people all across America celebrate it, regardless of their religious beliefs. There are many ways to celebrate this day such as watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, playing a game of football (or watching for those who don’t wish to play), playing games or talking with family and friends, and of course eating a big turkey dinner. However, these aren’t the only ways to celebrate Thanksgiving, and how you choose to spend your holiday can reveal some aspects of your identity.

Just by talking to my friends and seeing what they did for Thanksgiving, I realized that there are a lot of different ways to celebrate holidays. Some went to a relative’s house, some celebrated with neighbors, some had family or friends over to their house, and my family just kept it simple, stayed home, and stayed in our pajamas all day. The different people that we choose to spend our holidays with show the relationships that we highly value in our lives. For instance, my family greatly values closeness within our immediate family, so with my brother home from college we chose to just celebrate as a small family. My friend has many relatives that live in the area, so it is a tradition for them to all gather at one person’s house as a huge group and celebrate together. For others, this important relationship may be with the family next door that they have become very close with, so they choose to celebrate with them.

The different people we choose to surround ourselves with and the things we choose to do on important days such as Thanksgiving show something about us. For instance, I am more comfortable in smaller groups of people, so I celebrated with just my immediate family. I also enjoy just relaxing as a means of entertainment, so my family and I watched a movie together and played a game. However, being part of a family means that you aren’t always going to get your way and sometimes you will have to step outside of your comfort zone on a holiday to make other people happy. There are years that we travel on thanksgiving to go celebrate with a larger group of people, and because I am part of a family, I need to accept that. So, even though we all have personal preferences for how we would like to spend our holidays, sometimes you need to take a step outside your comfort zone to be with the people who make you who you are.

Happiness: What is it to you?

Every Tuesday night at seven o’clock, I go into my basement and turn on the CW to watch One Tree Hill, a favorite television program of mine. I like watching this show because it’s full of drama, both good and bad, and it lets me escape to an alternate world for an hour. Usually, once it’s over I go back upstairs into reality to finish my homework and head to bed. However, this past Tuesday I was left with a quote in my head that has been stuck there until now. One of the characters, Julian, said to his fiancé,

“I feel like people get lost when they think of happiness as a destination. We’re always thinking someday we’ll be happy, that we’ll get that job or that car or that person in our lives that will fix everything. But happiness is a mood. And it’s a condition, not a destination. It’s like being tired or hungry. It’s not permanent. It comes and goes, and that’s okay. And I feel that if people thought of it that way they’d find happiness a lot more often.”

This quote really stood out to me because it’s something that I had never really thought about before. But, once I started thinking about it, I realized that the way that you view something as seemingly simply as happiness can largely affect your identity.

Something in the Distance
People who view happiness as a destination are often very ambitious because they are trying to accomplish some far off goal that will ultimately bring them happiness. However, this ambition often overshadows the small victories that this person makes along the way, depriving them of the little joys in life. These people are usually in a rush to get certain “unpleasant” aspects of their lives over with, but they forget to stop and be thankful for every moment of their time on Earth.

Going With the Flow
People who view happiness as a condition or mood are usually more easygoing and have an easier time accepting change or hard times because they know that they will find happiness again. These people are good at finding the silver lining in situations that may seem hopeless. Often times, viewing happiness as a condition rather than a destination allows for the enjoyment of every day, rather than wishing to pass over precious time just because you are waiting for something great to happen.

Where Am I?
I don’t believe that there are many people in the world that strictly fit into one category or the other. We all have our moments when we forget to enjoy the time we have because we are looking forward to something else. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious; you just need to remember not to let the road to accomplishing a goal get in the way of noticing the other great things that happen to you along the way. Viewing happiness as a condition isn’t an extremely difficult thing to do if you consciously try. My challenge for you this week is to be aware of the way you view happiness, and try to think of it as a condition that comes and goes, not something to strive for someday. In the words of Julian, if you can do this, you will “find happiness a lot more often.”

