...According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, SUCCESS is the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame. For some, success is just merely being able to land a high-paying job, to live in a big house, owning all the latest cars and could even be just learning how to tie their shoe laces. Success could mean anything to anyone. Your definition of success could be very different to other people. In fact, your definition of success could be an epitome of failure to someone. It may also be possible that your definition of success is unreachable and a fantasy to others. So, what really is the definition of success? For me, true success requires appreciation and contentment – both of which are traits that are genuinely difficult to attain. People nowadays are working so hard in order to get more than what they have and more than what other people have. They treat life as a competition and I think that, if that would be the mindset of everyone, then we won’t really achieve success, just people pushing past each other and treating everyone as a rival. If everyone would just slow down, stop running, appreciate what they have and be contented with it, then even the slightest achievement would mean great success. Now, you might say “Whoa! being successful is too much work.” Yes, being successful is not easy, it does not happen overnight and hardly anyone in this world is truly, and genuinely successful but, success is a decent goal to strive for. Just remember, Success...
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...Many of today’s values are derived from respect and responsibility. It is the basis for civility and consideration towards others. We can’t get away with being rude our entire lives and never expect to pay the consequences. Our actions will always lead to some sort of punishment or reward. A disrespectful person will not be followed by good things. If a person is being treated with respect, they are being shown that you expect good things to precede you and them as well. A wise man shows regard for another’s thoughts. Recent studies (conducted by the University of California, Davis) reveal that a happy person that desires a peaceful existence gives and receives more respect as opposed to a person with blatant disrespect for those around them. Today, so many of us are busy with our own hectic schedules that we don’t have a lot of room for anyone else or their needs or feelings. This doesn’t show the intention of being rude or disrespectful, but in reality that is exactly what it translates into. We are losing out on so many things by being rude and inconsiderate. We miss opportunities to excel and to better ourselves as an individual as well as for your career. Since the first key step to building any relationship, whether it be work related or personal, is respect, then the absence or breakdown of respect is a key factor in the breakdown relationships and the occurrence of conflict. Another way of understanding why respect is so important is to imagine a world without...
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...Job Satisfaction Since I was a child, I had always thought that people only worked in order to earn money. These people got jobs they did not enjoy their work. As a result, people feel stress and resentment as they struggle with the day-to-day demands of their jobs. I formed this impression because of my childhood experience of observing my father’s attitude toward work. Everyday my father would come home and complain about his boss, co-workers, and work. He made me think that work is drudgery and he only needed to do it just because he has a family to support. This idea strengthened within me as I grew up, hearing him berate his employers all the time. However, my impression about work has changed as I have been exposed the working world. I started to understand the nature of having a job. It is totally different than what my father had portrayed it. In fact, I have come to realize that having a job is not just about having the means to earn a living but also as a means to maximize one's potential. According to Harding Lawrence "Don't set compensation as a goal. Find work you like, and the compensation will follow" (Career-Success-for-Newbies). Lawrence has aptly summed up what people should aim for when looking for a career. A career should be something that brings satisfaction. Higher pay is welcome; however, if the job does not pay much as others, the person who is doing it must not complain as my father did because he enjoys doing it. For example, I work part time in the...
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...Why I Should Be Allowed to Participate in Drug Court The past month has definitely been a learning experience for me. The biggest lesson that I have learned would have to be about complacency. Since I first started attending AA & NA meetings I have heard people say that they became complacent. They felt comfortable where they were in their sobriety and decided that it was okay to slack off a little bit. It was okay to miss the occasional meeting and not call their sponsor every day. Ultimately this always led to a relapse. I was lucky enough to not reach the point of relapsing even though I had become extremely complacent. I was comfortable with my job and only going to group once a week for one hour. I was doing the bare minimum when it came to my weekly meetings instead of going to a meeting a day like I was when I started Drug Court. I have learned that even though a job and a social life are important, I need to be sure that my sobriety comes first. I feel as though I was only days away from a relapse because of the people that I was surrounding myself with and situations that I allowed myself to be apart of. Thankfully I had a major wake up call and was allowed the opportunity to take a step back and see the error of my ways. That being said, I want to be able to participate in Drug Court ultimately so that I can grow. Staying sober wasn’t necessarily an issue for me because I was pretty much given an ultimatum: stay clean or go to prison. By being...
