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Why Wait?

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Katie Kenney

The temptation of procrastination is so easy to fall into. Don’t want to write your English paper? Don’t, you’ll have time to later.  Don’t want to clean your room? Don’t, it will still be there looking like it was hit by a tornado and an atomic bomb all at once. Don’t want to make amends in your friendship just yet? Don’t, that person and the problems that seem to come with them will still be at school tomorrow and the days following. Putting things off is easy to do and it doesn’t hurt at first. Eventually, however, problems will arise. Maybe the stress of writing a long paper the night before it’s due is too much to handle and a mental breakdown ensues. Maybe your mess isn’t there in all its glory, but instead has moved to the smaller bedroom that was previously your younger sister’s. And maybe, just maybe, your friend is no longer your friend because the damage has settled in and there’s no way to repair the relationship. There are consequences of every, single thing that we do in our lifetime. The consequences of procrastination are not normally the happy kind. Putting off what can be done today isn’t the best decision, even though it is incredibly enticing. Procrastination may be the easier and more appealing thing in the short run, but doing something and taking advantage of the time you have in the now is better for everyone in the long run.

There are many different areas in any person’s life that they can procrastinate in. Someone could procrastinate in the athletic aspect of their life by putting off their daily rep of squats or something along that line. Someone could very easily procrastinate in an academic way. Practically every student in high school has, at some point, put off doing some sort of homework, whether it be a math worksheet or a history project. The cleanliness of an area, or a person could be put off as well. Cleaning the dishes or making the bed can just seem so unimportant, so it is put off until further notice. Even though procrastination is usually left to those three main things, someone could procrastinate in the realm of their relationships. This includes putting off a needed conversation with a loved one, saying that you’ll fix your friendship another time, and other things of the like. Humans have the amazing ability to put off practically anything which includes things other than a high schooler’s science homework.

Unless you are some crazy cross-fitter, getting up at the crack of dawn to willingly put your body in pain and sweat out everything you drank in the past three days doesn’t sound too appealing.  Working out is hard and it just doesn’t sound like a bringer of great joy to the average person. Many people want to work out, whether it be to lose weight or just to feel healthier. However, a lot of people just put it off, saying that they are too busy at the moment or that they just need a minute to take a breather because they have been moving constantly all day. That doesn’t help one reach their goal obviously. Sitting down and putting aside physical obligations can be so easy but it is still not good. Good things don’t come easy. You have to work for things and that includes anything in the realm of athletics.

Procrastination is notorious for being a huge part of a high school student’s life, along with a college student’s life. People say that teenagers just put things off because they don’t want to deal with it, but that isn’t always the case. There are instances where doing one more piece of homework feels like it could make your brain explode. Stress can build up because there are times when a large amount of homework, studying, projects, and presentations are present. Sometimes all a student wants is an extra hour of sleep, so they put off finishing their math homework in order to get that precious hour of sleep. Procrastination, in all aspects of life, isn’t always because someone just doesn’t want to do something. Still, that doesn’t make procrastination any better. Getting an extra hour of sleep can be possible but there must be better choices in time management. Doing homework right off the bat is better for your mental health and your schedule. If you get things done right away, then you won’t have to deal with them later on. If you want to go to an event, but you don’t plan properly and have a build-up of school assignments, then it is most likely that you won’t go to that event. Procrastinating can keep you from doing the things that you want to, so just do things when you first get the chance and you’ll be able to do things other than nothing and school work. 

Stress is easily come by when one puts things off. Having to keep track of the things that you have done and the things that need to be done can get messy very quickly in the human mind. Worry about getting everything done seems to be a low mumble in the procrastinator’s head. At some point, panic can ensue and that is when everything falls apart. Whatever was holding the person together shatters into a million pieces along with their sanity. They can feel like they aren’t going to get any of the things that they needed to get done actually done and that can stress a person out beyond belief. No one needs any extra stress in their lives, so it seems like just doing things when you first have the opportunity to is the better option for any person’s mental health. Stress is obviously not good for the mind, but it is also not good for the body. A person who has too much stress in their life can have headaches, muscle tension or pain, chest pain, fatigue, sleeping problems, and some other not so positive things as said by the Mayo Clinic. A person can also experience some behavioral changes such as overeating or undereating, angry outbursts, drug or alcohol abuse, a sudden start in smoking, and social withdrawal.

Pushing things off to do nothing or something less important is an easy way to waste time. Time is precious and we only have so much of it. It is easy to lose track of time, but we should never waste it. We need to take advantage of the time we are given. We need to pursue every moment and do what needs to be done instead of putting it off. When a person procrastinates, they are wasting time. Instead of doing something that they need to, they are saying that they will do it later. This means that they are wasting the time they could be doing something beneficial or something that at least needs to be done. Putting things off isn’t a good use of time, so just following through with your responsibilities can make your time more valuable than wasted time. 

Goals are set often, but so many of those goals are not completed. Things can come up that may make the goal change slightly or even be dismissed entirely. However, a good portion of uncompleted goals are incomplete because of procrastination. A goal set to get homework and chores done by seven can never be fulfilled because the dishes are going to be done later by the teenager who hasn’t even started their math homework. But, you know, at least they finished their history paper and cleaned their room because that’s still something. However, the goal that was originally set is never met because someone put something off to do at a different time that is on a later day. This doesn’t just apply to little goals, but also to the big ones that matter. A smoker postponing their goal of being clean isn’t something that can be taken lightheartedly. Smoking can cause all sorts of medical problems, that is a known fact. So, dismissing a goal of stopping smoking isn’t something that someone should do with a wave of the hand. Smoking can lead to the death and that isn’t something that is widely wanted. Yes, it is hard to quit smoking once it has become a habit, which happens quite soon, but putting it off doesn’t make it any easier. It just makes it harder because if you continue to push things off and nothing happens because of the postponing, why would one want to actually do it? That state of nothing happening because of the procrastination doesn’t last forever. Something will eventually happen when you continue to do nothing. Goals can be hard to achieve, but they aren’t necessarily impossible. Pushing through and doing what needs to be done is better than pushing things off. 