If you still find yourself struggling to be happy, check out this blog post by Gretchen Rubin about 10 Common Happiness Mistakes.

Cruelty Through A Computer

As you may know, this October was declared “Anti-Bullying Awareness Month” because of the recent high rate of suicides among young people due to cyber-bullying. I was watching the news and was horrified to hear the stories of people such as Tyler Clementi taking their own lives due to their peers abusing the internet in order to bully them. Not all cyber-bullying is as visible to the public as the video that was posted of Tyler Clementi, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. With Facebook, texting, instant messaging, Twitter, and a number of other social networks easily accessible to people of all ages, teenagers and even younger children have the capability to say whatever they want to whomever at the push of a button. This form of bullying can be even more dangerous than a physical encounter with a bully because people will very often say things online that they wouldn’t be able to say to a person’s face.

It is completely normal to want to fit in with your peers and feel accepted, but some people value popularity too highly and will put others down if it means getting to the top. There are certain social stereotypes such as being pretty, funny, or athletic that seem to make a person more “socially acceptable” in middle school and high school. Once a person feels like they do not fit into these stereotypes, their self confidence slowly deteriorates and they would give anything to just feel like they belong. But often times, those people who deem themselves the more “socially acceptable” will cut others down and make sure that they feel like they are not good enough in order to try to make themselves look good and remain the “popular” ones. Many experts believe that bullying is actually a sign of a person with major insecurities, but that is no excuse for them to treat others as if they are lesser beings. This combination of teens with an already negative self-image and peers that prey on pointing out the flaws of others causes a dangerous situation to arise. Add a computer into the mix, and it gets even worse.

If there is one concept that you take away from reading this blog post, I want it to be tolerance: tolerance for people’s differences, tolerance for what you don’t understand, tolerance for the identities of the people around you. We all have things that we would like to change about ourselves because nobody is perfect, but those imperfections are a part of your identity that you should embrace rather than try to hide. You are going to encounter people in your lifetime that will say things to you for the sole purpose of making you look bad and making themselves look good. I wish that we could make everybody see the importance of tolerance, but unfortunately not everybody will listen, and we can’t make them. But what we can do is try to stop criticizing ourselves; and even more importantly, try to ignore those who criticize us. I know that is much easier said than done, but it is a challenge that I hope you will all take on.

If you are in a situation where somebody is bullying you to the point that ignoring them seems impossible, remember that you are not alone. Here are some places that you can turn to for help:

http://www.samaritans.org/

http://metanoia.org/suicide/

http://www.wahijournal.org/?p=2479

Those Things That Hurt, Instruct

This past Friday night, I went to my Great-Aunt’s house for a memorial dinner to honor the life of her son who passed away a few short weeks ago. As my family and I approached the house, I felt uneasy and unsure of how to act or what to say to my grieving Aunt because just imagining what she was going through broke my heart. Much to my surprise, as I opened the door to the house and went inside, I was surrounded by the sound of people talking and laughing and the smell of roast beef sandwiches. I found my Aunt in the kitchen, talking to other relatives without a tear in her eyes. I soon discovered that my Aunt was grieving the loss of her son by celebrating his life, rather than mourning his death, and for this I greatly admire her. Everybody deals with loss in their own way, whether that may be crying until you feel like you’ve run out of tears, laughing the pain away, or an infinite number of other options.

