Stress In Our Daily Lives
...own to be true. "In 1987, a Lou Harris poll found that in little more than a decade, the number of hours Americans work would increase from about 40 hours a week to 48 hours . According to a survey by Day-Timers, the average American worker puts in 46 hours a week at the office and six more hours at home for a total of 52 hours of work." (Ford, ch 10, pg 280). A factor in this is that more and more companies are employing fewer workers and demanding more work to be done by the current employees. Leisure is an important thing for all to accomplish at some point. Relaxation and constructive leisure activities provide a break in our usual lives while being interesting and absorbing enough stress to create energy and excitement. A valuable leisure activity should be something that you look forward to and give you a sense of accomplishment once done. Doing so releases undue stress in your life and aids in mainting a healthy balance between work and non-work related activity. Even if you do not have the time or money for a vacation, there are several techniques for personal relaxation available that could be affective. If you make a decision regarding any particular action, you are making a decision based on values. It is difficult to discuss values with some people because values are such a vague topic and everyone's values are different. Basically, values are the ultimate ideals and goals that people have for themselves. Some of these, by in large, are shared by the greater community. Standards are set regarding these values, and behavior represents the manner in which individuals interract with each other utilizing these values. "Values are defined in literature as everything from eternal ideas to behavioral actions....Values refer to criteria for determining levels of goodness, worth or beauty. Values are affectively-laden thoughts about objects, ideas, behavior, etc. that guide behavior, but do not necessarily require it. The act of valuing is considered an act of making value judgments, an expression of feeling, or the acquisition of and adherence to a set of principles. We are covering values as part of the affective system. However, once they are developed they provide an important filter for selecting input and connecting thoughts and feelings to action and thus could also be included in a discussion of the regulatory system." (http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/affsys/values.html) "Humans are the only creatures that can reflect on their own existence." (Ford, ch 10, pg 272), We, as humans, think about the things that we do and how they reflect our values. This shows how important we find values to be. However, since everyone's values may vary, certain topics may be difficult to come to terms with. Our personal values may influence the way we perceive and label behavior, be it ours or someone elses. "There is an increasing lack of civility in this country. Becoming more concerned about others can increase one's satisfaction in live. People in general are about as happy today as they were 30 years ago. Some of the factors that influence happiness are self esteem, personal controll, sociability, and optimism." (Ford, ch 10, pg 290) It has been shown that the lack of civility in this country has attributed to the breakdown of family life, unethical business practices, selfishness and political dishonesty. The notion of civility goes beyond being polite. It has to do with remembering that everyone has personal rights, and respecting those rights as you would have others respect yours. It all goes back to the "Golden Rule" of do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Far too many people appear to have lost sight of this and society appears to be paying the price for this. "Forgivingness is the disposition to forgive interpersonal transgressions over time and across situations." (http://www.psychology.iastate.edu). Everyone has been hurt at some point in their life. Everyone has hurt someone else in their life as well. These are negative expierences. Some people expierence their feelings, deal with the situation, and then move on. Others, be they victims or not, allow themselves to be victims by holding on to their feelings, a grudge, or wanting revenge. Many people seem to think that forgiving is a way of forgetting the situation occured or that forgiveness is a method of giving in. This is not so. Forgiveness is a method of moving on from the issue and letting go of the pain. "It's a way of releasing the tie to the person who hurt you." (Ford, ch 10, pg 285). Almost everyone is unforgiving at times. Many people seek to deal with the revenge and avoidance of unforgiveness by forgiving. Positive feelings of forgiveness were uniquely predicted by dispositional forgivingness and by the participants' deliberate attempt to forgive the offense. Different patterns of predictors suggest that unforgiveness and forgiveness are not necessarily reciprocally related. This implies that interventions might be developed to reduce unforgiveness without attempting to promote forgiveness. This may be crucial in situations where forgiveness is not desirable. (http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/) Unforgiveness and forgiveness are distinct. One cannot forgive unless unforgiveness has occurred, but one might reduce unforgiveness by many ways--only one of which is forgiveness. (http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/). It has...