If you have the opportunity to do something, to say something and make a difference why in the world wouldn’t you? It can be scary, so immensely scary, and that is entirely understandable. But keeping quiet and hoping that someone else will do it for you is not comprehendible. No one can say exactly what you want to say because everyone is different and special in their own way. Convincing yourself to stay silent until a later time allows a situation to stay unchanged even though it desperately needs an altercation. Everyone makes an impact and everyone has the ability to make that impact a good one. Human life is only existent for so long and we need to take advantage of the opportunities that we get. No one should aim to hurt others in this world, but aim to better those around them.

Habits are incredibly hard to break. Smokers and alcoholics tend to go back to their old ways even after being clean for a good sum of time. It just seems normal to them, right even. Just because they think it’s right though, doesn’t mean that it is. Procrastination is a cycle that anyone can easily fall into. Once someone starts procrastinating it is difficult to break that habit and start doing things on a more regulated schedule. Procrastination can seem like a good habit sometimes, a habit that isn’t necessarily too harmful and it feels good when you do it for a certain amount of time. No matter how it feels though, it isn’t good for anyone. Bad habits may feel like they aren’t bad, but they really are. That feeling causes it to be more difficult to get rid of the habit, but it is still necessary. Procrastination is a bad habit that we need to be rid of.

Having a deep conversation or a difficult one can be intimidating for any person. Putting a difficult, but needed, conversation off will only make the conversation harder when it is said. In some cases, the conversation could’ve been quick, easy, and over in the matter of two minutes. Overtime, new problems can arise, making that short, little conversation into a long difficult one that brings a multitude of hurt. Sometimes, there can be worse consequences if a conversation is put off. Maybe the person with whom you need to speak with is no longer available for conversation, whether it be because they have lost contact with you due to distance, they no longer want to talk to you, or they just aren’t here anymore. Time is ticking and we need to do things while we still can, say things when we still have the opportunity to. People are constantly changing and that means that the conversations that are held with them are changing too. Sometimes that change is a good one, but other times that change can feel like it’s catastrophic. Waiting and putting it off can make it even worse. Doing things when we first have the opportunity is the best thing to do. It can be hard to do, but it needs to be done. It’s like getting a shot as a kid. Most kids are scared of needles and associate shots with immense pain. And at first, it can be painful, seeing as something is being stabbed into your arm or some other part of your body. To a kid, it can seem like the worst thing in the entire world is getting that shot. So, some kids cry and throw fits, trying to postpone the inevitable shot. It still happens though and it hurts them. Eventually, the pain fades away and the kid can see the benefits when every other kid in their class, who didn’t get a shot is getting sick. Having difficult conversations are painful. It can be exhausting and draining, not only to the body, but also to the soul. It can seem like the worst thing in the entire world, but it still needs to be done. One day, whether it be the day of the conversation or twenty years later, the hurt won’t be existent any longer. Postponing the hard conversations will only cause someone more pain in total. Getting them done and over with is the smart choice. And really, no one wants to be the kid who throws a temper tantrum when they have to get a shot.

Human life has a definite beginning and a definite end. Babies are born and that is the obvious start of a person’s life. And then, after a certain amount of time, which has been chosen by God, a person will die and that is the end of their life on earth. Christians have been given eternal life in Heaven by the grace of God, but that is not life on earth. Heavenly life will be so indescribably better than earthly life. However, we still need to make the most of what we have on earth. We need to spread the gospel and not wait for someone else to or until we feel more comfortable. We have to act in the now because this is what we have. There will come a point in time where you can’t say that you’ll do it tomorrow because you won’t be there tomorrow. On a less morbid note, we still can’t say that we’ll do it tomorrow because we never know how long things last. Everything changes over time unless it is something true that has been by God. We can’t expect things to be exactly the same as we left it no matter what Newton’s First Law of Motion says. Change is a regular occurrence, that is known. So, no one can sit around expecting things to be the exact same way they were before they started to do it. Everything changes and we need to pay attention to those changes instead of putting of dealing with them until tomorrow.

Bibliography

Mayo Clinic. “Stress symptoms: Effects on your body and behavior.” Mayo Clinic. www.mayoclinic.org/helathy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress-symptoms/art-20050987 6 Dec. 2016.

O’Donovan, Kirstin. “8 Ways Procrastination Can Destroy Your Life.” Lifehack. www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/8-ways-procrastination-can-destroy-your-life.html 6 Dec. 2016

Your Own Voice

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Katie Kenney

“To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.” ~ Allen Ginsberg

In today’s world, everyone wants their opinions to be listened to. People yell and scream just for their one sentence to be heard by those around them. Being civil to one another isn’t seen as important when people think they deserve to be heard. On social media, people spew their opinions about everything anywhere they can, whether it be commenting on the media or posting something. In rallies, campaigns, and other events that are similar, the volume rises as people become desperate. They resort to speaking louder and stronger if they are given no attention. Everyone is so desperate to be listened to because it is said if no one pays attention to you then you shouldn’t have said anything at all and you don’t even matter. Validation is found by others and that just isn’t okay. Everyone should have their own voice and not care so much about what other people think. No one should fight to be heard.