As I have mentioned in my previous blog posts The Limitation of Language and Monkey See, Monkey Do, I am currently reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver in my twelfth grade English class. The characters in the novel are faced with death a number of times as the native Congolese children often die of malaria or the sleeping sickness. The Congolese mothers are obviously upset by the loss of their children, but these deadly diseases are so common in Africa that they have learned to cope with loss through rituals. However, the Price family from Georgia is not accustomed to the loss of children, so when their youngest family member, Ruth May, is killed by the venom of a poisonous snake, their family takes a hard hit and each family member copes with her death differently. Her father, Nathan, uses religion as an escape from any emotional reaction to her death and begins to baptize the native children. Her mother, Orleanna, immediately begins preparing Ruth May for burial and packing up all of her family’s belongings, staying busy to avoid her emotions. She says, “As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water” (381). Even years after Ruth May’s death, her sister Leah continues to grieve by mourning her on the anniversary of her death. Leah’s Congolese husband Anatole does not sympathize with Leah’s pain because he doesn’t see Ruth May’s death any differently than the deaths of the other children in the village and deals with loss inwardly. Anatole says to Leah, “Why do you think your sadness is so special? Children died every day in Kilanga. They are dying here and now” (430). This causes Lean to become upset with Anatole because he seems to be dismissing Ruth May’s importance, but in reality he cared very much for Ruth May and just deals with loss in a different way than Leah.

The way that people deal with loss says a lot about their identity. Those who are more sensitive and open with their emotions tend to cry and talk about how they are feeling, while those who are more comfortable keeping their emotions to themselves will hold their pain inside and deal with it by keeping busy or isolating themselves from the world around them. However you deal with your grief, it is important to do so in a healthy manner that doesn’t involve hurting yourself or others. Grief can be a large limitation to your identity that is very difficult to overcome, but there are ways to use your grief to make you a stronger person. The title of this post is a quote by Benjamin Franklin, “Those things that hurt, instruct.” The message conveyed by this quotation is powerful because it suggests that you try to overcome the pain of a situation and see what you can learn from it. I’m not saying that this is by any means an easy thing to do, but it is a skill that we all should strive for.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I tend to be a bit of a people-watcher. So, as I sat in church this morning, I looked around me and observed the other people in the room. I noticed that there were a lot of families sitting in the pews, many of which were obviously related because the kids looked like miniature versions of their parents. However, there was one blonde, curly-haired little girl that stood out to me. She was sitting with who I presumed to be her mother, father, and two older brothers, all of whom had straight, dark hair. I know there are many genetic explanations for how this little girl ended up looking so different from the rest of her family, or that she could be adopted, or perhaps not even a member of that family at all; but in my imagination she was the daughter of the man and woman in front of me and I was perplexed by her outward appearance. At that point, although I should have been paying attention to the sermon and for that I am sorry, I began to think that even though she may not look like her parents, maybe she has her mother’s laugh, or her father’s love for sports, or a number of other non-visible traits she could have inherited from them. One thought led to another and eventually I started to think about how profound an effect parents have on the people that their children turn out to be, whether they mean to or not.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I am currently reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver in my twelfth-grade English class. The parents in this story are Nathan and Orleanna Price, a reverend from Georgia and his timid wife. They have four daughters, all of whom are very different and are affected by their parents in their own ways. The daughter most obviously affected by them is one of their twins, Leah. Leah is the most religious of all the daughters because she idolizes her father and knows how dear his religion is to him. She follows Nathan around and wants nothing more than his approval. When Nathan asks Leah a question that she doesn’t know the answer to, she gets very down on herself and thinks, “If only I could ever bring forth all that I knew quickly enough to suit father” (37). Nathan never praises Leah, yet she feels the constant need to please him. This is clear when she says, “I know that someday, when I’ve grown large enough in the Holy Spirit, I will have his wholehearted approval” (42). Although Nathan is rarely loving or kind to Leah, she looks up to him because he is constantly imposing his views and values upon his family, while Orleanna sits back and lets him take control. Nathan is rude and controlling towards Orleanna, so as their daughters observe their interactions, they learn to accept that their father is in charge. Although Orleanna doesn’t seem to affect Leah as much as Nathan because Leah doesn’t worship her, by not setting a good example of how to be an independent and strong woman, she teaches Leah that it is okay to live her life the way a man tells her to.

