What I've Learned About Myself

From this activity in which we asked each other what we're good at, find pleasure in and what we find meaning in has revealed some thins about me...
     I learned that I am:
-hands on
-mechanically inclined
-a researcher
-a problem solver
-a troubleshooter
-a sportsman
-a writer
-a good communicator
-an observer
- analytical

I find pleasure in:
-expressing myself
-talking
-learning
-trying new things
-traveling
-motorcycles
-airplanes
-socializing
-music

I find meaning in:
-being efficient/ productive/ helpful
-thinking of solutions
-being caring
-involvement
-accomplishment of goals
-leadership
-understanding

Classwork activity- classified as INTJ (MASTERMIND)
Follow this link to read more about what I was categorized as.

http://keirsey.com/handler.aspx?s=keirsey&f=fourtemps&tab=5&c=mastermind

Happiness in the Workplace - Blog 4

The ultimate happiness one can achieve in a workplace environment is a self responsibility. Throughout our growth, we are made responsible for the decisions we make. Working at a certain company, choosing to work a job or choosing to receive an education and begin a career is decision that will impact our happiness. And that decision is left to our discretion. At times we may choose to do things we may be good at or have a talent for. But not always will these things that we choose to do for talent will bring us to the ultimate currency of happiness as Tal BenShahar mentions. We often follow a path set by others to receive positive judgement and be a success story to their perception. In doing so, we often times fail to do things that bring us personal satisfaction and success.
Hapiness in the workplace is the sole responsibility of the employee. An employee going to work day by day to a job will reach a limited degree of happiness. In this example, the employee simply attends his/ her job to receive a paycheck. They often have the job from necessity, instead of desire. On the contrary, a person with a career will find workplace happiness and satisfaction being that they've been prepared to carry on their labor. A person with a career has made the choice to persue something they're talented in. Furthermore, a person with a career has defined themselves as someone of greater value or importance and therefore experience an ego boost. Workplace happiness, as mentioned earlier is the responsibility of an individual for the aforementioned reasons among an array of others.

Happiness In My Education- Blog 3

     My happiness in education derives from the continuous cultivation of my nature. From an early childhood, I have followed a guide to perfection created by the fear of making mistakes and the penalties of their occurrence. I was raised by parents who rewarded correctness and accomplishment, not mistakes nor failure. Growing up with this mentality was difficult. When family or guests arrived home, I would be banished from social interaction unless spoken to, claiming that these were manners I had to learn. I was to keep my childlike stories and imaginative mind to myself and hope that somebody demands my voice. Coming home from school became a challenge as I brought home lower than expected grades. I learned at a young age that we must do our best and strive for nothing less than perfection and meeting these high standards will get you far in life.

     This phobia against error is something I have steadily grown into, making imagination and creativity difficult. From these childhood-adopted behaviors, I have grown against open mindedness and have secluded myself into an area void of margins for error. Both at school and at work, I am consistently the last person to finish a task. The reason for so is that I do things exactly as stated in documented paperwork, and excessively worry about the quality, or in my case; perfection of the work. Being a meticulous person as I am has proven difficult. I have also adopted a mentality to worship challenges. To become a more knowledgeable person and more apt to overcome adversity, I have purposely positioned myself in difficult situations. In my junior year at Aviation High School, I was in a sheet metal class where we fabricated a fuselage bulkhead cross-section of an airplane. The fabrication was composed of laminates of metal bent and joined together by aluminum rivets. One part of the fabrication was to simulate damage by puncturing the metal and then repairing it. In my worshiping of challenges, I requested that the teacher give me an abnormal 4 ½ inch length-wise puncture. I thought that this would perhaps increase the difficulty and my ability to perform sheet-metal repairs on aircraft. At the conclusion of this self induced challenge, I found great satisfaction in seeing that I had achieved what others were afraid of doing. From the challenges I’ve purposely brought upon myself, I have reached a greater sense of accomplishment and pride in myself.

     Being this kind of narrow-minded individual has not been easy. In following a perfectionist guide to all the activities I am involved in, I have brought greater challenges to myself. Another of such challenges is that I have tendencies to judge the work of others and not accept it to my quality standards. This has made working in teams increasingly difficult. As I am assigned a group project, I will assume full responsibility of the project’s completion and do the entire work-load in my image of an ideal product. I have done this countless times throughout my educational career. The perfectionist mentality makes communication with others difficult as well, as my rationale is “always correct”. Furthermore, being that I have lived with this idealism, at times it becomes difficult to accept criticism for who I am, what I do etc. It becomes an uneasy situation to openly speak to someone who is making judgments of my “perfection”, as I can be easily blinded to the acceptance of my mistakes.

     In finding happiness in education and life while simultaneously cultivating my nature, I have proposed to adopt multiple new behaviors. Preliminarily, after close observation to my youth-long behavior, I must change my constant urge to talk and be heard, and rather serve others in hearing their points of view. Doing this will bring me closer to accepting others for their ideas and cease the belief of my superiority in train of thought. Not only will this bring me to accept others, but this will improve my communication skills. Being that I have been a speaker for the history of my existence, shifting into a listener will enhance my ability to relate to others. I will become a person open to criticism and hence develop the courage to accept my faults. It will slowly draw me away from the rigidly inhumane view of perfection I have grown into.