Increasing the volume of the voice will not make it heard easier. In a Socratic circle, people sit in a circle of chairs and talk about a given topic. It is supposed to be civil. No one should be talked over or have their words rudely dismissed. However, a point can come where people ignore the “rules” of the Socratic circle. Someone is talked over being another person finds what they have to say is more important. Opinions are said to be stupid so another’s opinion can be seen as smart compared to it. The volume rises and rises, with no limit to the noise apparent. It gets out of control. People just want to be heard so they yell at each other as someone yells right back at them, but neither can hear what the other has to say because they are so focused on getting their words the loudest. Eventually, the circle calms down or is told to tone it down by someone who is outside of the circle. When reviewing what had happened, no one knows what was said by the others because they were trained on being heard themselves. If someone gets loud, then those around that person will get loud as well. It’s a chain reaction that will only end in a crash. There is a difference between speaking up and speaking over. Standing up for what you believe in and putting your thoughts out in the open can be absolutely terrifying. Speaking over someone so what you believe to be true can be heard takes no courage at all, just disrespect. No one can hear the person who talks over another because the words muddle together and the people were originally listening to the first speaker.

In a crowded room or area, it is hard to pick out a specific speaker or even a particular conversation. It is incredibly loud, with the volume rising and lowering when a new speaker joins or leaves a conversation. At times when this pertains, people can get loud so those around them can hear what they are trying to say. However, despite their tries, the people around them might not hear or understand a single word they’ve said because so many other people are doing the exact same thing. All the words mix together, allowing no one to be heard entirely. Trying to get louder than the crowd just won’t work and it can be irritating, but there are other opportunities to finish the interrupted discussion that was being held. There are times when things need to be said right then in that instant, but if it is a regular conversation the words can wait. There is almost always another chance to share your opinion on a topic. There is no need to push people aside so others can hear you.

No one likes to be talked over so someone else can be heard. Firstly, it’s plain rude to ignore and dismiss what someone has to say in order for what you have to say to be heard. The Bible says to put God first, others second, and ourselves last. If Christians interrupt someone spitefully they aren’t obeying what God has said because they are putting themselves above others. Christians are supposed to be kind to others and show God’s love through them, but if they deliberately speak over someone because they think they should be heard instead of the person, they aren’t showing any kind of love, let alone God’s love. Love is patient and love is kind, as said in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Love also isn’t self-seeking, which people are when they decide they are a large degree better than everyone else. Deliberately disobeying the Bible is deliberately disobeying God and that isn’t at all what Christianity is about.

On social media, it is a common occurrence to see people’s opinions spewed everywhere they can be, whether it be in the form of a meme or just a plain old comment. There comes a point when the freedom of speech seems to have become freedom of cruelty toward everyone everywhere. There are regular fights in the comment section because someone disagreed with what another had to say and it turned into the two getting angry, using the caps lock way too much, and ultimately insulting the other in any way they possibly can. This can happen between absolute strangers on the Internet or it could even be those who talk to each other in real life. Either way, if someone is saying her opinion is superior to someone else’s, then it doesn’t matter who she is arguing with. They will still want to show their supposed superiority and sometimes if they feel as if what they’re saying is less than what someone else has to say, they’ll resort to insulting the person. Insulting someone because you feel like she is better than you is a defense mechanism. It allows someone to ignore her feeling of inferiority and foist a feeling of inferiority on the person who she actually believes is superior.

At some point in everyone’s life, there is a person who is quiet and doesn’t really have anything to say. They don’t contribute to discussion much so their opinion on things is unknown except to those to whom they do talk. One day, there comes a time when a discussion is being had and the shy, quiet person says something and people are amazed because they never hear her opinions. People pay attention to what she has to say because they don’t know how long it will be until they get to hear her speak again. People value her words so much more than they value the guy’s words who screams his opinions at you. When words are meaningful and thought out, they are more valuable than the words thrown at people in a millisecond. In the same way, opinions said by a person who is patient and mindful to what others have to say are better listened to than the opinions of someone who yells over people to be heard and doesn’t care if he is being rude, only that what he says is louder than what anyone else has to say. People are listened to if they are kind and civil toward others and do not tear people down in order to build themselves, or their opinions, up.

In this world, it can be hard to feel like you are listened to, that what you say matters. People everywhere fight to be the best, whether it be in sports, in a debate, or just in casual discussion. If someone’s voice is talked over and stomped by those around them, then that person can easily feel as if she should have no voice at all. There are times when someone is insulted because another person thinks what she said was stupid, or something along those lines and getting insulted can hurt. It can be painful to be told what you thought up and said isn’t worthy of the conversation being held. It can warp a person’s mind into thinking everything she says is stupid and unworthy. She may start to wonder why she even contributes to conversations and why she doesn’t just stop. She can think she should stop because there’s no point in talking if everything that comes out is useless. So, she might stop. It can start out as just speaking less and not getting involved in excessive conversation. It can turn into not starting conversations and barely being able to hold a discussion. Their constant contribution can become a few sentences spoken every day. They might lose their voice, literally and figuratively. If they don’t speak what’s on their minds, then it’s almost as if they’ve become mute and aren’t trying to do anything about it. And they won’t unless they find a reason to. However, the day can come when a discussion happens and they are passionate about the topic. They can say something, whether it be out of pure passion for what is being discussed or be because someone urged them to use their words. Either way, people heard what they said and are taken aback just because the normally quiet people said something. Over time, confidence can grow and fall because relapses and breakdowns are real, and there will come a time when the people are contributing to conversations the same amount of times all around them are. They can get their voices back and they did because they stopped caring so much about what other people thought. They stopped caring about whether they were heard or not and that allowed them to develop into the person who says things and is listened to.