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...PAPER PRESENTED AT THE 2014 TRAIN THE TRAINERS WORKSHOP HELD ON SATURDAY 26TH JULY, AT OUR REDEEMER ANGLICAN CHURCH. Theme: “GODLINESS WITH CONTENTMENT IS GREAT GAIN” Text: 1 Timothy 6:6 INTRODUCTION: “Now godliness combined with contentment bring great profit” 1 Tim 6:6. (New English Translation) It is said that sometimes big things come in little packages. 1 Timothy 6:6 is loaded with profound spiritual insight and complexity. However, we must note that we live in a world in which the population in general is interested in obtaining "great gain." Throughout the history of man "getting-rich-quick" have always attracted great interest. Even today, in our so called enlightened age, virtually anyone is assured of a large following if he can only convince the public that his "new idea " will produce great gain. However, the faithful child of God is also concerned about "great gain."The faithful Christian is aware that there are two kinds of gain physical and spiritual. While great physical gain is not inherently sinful, its possession often comes at tremendous risk to spirituality. On the one hand, with the increase of material wealth, there is the accompanying danger that the possessor thereof might become "high-minded," and prone to "trust in uncertain riches" instead of "in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy" (1 Tim. 6:7). We often multiply our earthly cares as we increase our material wealth (Eccl. 5:10-12). Then, too, as a materially wealthy...
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...Achieving Inner Contentment may mean different things to some people, for example to some it may mean to have everything that you desire or want like expensive cars, bigger house, or more shoes, when really you do not need them. In the essay titled, “Inner Contentment,” by the Dali Lama and Howard C. Cutler, they seem to be having a conversation about what inner contentment really is and how both of them think that they can achieve it but in two different ways (Lama and Cutler). There are two different methods to achieving inner contentment, but one way is more reasonable and better than the other one. One of the methods is to obtain everything you want and or desire, which is the one that the Dali Lama and Howard C. Cutler say is the unreliable one that can get you into trouble, while the second method is not to have what you want but rather to appreciate what we have. In this essay they explain both, why one is unreasonable and how while the other one is reasonable (Lama and Cutler). The essay starts off with Howard C. Cutler walking down the street to meet with...
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...The Ambiguity of the Impact of Life Choices By Stacy Tohar In the Road Not Taken by Robert Frost the reader is left with ambiguity about the personal impact on the traveler of choosing one road over the other, and therefore ambiguity about the impact on a person from making one life choice to the exclusion of another, as this poem is of course a poem about life choices. The definition of the word ambiguity is doubtfulness or uncertainty of meaning or intention.It is unclear whether the subject of the poem, the traveler, feels contentment, regret, or both about his choice of roads. However, from the poem’s conclusion, it appears that the author intended that the ambiguity remain without resolution, just as is often the case with life choices and the impact of those choices. In the Road Not Taken, the traveler stands at a fork in the road and must choose one road over the other. Of course, this is a metaphorical fork, symbolizing life choices and paths. Knowing that he must choose one road over the other, the traveler attempts to look as far down the way as possible in an attempt to see where each road will take him. This is as in life, where we must attempt to visualize the impact of choosing one life choice over another. However, as with life choices, the traveler cannot see the consequences of one choice over the other with any certainty: “And looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth.”(4-5). The traveler can only see that one road...
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...Mohsin Hamid’s ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’, is a framed narrative that explores the inflective journey and internal struggle for a sense of inner contentment. The author tackles these incredibly complex themes through the confronting story of a young Lahore man. Adapting himself towards a patriotic American society and diluting his personal contentment through the suppression of his own Heritage. Hence Hamid’s intentions behind the allegorical name of ‘Changez’ for ‘Change’. Hamid makes it quite clear early on in the text, that Changez is quite an unreliable narrator. Changez claims to the ambiguous American that he immediately felt at home in New York, however this is completely untrue as he also establishes his alienation from those around him, conveying the early stages of perversion to Changez’ sense of contentment. “The world around me was like a movie, and I was watching it, rather than living in it. It didn’t strike me at first, but it came from feeling out of place.” Studying abroad at Princeton University, Pakistani protagonist Changez is already faced with socialist and cultural disparity the moment he arrives at Princeton. Aiding the detachment he possesses from other students economic status, he adopts three on campus jobs, to maintain the mask of a Princeton persona. “At Princeton, I conducted myself in public like a young prince, generous and care free. But I Also quietly acquired three on campus job, in infrequently visited locations, so such a persona could...
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...Personal Response Paper to Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler’s: Inner Contentment It is possible for one to be happy if they could not have everything they wanted and had to accept what they were given? There are many desires for things one can and cannot obtain. These desires can be good, useful, or cause problematic issues. They can lead to greed which can lead to people expecting too much in life. Even if one can obtain what they want, they may still not be happy. That brings the concept back to whether people can be happy even if they cannot have everything? Materialistic things do not fulfill peoples’ lives and are only representing temporary happiness, satisfaction, and pleasure. Eventually it runs out and the depression and lost feelings return, leaving one wondering what to buy next to fulfill that void. In Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler’s essay on Inner Contentment, they argue whether it is possible to have inner contentment. Inner contentment is not expecting things that can make one happy, but being happy with whatever is given, without expecting more. Life is just and everyone cannot have everything they want, they have to deal with what has been given and live life. In the essay, Lama and Cutler state that “The true antidote of greed is contentment” (1002). What they were trying to say was that no matter what one has, one can still be content and happy. They argue that there are two ways to be content which are: to obtain everything one wants and desires, but eventually...