     In addition to listening to others, I have decided to give myself a space for error and worship my human ability to learn from my mistakes. Doing so will expand my horizons and eliminate the fear of being incorrect. I will flex my rigid mindset of perfection and strive for excellence with space for error. And instead of learning new ways of emulating perfection, I will seek new ways of correcting my mistakes. I will then destroy the fortress I’ve secluded myself into and escape into reality, a place where flaws are common and present in everyone and everything. Now, I will be more forgiving for what differences I may have with others and learn to accept these differences as degraded images of perfection which I too am susceptible to. No longer will I assume full and sole responsibility of a group assignment. By detaching myself of this unnecessary responsibility, I will learn to work together in groups and be a stronger team player. The aforementioned proposals for my happiness in education are a severe shift from what I explained as my nature, but only after making these changes will I find relaxation and pleasure in education.

     The educational history I have endured has been one to portray Tal Ben-Shahar’s drowning model; one in which I have “suffered discomfort and pain and struggled to escape”. Further proving his theory, I have fit myself into his words when he describes “the situation (the drowning of the student in their disliked work) may be less dramatic for students who do not enjoy school, but the nature of their motivation – the need to avoid a negative consequence – is similar” For my past school experiences, I have created these rigid mindsets that have voided me from reaching the happiness a normal student should find in education. I will attempt the proposed guideline and by such, climax to a previously unknown state of happiness, as the love-making model suggests.

     I have previously worshiped challenges. Following this mentally rigorous diet will be a challenge in itself, but it will ultimately enhance the happiness I achieve in education and life in their entirety. I’ve grown to seek perfection in every aspect of living while ignoring the beauty of our human nature in its ability of making mistakes and learning from them. By doing so, I’ve stripped my life from an inability to cope with error and have never given myself the ability for growth or happiness. In cultivating my nature to become a happier student, I have customized the definition of perfection and learned that settling for nothing less than perfection is unrealistic.

Happiness in Education- Blog 2

            Education in many instances is the foregrounds to success. From one society to the next, the degree of one’s success is based on a financial status. But in reality, a wealthy person’s happiness is not more real or significant than that of a person in a lower income bracket. This biased perception of the essence of happiness leads us to embark quests for financial standing as opposed to happiness itself. The chapter; Happiness in Education explains the emotional aspects of one’s education.

            The drowning model, love-making model and the state of flow are attempts to explicate the correlation between school, learning and happiness. All three explications relate to each other. The drowning model states that one will complete a task, while disliking the process to obtain an ultimate satisfaction or happiness from not having to sustain the “painful” course of completion. The love-making model in contrast to the drowning model, states that one will find satisfaction in an entire process and in the end result. For example, instead of dreading study time after school and hoping to obtain a passing grade, the love making model in theory says that you enjoy each step leading up to a climax and ultimately find yourself in a rewarding experience. A state of flow suggests that we reach a “trance” where nothing gets in the way of the completion of a task. It is a state in which our complete, undivided attention is devoted to something where we find happiness in. In this state of being, we find ourselves challenged just enough and possess the right amount of knowledge to not feel overwhelmed by the challenge intensity.

            So in establishing better educational institutions, what is it that our infrastructure is in need of? There is no right or wrong answer to this matter being that each student finds pleasure in different activities. Although, there are things to be done that will universally help improve the effectiveness of classroom lessons. The youth may be more attracted to a learning environment that provides them with fun activities. A student may find himself/ herself at boredom when simply adding, dividing and deriving equations. A more interactive approach for the equivalent course material would be solving word problems or equating math problems with real-life situations. Furthermore, a more interesting form of learning for the youth may be activities that provide the freedom to interact with others. Being that the traditional form of learning in the typical classroom voids students from social interaction, a more interactive learning environment between students and teachers and amongst students themselves will help prevent students from falling into a state of seclusion. In addition, people have tendencies to pay closer attention to things they find fun and interesting, therefore creating games that teach lessons will attract students to class material.

            In supporting the drowning model, teachers may provide more assistance to students and encourage questions in class. Being that people are afraid of criticism, they avoid asking questions and being judged for a “lack” of knowledge. This presumption of being judged carries throughout life and ultimately builds on the things we lack knowing and are afraid of asking the answers to. By encouraging questions, the educator builds on the confidence of the student body. In addition to building on self confidence, eliminating the fear of asking questions reduces the student’s anxiety from not knowing the course material and therefore needing to study harder for the same understanding.

            Furthermore, a grand majority of the student body finds itself in frustration upon doing homework. The youth may fail to see the purpose of homework assignments being to further develop your understanding of the subject matter. It is for this reason that “having a clear destination in mind liberates us to enjoy the journey”. If a child entering school understood this concept, perhaps he/ she would build goals and understand the process required to reach the end result. Therefore, if scholars don’t understand the purpose for homework, they wont enjoy the “journey”. Homework then becomes an aspect of class that many may agree to disrupt a perception towards school. Homework to many students will bring them to the drowning model, where they complete it while disliking each step. On a sunny spring day, a kindergarten student will much prefer going to a playground and play with friends than he would like to stay home and learn the letters of the alphabet. A possibility to this conflicting issue in education may perhaps be to extend school days to fit more study time and thus reduce the work load left for home. A young mind, if focused on something he/ she finds interesting may fail to notice the lapse of time during which they’ve been kept extra; proving the state of flow.

            Ultimately, the sole responsibility of education lies on the scholar itself. Being happy or not while being educated is dependent upon multiple factors of which include the student, the educator and the environment. If all other variables are held constant and the educator and environment improved, the remaining factor becomes the student. A measure of happiness is often associated with the degree of wealth one lives in. Although, in our current society, wealth, or happiness, is often times not obtainable without a formal education. Therefore, we must seek the improvement of our educational infrastructure and assist the youth in developing healthier and happier study habits for their future benefit and that of society as a whole.