Insecure people can care so much about what other people think. Even the every day person, who doesn’t have many things they dislike about themselves or aren’t very comfortable with, can care about other people’s opinions. Caring too much about what other people think can be debilitating. Opinions can cease to exist, clothing can change, and confidence can decrease just because of what others say. Losing your voice can be a possibility when you care a lot about what other people think about you. Everyone is her own person, with her own thoughts and opinions, desires and pleasures, life and death. Your life is yours for the keeping. No one can take that away. So, no one should live their life in accordance with what anyone other than God has to say. Yes, people should listen to and care about what other people have to say, but they shouldn’t let what others say dictate their lives. To “gain your own voice,” one must stop thinking what other people will say is so much better than what you want to say.

Overly confident people can be a pain to be around. It doesn’t matter if you are talking to them or not, you can hear them from a distance showing off their supposed ultimate superiority. Their bigheadedness is shed off on everyone in their vicinity and everyone can see the size of their egos makes up for any intelligence they may not have. They don’t allow opinions that go against what they believe to be true. They are so concerned with what they say and do is heeded they make sure only what they say is listened to. Because of that, people just stop caring about what the flamboyant kid says. Their words lose value and importance over time. If force comes into the equation, then respect for others is thrown out of the metaphorical window and a disrespectful person’s words are often not the most meaningful. Politely spoken words are taken into consideration more than the rash, rude ones.

Just doing a small act of kindness for someone, like letting him speak without talking over him, can make a person’s entire day, possibly even his week. People in this world can be so rude and just allowing a person to speak when he hasn’t been able to can be one of the only good things that’ll happen to him that week. It can show the person people do listen even though he may not be shouting at the top of his lungs. There can be times in one’s life when one just feels like she isn’t good enough or she just doesn’t matter at all. This isn’t true, as everyone knows. Every single person has worth and the ability to do something with what she says. Whether it is something good or something bad is up to the spokesperson. If someone decides to use her voice to shut people down in order to make herself rise up in her mind, her voice isn’t being used for what it was made for. Our voices were made to spread God’s word and love. If someone tells the group another has been trying to say something but has been talked over multiple times, that someone is using her voice to be helpful and kind to others.

It can be hard to take a step back from speaking everything you think. People want other people to care about them, which includes what they say. The listening ears of others do not determine a person’s worth and neither does another person. Your life isn’t determined by how many people listen to you or how many sentences have been taken into consideration by others There are more important things than being heard. Being kind to others and finding out who you are are more beneficial than having yourself be heard. Anyway, unless the talk is of God, all of the things that are talked about are of worldly things. There is so much more than just this world, this earth. Life after death with God is the ultimate goal, and having people listen to what you think of this topic is not going to get you there. Believing in God’s word and spreading it is more helpful in getting you to Heaven than making people listen to you. Using force is only beneficial in Star Wars. People will listen to you if you let them do it on their own, but making someone else quiet so you can throw your words out in the open doesn’t really make a person want to listen to you. It’s like cleaning: if someone is told to clean her room then it makes the task so much harder and unsatisfying than if that person decided to do it because she either wanted to or thought it was necessary. People make their own decisions and live their own lives. Not a single person needs to find validation from another person. A person’s voice matters whether it is heard or not.

Bibliography

Petit, Zachary. “72 of the Best Quotes About Writing.” Writer’s Digest, 22 June, 2012. www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/72-of-the-best-quotes-about-writing. 23 Nov. 2016.

Out of a Black Hole

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Katie Kenney

A black hole is an invisible area of outer space with gravity so strong light cannot get out of it. They are believed to be the outcomes of massive stars collapsing. A black hole is an astronomical term, but there are times in human life when it feels like a black hole has been created by a tragic occurrence. It may feel like nothing happy or good will come into existence ever again. It can be hard to get up in the morning because feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness are overwhelming. Making breakfast and actually consuming it can be the biggest accomplishment you’ve achieved that day. Life can be exhausting and there are times where all you’ll want to do is just lay down for a minute because everything that is happening is too much to handle. Maybe you won’t want to ever get up or maybe you won’t think that you can. But you can get back up and here’s how to do so.

Talking to people can be absolutely terrifying to some people. Laying your feelings and emotions out on the table for someone to asses can make you feel way too vulnerable. You don’t know what they have to say or what they’ll think of you. It may feel like it’s easier to just stay quiet and keep everything inside. This won’t help your situation. It can be incredibly hard to talk to someone, but just talking about what you feel will help you figure things out. This isn’t a new discovery, but reinforcing the importance of it is necessary. Just having someone to confide in can put you at ease. Find someone you trust and talk to them. Their fresh eyes will help you sort out the confusing things. People are ready to be there for you and help you, but they won’t know when to come and help if you keep them in the dark. More people care for you than you can think of. You aren’t alone in this world. Not everyone will understand everything you are going through because they aren’t, and haven’t, gone through the exact same thing as you are. Even people who have experienced the same thing you experienced will perceive and view things differently because no one is the same. Our minds are complex things, with no mind being an exact replica of another. This means no person is an exact replica of another and no one will think in the exact same way. Even though people are different in this sense, they can still comfort you and be there for you. All you need to do is reach out.

Some people don’t want to reach out though. Many people just don’t want to seem weak and won’t ask for help in any situation. They could refuse receiving help when they can’t reach something on the top shelf or they could refuse to receive help when they feel like they are drowning in their own feelings. You are not weak if you ask for help. You can’t do life alone; no one can. Asking for help doesn’t undermine anyone or make someone any less of a man. Everyone needs help at same point in life and asking for it won’t change you fundamentally as a person. It can change your life, though, and for the better. Trying to walk alone in this world will only increase pain and suffering. We need people to hold on to when things get rough and to lean on when you feel like you can’t possibly stand up straight. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness and never will be.