Especially at a young age, children are very impressionable and will often mimic whatever examples are set for them. If a child is brought up in a home where they are exposed to violence or their parents are going through a crisis such as a divorce, this can alter the way that they look at life and possibly lead to a more violent future. It is the parents' job to do their best to be good role models for their children, but not to force them to be something that they’re not. Nathan doesn’t accept that there is any way to live life other than to be a devout Christian, so he shoves his beliefs down the throats of his family and expects them to obey his every command. It is important for children to have guidelines for how they should behave, but once you try to tell them who they should be, you could be permanently tampering with their identity.

The Limitation of Language

Bienvenidos. Bienvenue. Baruch haba. Aloha mai. Yo koso. Willkommen. Welcome. Welcome to my first official blog post, “The Limitation of Language.” Currently, in my Senior English class, we are reading The Poisonwood Bible, a novel written by Barbara Kingsolver. As the Price family from Georgia embarks on a mission with their Reverend of a father in the Congo, they soon learn that something as simple as speaking has a big affect on how easily they are able to get by from day to day.

Speaking the language native to the place you are in is something that many people take for granted on a daily basis. If you need something, you ask for it. It’s a fairly simple concept. But, what if you asked for something and nobody knew what you were saying? What would you do then? The Price family encounters this limitation of language every day in the Congo. Soon after their arrival, a miscommunication causes the Reverend to spend his first few days of the mission laying in bed, poisoned by a native plant. The mother also discovers that the native woman sent to help them, Mama Tataba, has been insulting them without their knowledge by simply using her native tongue. Kingslover writes, “Fufu nsala, Mama Tataba called us. I gathered this had to do with fufu, the food stable, not yet knowing Kikongo is a language that is not exactly spoken but sung. The same word slanted up or down the scale can have many different meanings…Fufu nsala is a forest-dwelling, red-headed rat that runs from sunlight” (94).

These are just a few of the many challenges and miscommunications that the Prices face in the Congo due to the language barrier. Language can be one of the most helpful tools you can use to express yourself, but it can also be a limitation if you can’t communicate your thoughts and ideas to others. Being able to clearly communicate with others isn’t always easy, even if the language being spoken isn’t the problem. Expressing yourself can be one of the most difficult things to do, but recognizing this difficulty can help you work towards overcoming the limitation of language. Recognizing that language is a useful but tricky device is an important step to controlling this limitation because with this recognition you can be aware that every word you say or nonverbal message that you convey counts and that you should choose carefully.

Accepting Our Limitations

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

In a perfect world, we would all live the way we wanted to and nobody would get in the way. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as perfect and people are going to be getting in your way all of your life. There are many outside factors caused by other people in your life that are going to affect who you are and the things you do, whether you realize they are doing it or not. Teddy Roosevelt’s quote above is one that inspires me because it shows that by accepting the presence of these outside factors, you can work with them to become who you want to be, rather than letting them control you.

Some of you may have no idea what I’m talking about and think that you have complete control over your life. However, the truth is that nobody really does. I believe that the most important thing is to recognize these limiting factors in your life so that you can work with them, not necessarily overcome them, to be and do what you want.

As a teenage girl growing up in a safe and somewhat wealthy community, the limiting factors I've experienced in my life so far may only be as big as social stereotypes within my school; but even the littlest limitations are important to notice. Identifying and dealing with these immature preconceived notions high school students have of one another is good practice for handling more significant limitations the future may bring.

My goal for this blog is to point out these limiting factors in different works of literature, news stories, music, and my own life, so that I can make clearer the extent to which our identity and actions are limited by others. As you can see from the title of the blog, which is a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, I don’t see limitations as something you should fight, but something that you should accept and work through. As strong as we may be, everybody has limits and we can't always expect to overcome them. My goal for you is to pay attention to the different types of limiting factors present in society and see if any of them apply to your own life. If you can do this, you will be one step closer to being a freer person. Even if you find that the constraints I point out don’t apply to your own life, be conscious of them, because you never know if you might be the one limiting somebody else. So, join me in my quest to discover the extent to which we are limited by those around us so that we can work together to live a little more freely.