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...In the voyage of life, one seeks to find a sense of contentment or a simple purpose to live. Many search for it through the materialistic side or even the spiritual side of life, a philosophy by which one lives through, a religion or self-principles. As humans we may go through many experiences, whether challenges or joyful moments, to find that satisfaction of ourselves in our existences. The concept of being born for a purpose helps the soul feel a sense of complacency and one will do anything in it’s power to reach that Nirvana. Herman Hesse exhibits these examples in his novel Siddhartha. He reveals the journey of the protagonist, Siddhartha, in his expedition of his discovery of his very own contentment. Though Siddhartha undergoes many...
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...Positive emotions produce novel and broad-ranging thoughts and actions that are usually not critical to one’s immediate safety, well-being, or survival (Fredrickson, 1998; Fredrickson & Cohn, 2008). Positive emotions are the markers of optimal well-being by producing satisfaction and happiness in certain moments that are characterized by positive emotions such as love, interest, joy and contentment (Diener, Sandvik, & Pavot 1991). Barbara (2001) proposed three levels of contribution of positive emotions to enhance well-being. 1. Positive emotions broaden individual’s thought-actions repertoires and produce long lasting personal resources of well-being. 2. Positive emotions undo with negative emotions to eliminate stress and to enhance psychological well being 3. Positive emotions enhance resilience of individual and produce satisfaction, joy, happiness, better coping abilities and...
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... Happiness, being the underlying measurement, is affected by a variety of factors. Levy believes that in poorer countries, comfort and stress are thresholds that control happiness to a certain extent. The extent is to whether or not they have enough money to achieve the basic needs of life. For example, a roof over your head and enough food to survive. If these basic needs are met, money has little to no effect on their happiness. Along with comfort and stress, he discusses adaption and contentment as important factors that are effected by income. People seem to adapt to rises in the economy but fail to adapt when they experience a fall. During falls, a persons contentment may experience a decline because they are unable to do or purchase the things they previously could. Factors such as contentment and adaption are different from comfort and stress because the degree of their effects are different among social classes. For example, people from poorer countries do not find as much contentment in rises in income as people from wealthy...
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...Thrasymachus claims that justice is “what is advantageous for the stronger” (338c). The “stronger” can be likened to a ruler. In his view, if rulers say that their laws are just, then it is so, because their power makes it such. The amount of suffering inflicted upon the weaker does not change this, because in any case, it is those who are strongest who establish the meaning of justice. According to Thrasymachus, being unjust is more profitable than being just. By saying this, he is not abandoning his initial claim that justice is “what is advantageous for the stronger” (338c), rather, he is distinguishing injustice as being something which is “advantageous for oneself” (344c). If stealing is committed by a commoner it is unjust, yet still...
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...“Despite the fact that possessions are not creating happiness, we are still riding the consumer merry-go-round.” This implies that being materialistically happy is only temporary and will end because sooner or later the things that was thought to bring happiness no longer does. The ability to be content with someone has is a hard to master. The more people see or have the more they want, this is just the norm is the society that brought upon us. Contentment might not feel the same as happiness, but it better because once one can learn to be content then happiness will automatically fall after. This is all an illusion to the true meaning of happiness because people can confuse happiness and contentment. They don’t see everything around them and how beautiful and precious it can be and instead are caught up trying to make them happy. These things can bring someone happiness they never believed they would have. Contentment means that one is satisfied with what they have and don’t want anything more, their desires are filled. . Contentment refers to a deep-seated, abiding acceptance of one’s self and one’s worth together with a sense of self-fulfillment, meaning and purpose. The view of happiness has been handed by our society is one of illusion. It’s the great happiness illusion that people unmindful buy into. The more someone is trying to go after happiness, the grayer it becomes. Happiness comes and goes which is why being content with the little happiness that one may have...
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...and I believe we all can achieve authentic happiness in our life. In Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman uses happiness and well being as the terms to describe the goals of Positive Psychology. The desired outcome of Positive Psychology is happiness and well being. We learned from this course how to embrace both our positive feelings and activities to achieve authentic Happiness. Happiness as defined in the dictionary, is a feeling of luck, fortune, and contentment. Happiness is the component of two separate aspects, life satisfaction as a whole and moment to moment moods. I can be satisfied with my overall life, yet still have moments when I am not happy. Or I could be dissatisfied with my current circumstance and wish for change, but still have many moments of joy throughout the day. The challenge most of face is in raising the level of happiness is how to increase the number of momentary positive feelings and how to sustain them. We are taught to believe that it is our circumstances influence our level of contentment, we learned from this course our behavior and thoughts can offset our level of happiness. Happiness may be influenced by our circumstances, but it isn’t dependent on it. According to the author we each have a personal range level of positive and negative emotion, the range may be inherited from our parents. Another barrier many face is the “hedonic treadmill” which causes us to rapidly and inevitably adapt to good things by taking them for granted. The thing...
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