You should take things slow. Trying to jump out of quicksand won’t get you out of its grasp; in fact it will only submit you to a stronger hold. In the same way, if you try to jump out of feelings of sadness, anger, or other emotions that can be exhaustive, you will only fall deeper into their hold. Taking baby steps will allow you to make mini accomplishments and slowly get out of your black hole. Getting out won’t happen overnight no matter how badly you want it to. Black holes are tricky things in the human sense, so you must approach them carefully, willing to keep calm and take things slowly. If you rush on in then there is a great possibility you will be submitted to a stronger force of gravity, making it harder for you to escape your black hole.

The world is broken and fallen, so bad things will happen and in turn not go your way. It can make you feel like you will never see the light of day again. Blaming yourself for bad events will only make you feel worse. It may take some time, but it is key you understand you are not the problem. Hurting yourself, emotionally and/or physically, isn’t beneficial, not even in the slightest. You must take into consideration bad things happen to even the best people. This world is broken and fallen, so bad things happen. Blaming yourself for all the problems that occur isn’t logical. There are some things in life you just don’t have control over, no matter how badly you want to dictate how they play out. You aren’t the playmaker of life, so whatever happens, or happened, isn’t your fault.

Your black hole is different from my black hole, which is different from some other person’s black hole. Acknowledging what you’re going through is entirely unique to you will help you get out of the grasp of your emotions. Knowing how your black hole is specific to you will help you figure out how to overcome it. Something could quite possibly help me rise above what I feel, but it could, instead of helping you, cause you to sink further into what you feel. Realizing what helps others might not help you will benefit you in growing stronger. Trying to make something work that just won’t will waste your time and efforts and could cause you to lose hope. Stop trying profusely to make something work that just won’t; it can’t help you.

Overthinking, in all actuality, is not good in any sense. Mulling over every miniscule detail of every little thing you are thinking about won’t bring you peace of mind. It will bring you stress and anxiety as you try to dissect the small prospects of whatever you are thinking about. In most cases, overthinkers are more stressed than those who think about something just once in great detail. If you keep reviewing every conversation you had and everything you think you did wrong, it can make you “find” even more things you messed up. I put quotations around find because you come to a certain point when you overthink you start to make things up. You may deduce a chain of events happened just because you said one wrong word, but that might not be the case. When you try to find bad things about yourself, you will do anything to find them, including make them up, when you are in a black hole. Overthinking can cause a situation to be changed in your mind, and it most likely won’t be changed into a more accurate description of the occurrence. Looking at everything through a magnifying glass won’t help you get away from bad feelings, but it can bring you even closer to them. You do not need to know every single detail about something that happened. It won’t help you. Don’t worry about it; just know it happened and figure out what you can do to overcome the feelings that came out of it.

Let it out. Everything that has been held inside will eventually spill over and be overwhelming to you. Just crying can help. Screaming and yelling just to get the hurt out is so much better than withholding those feelings. When you cry, your body releases endorphins, which helps your body feel better because they relieve stress and ease pain. Letting yourself feel is so much better than shoving everything down inside and willing your tears not to fall. Withholding all your feelings will add to any stress you have and add to the fear of someone finding out about something you don’t want them to. It can be exhausting to constantly worry about information leaking. Just taking some time to cry it out, or scream it out if you would like, can help you come to terms with what you’re feeling. It is impossible to get out of your black hole if you haven’t accepted what you are feeling. You can’t get over feelings by ignoring them because they will still be there, lurking in the background waiting for you to properly address them.

Looking at the past can be hurtful and harmful. It is completely possible to look back fondly at memories, but you can also look back at them and only see the bad in them. Reflecting on the bad memories is okay to a certain extent; you can see how far you’ve come since then and be filled with determination because you want to keep on going and completely conquer whatever has a hold on you. However, if you look too closely at the bad memories for too long, you can feel like there’s no point anymore. Maybe you’ll feel like you haven’t progressed enough or even at all. So, you should avoid dwelling on the past and think about the future and what you can do today to help you in the future. Think about things you can do to be happy. Do things you enjoy and make good memories to look back at later in the future when you are in a more stable and safe place. Focusing on what you can do today is much more beneficial than reviewing the past.

You need to realize you have the power to overcome any obstacles that come in your way. You are stronger than you think. You have hidden talents, abilities, and power you just need to find. You have the ability to rise above things that hurt you, whether they are situations, people, or something entirely different. You never truly know the extent of your abilities. People tend to either overestimate their abilities or drastically underestimate them. And when you’re in a black hole, the underestimation possibility is more probable and common. If you believe you can climb out of your black hole, then you can. Encouraging and believing in yourself will help you achieve your goals in life, where having a bad view of yourself and being discouraged in your abilities will make it so much harder to reach where you want to be. Be nice to yourself. You need to remember you can do this. You have the ability and skills to overcome anything that gets the in the way of where you want to go.

Get up and do something. Figure what brings you joy or just something you like. Do something that makes you happy, whether it be something of the artistic realm, a sport, or just talking to someone about the what ifs of the world. Making an effort to change your state of mind can be hard. It can be so much easier and more appealing to just lie under the covers of your bed alone in your room and mull over everything bad that happened on a certain day, but getting out of bed to do some sort of activity will help you. You may not want to do it, but just trying will help you. It can give a taste of something other than sadness if you let it.

Avoiding certain situations can seem much nicer than going through with them. However, going out of your way to get away from something will hurt you. You need to confront things head on. It can be absolutely terrifying to do so, but you can do it. You have the power to overcome things, so avoiding them is neglecting that ability. Avoiding something can cause you to have a great deal of guilt later on, not to mention the regret. Regretting not doing something is very common when it comes to people who get themselves out of doing things. Adding more feelings and emotions onto your plate obviously doesn’t lighten your load or make it any easier to carry. Just confront it. Go into the situation carefully, but willing to do what you need to do to help yourself. If you do so, the stress you had about being very cautious anywhere close to the situation will go away. You will have a sense of accomplishment because you did something hard for you and that would be a huge accomplishment. It would mean you are progressing and getting further away from your black hole.

Cut out anything and everything toxic. Keeping harmful substances in a room with a baby in it is an obvious hazard to her health. In the same way, keeping harmful people or things in your life is hazardous to the development of your life. Get rid of the things that hurt you. Sometimes something that is hurting you is actually a person. Telling someone to get out of your life sounds pretty harsh, but if they are preventing you from achieving what you want to it isn’t. It can be hard to stop all contact with a person, but it is necessary for you to do so. The things that hurt you won’t magically start to benefit you one day. Keeping them around you only gives them more power to harm you and an easier time finding things to do that will hurt you.

All sorts of people have black holes that seem to keep them captive. Everyone is going through something in their life, it isn’t just you. Different things may work for them that don’t work for you. They may have entirely different coping mechanisms than you do and that is okay. It is also okay to hurt. It’s okay to be sad and have all of these feelings people tell you you can’t have because they aren’t happiness. You are allowed to feel; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You have the power to overcome anything that poses a threat to you. You are greater than what tries to hurt you and people are there for you when you feel like you aren’t. People are ready to help you get through any and all struggles you have, you just need to let them know. They can’t help you if they don’t know you need help. It can be scary to tell people what you feel. It can be scary to confront a situation you hate. Life is scary, but when you believe you can get out of the grasp of your black hole, it won’t be as intimidating. You can do this. You can get out of your black hole.

Don’t Hate on my Mismatched Socks

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Katie Kenney

Why do people dislike mismatched socks? Socks don’t matter that much and they don’t define a person, so I don’t understand why people are looked at differently just because of the socks they chose to wear. Now, not everyone bases how they feel about a person on their choice of socks, but some do base their judgements off of other exterior things a person has or does. People are judged on the clothes they wear, the shoes they have, the house they live in, and many other worldly things. Characteristics can be forgotten in the examination of worldly things and too often, people change the way they look to please others. Some people are even told to change something about their outer appearance to be accepted by others. This thinking process doesn’t really match up to Scripture.

In this world, the importance of a person’s appearance seems to be increasing almost daily. There are advertisements for gym memberships, workout equipment, and diet plans all over television. Plastic surgery is more common than it used to be, with 15.9 million cosmetic surgeries and procedures in 2015 in the United States alone. On social media, mean comments are left on pictures of people, who aren’t wearing makeup. Many people get to be so concerned with the way they look and it tears them apart. Eating disorders are becoming more common and depression is overcoming a young population. It seems to be everyone is obsessed with changing themselves to make them look like a better person, but that doesn’t make sense if God only cares about what’s inside.

It is known God and man have different views, especially someone who isn’t a Christian. We don’t have the knowledge and wisdom God does and we are just overall inferior. We are imperfect, broken people and we have faulty views. One of those faulty views is we need to change our appearance to be desirable. Moreover, people think other people need to look a certain way to be friends with them. The “weird nerdy kids” are cast off and ignored because some people don’t want to be friends with someone who doesn’t look like they came directly out of a magazine spread. Movies thrive with the storyline of some kid who didn’t have any friends until she changed her hair, switched her bulky glasses out for contacts, and got an entirely new and trendy wardrobe. These are all physical things and it makes no sense for someone to suddenly want to be friends with a person immediately after they change the way they look. It doesn’t align with God’s thinking and it just isn’t rational. People shouldn’t want their friends to look a certain way, they should want their friends to have certain characteristics and personality traits, which have nothing to do with one’s outer appearance.

Faith is what gets you into Heaven, not good looks. God said those who believe and have repented will be allowed to walk through the gates of Heaven. He says nothing about only certain people getting into Heaven because they meet a certain number of societal standards that have been set by those on earth. God doesn’t want us to be consumed with things of this world and that includes our image. Yes, we should take care of ourselves, but we shouldn’t want to change our physical features by excessive exercise or surgery. Changing our physical appearance is altering the image of God because we are all made in His image.

It is common to hear people say it’s what’s on the inside that counts. That statement is quite true. God doesn’t value how nice your hair looked today, but rather the content of your heart and mind. God looks inside of us to determine whether we get into Heaven or not. Many spiritual things happen inside of our hearts that are only seen by those around us if we tell someone or do something that shows the change that happened. Baptism, for example, is an outward sign of an inward agreement. The clothes you wear don’t even compare to how important these spiritual things are. God’s works are superior to man’s works, so we shouldn’t value some clothes over the thing God has done for us and in us. He works in mysterious ways we cannot fathom and the things He does are so great and powerful it is ridiculous how much attention we give to our doubts and worries. His works hold so much more value than our clothes ever will.

To go along with God not caring about your physical appearance, God doesn’t care about what you have. On social media, you can scroll through your feed and you are bound to find someone who is talking about something new they’ve gotten. People like to have content. For some, having all sorts of objects might help fill a void they have. For others, they might like to be the best by having the most things or the highest quality of something. It might seem like to be seen highly of in this world you must have a lot of money and a lot of things. In Heaven, however, that isn’t the case. We don’t need earthly things in Heaven because we will have the presence of God. God is greater than any shirt you could buy. There is a story about a man who was told by an angel he could take one thing to Heaven. That man decided to bring gold and lots of it. When he went to Heaven, those who were already there found it funny he brought gold saying he just brought some bricks. This story shows things of this world do not have great value in Heaven. They’re equivalent to bricks and last time I checked, God is better than any brick.

It is a regular occurrence for judgments to be made based on looks. In movies, we see the nerdy kids with braces and glasses being excluded from activities because they don’t look like the popular kids. We hear stories on the news about suicides and major cases of depression because someone didn’t feel accepted by those around them. In certain stories, the sadness the person felt was because exclusions were made to set them apart from others. People judged them based on their outward appearance and didn’t care to look further. A person is so much more than the shoes they own and the clothes they wear. Unfortunately, the world has tainted our view of what is important about a person. We care more about how we look than God does. God doesn’t judge us because we don’t have Adidas sweatpants, but some people actually make silent judgments based on the fact someone doesn’t have a certain piece of clothing, like Adidas sweatpants. Our looks do not define who we are, and it can be hard for some people to understand that. The whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” saying is forgotten when it comes to people. Someone could totally not be what society says is beautiful, but they could be the best person you have ever talked to in your entire life. They could be sweet and kind and have all sorts of other lovely attributes. Just because they don’t meet societal standards of beauty doesn’t mean they aren’t good people or they aren’t beautiful. They are beautiful in God’s eyes. Even so, their characters are more important to God than their physical bodies.

Whenever someone says they are fat, which they may not be, they almost always drift toward a diet or exercise. Some diets are simple while others are extensive. These changes in what they eat can possibly be a good choice for their health, but some diets are unnecessary and can actually be harmful to the body. The reduction in food intake is often seen as the most important part of a diet, but in reality the changes to the food you are eating is more effective. However, the aspect of switching out bad foods for good foods could be seen as less appealing and harder to do than eating less. It is more common for someone to decide to eat less if they want to lose weight than to change the foods they are eating. This doesn’t always work at first, because the body starts to eat at the muscles that have been stored up before it starts to eat at the fat.

Younger generations have picked up this knowledge about eating less to weigh less. They also have been influenced by the thought they shouldn’t like their bodies and the way they look unless they fit into certain criteria. These two combined do not have a good outcome. Statistics say that 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls have a desire to weigh less and be thinner. When you have thoughts and beliefs as a child, it can be hard to change them when you are older. The thoughts you have may stick with you and if young girls start to think they want to be skinnier in 1st grade then it is probable they will continue to think that when they are in college. Eating disorders are serious and can really hurt your body. Anorexia nervosa can cause you to have a weak heart, severe dehydration, fatigue, muscle weakness, reduction of bone density, and other weaknesses that aren’t good for your heath. Now this is just one eating disorder and doesn’t include others like bulimia or binge eating disorder. People try to ignore the downhill slide of their health just to be thinner and, in their minds, prettier. God wants you to take care of your body. Your body is a temple and if you do things that hurt it then you are not glorifying God. God doesn’t want you to hurt yourself to be “prettier.” He wants you to accept the way you look because He made you that way. God made us and created us to look exactly the way we do and we should be happy because God took time to care for us. He took time to make us a certain way, and we shouldn’t hurt ourselves trying to change that.

People are just people; what effect could they have on us? In all actuality, the opinions of others affect us quite a lot. It is common for the average teenager to care about what their peers think of them. Whenever there are class discussions about self-confidence, a large portion of the female percentage do not have very high levels of confidence. They want to find approval from others, not only on their characters but also with the way they look. Almost every person in the world talks to at least one person each day, so it is rational to want the people you have conversations with to like you. And in this day, a big part of you is how you look. First impressions mean practically everything and sometimes first impression don’t include any words being said. Some people have social anxiety disorder and analyze every little thing they do just to look or seem a certain way, even though they know it is irrational. A larger percentage of people have a lot of stress over meeting new people because of that. They want people’s approval and they want to be looked at as presentable along with some other attributes.

When you constantly worry about what other people think, it can handicap you from doing what you are supposed to do. It can prevent you from fulfilling your God-given purpose. Everyone has a purpose and it is greater than stressing out over what someone thinks of you. People will want to bring us down and cause us to be incapable of fulfilling our purpose, but God doesn’t. God wants us to care more about spreading the gospel than about if your locker neighbor will like the way you styled your hair. Spreading His Word is definitely higher up on the priority list. We shouldn’t focus so intently on things of this world, because they aren’t the most important things to exist. The things of God hold more value, so when we care deeply about how we look and how we will be perceived, we are being disrespectful to God. We shouldn’t focus on the opinions of other people on Earth, but on what God thinks of us and how to spread the Word.

If you keep doing something repeatedly, it becomes a habitual thing or process. After a certain amount of days, it just becomes a part of your regular routine. You might switch things up in your life so it can be easier to do that thing. If you continually worry about what other people think and how you can change yourself to make people like you more, it will become a habit. You will do things differently so you can stress about it. Your life might end up being dictated by the worry and stress your mind creates. The more you stress, the more control and power you give it. God wants us to be calm and serene in Him, to not panic and be alarmed. We need to trust God and get rid of the stress we create because God takes care of everything. We can’t let the need to be liked by other people control the way we behave. We need to let God take control and rule over the insignificant worries that are made.

People all over the world want to change you and make you different. It’s tempting to want to conform to what the world says is normal or perfect, but what the world says doesn’t always line up with what God says. God’s words and laws are way above manmade laws, so it sounds like our best shot is to obey God over man. As a whole, mankind wants you to change to be accepted, where God accepts you completely. We can’t let people make us stress out over miniscule things like being liked and looking a certain way that aligns with societal standards. Those things are so small compared to the plans God has created for you. God is so much bigger than other people’s opinions. Put your trust in Him and pay more attention to what your character is than to what your outer appearance is. So, I’m going to keep wearing my mismatched socks and when people tell me they would like me better with matching socks, I’m going to ignore the comments because I know God loves me, mismatched socks and all. I suggest you do the same.

Bibliography

“Get The Facts On Eating Disorders.” National Eating Disorders. NEDA. Web. 18 October 2016. www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/get-facts-eating-disorders

Lim, Teddy. “10 Clear Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Care What Others Think.” Lifehack. N.p. Web. 25 October 2016. www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/10-clear-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-care-what-others-think.html

Christmas Then and Now

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Katie Kenney

When the normal everyday person thinks about Christmas she normally doesn’t think about the birth of Jesus. Most people are concerned with traditions, food, and gifts. Today, more people are concerned with getting gifts than giving them. Many things have changed, like how many people view Christmas religiously, the importance of buying expensive gifts, and the amount of rest people get. The focus on what is most important has shifted. Spending time with family that haven’t been visited in some time is less important than making sure your house looks like it’s from a Hallmark Christmas movie to some people. How many gifts a person gets and how much the presents cost may be more valuable than the celebration of the birth of Christ to someone you know. We, as a people group, have developed and changed over the course of decades and centuries, so much so a widely celebrated holiday is completely different. By that I mean Christmas used to be a very public celebration, but it is now kept to families and parties with a limited amount of people at them. If that has changed then what else has?

It has come to my attention many children under the age of ten have phones, computers, tablets, and TVs much more expensive and much nicer than anything I had when I was as old as they are. I can’t even imagine what it is like for my parents and grandparents who have literally grown up having no cell phone or laptop to see kids of ten years play inside with video games as their form of entertainment instead of outside like they did. Young people, children and teenagers, seem to have a great want for electronic devices as a whole. Today’s generation has a better knowledge of electronics and how they work. Some people want to improve their knowledge and see what they can create and do with it. Others just want to have devices to entertain them and unintentionally keep them distracted from things outside of the Internet, even though almost everything is online today. This can keep teenagers who are not believers away from God and His word or even give them false information about who He is. Their want of physical things renders them unable to receive God’s promises.

Everyone has seen a little kid have a full out temper tantrum in a public store sometime in their lives. Most of the time, these tantrums happen because the child has been told he can’t have something. Around Christmas, when mothers take their kids with them to places like the grocery store, the amount of outbursts from children increase. This is because small toys and decorations are put out, which gives kids more things to want. They don’t care about making their dad a finger painting and giving it to him on Christmas; they care about getting new toys and playing with them immediately after they open the box it came in. The focus in children’s eyes during Christmas time seems to be about what they want. Many children are asked what they want for Christmas and what they will do with it if they get it. During times of war, kids didn’t get to tell what they wanted and why. They didn’t get to ask for a multitude of toys they wanted because there wasn’t enough resources or time to make the toys.

The Bible says good deeds will not get you into Heaven, but your faith will. This is specifically said in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through grace. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” This means the things you do will not help you get into Heaven, but the faith and trust you put into God will allow you to pass through the gates of Heaven. Unfortunately, this is often forgotten all year ’round, especially during Christmas. Stories about Santa say you have to act well and do good things so you can get presents from him. If you aren’t seen as a good kid then you are punished and coal is put into your stocking instead of candy. This makes kids think from a very young age the only way they can receive good things is by doing good things. Now doing good acts is not at all bad, but thinking the things you do will get you places, like Heaven, is not a good mindset to have.

In a history class, you are obviously taught different things about different time periods. During the time of WWII, people were definitely less greedy than they are now. Children understood, to a certain extent, they couldn’t have everything they wanted because it was to be given to someone else or there wasn’t any more of what they wanted. All of the resources we have today were not available to them because of the state they were in. It was hard to be happy during Christmas because almost everyone knew someone in the war, fighting for their country and their lives. Jews in countries where Communism had control were unable to do the practices and traditions they believed in. They couldn’t even say they were a Jew without having some form of harm inflicted upon them. They had to stuff down their beliefs in order to live sometimes. Across the world, people were unable to buy gifts for everyone they knew because there were less jobs and less money, not even dealing with the fact more weapons were made than toys because of the war.

Going along with the fact religion was hard to express in certain European countries during WWII, religion was hardly spread to other people. Evangelism was minimal because Communist leaders said no religion was allowed and if you said you belonged to one then you could be sent to a concentration camps, possibly many different ones, or even killed on sight. No one in their right mind would tell others about Jesus in the middle of a common place where Communist soldiers walked around. Today, people do that: they hold meetings in public parks, or other places not secretive, and talk about Jesus. People stand out in the winter cold to tell people who happen to walk by them about the joy of Jesus Christ. Evangelism is more prominent than it was before because many people have more freedom to evangelize. They are not as scared to share the gospel. 

Santa is a widely known fictional being who brings people gifts in the middle of the night. Many children believe in him, or believed in him at one point in their childhood, and they found great joy in the idea of him. Jesus is the Son of God who rose from the dead and has cleansed us of our sins. He has given us the opportunity to live forever with Him after we die if we have faith and believe in Him even though we cannot see Him. Unfortunately, some people prefer Santa to Jesus, even people who no longer believe in Santa. A reason people do not believe in Christ is because they do not want to commit to things in the Bible like the Ten Commandments, even though He can bring peace and joy to them. With Santa, there is only one commitment: to be good. This can seem quite appealing, causing people to like the concept of Santa more than they like the concept of Jesus. Most people like to do things the easy way and tend to lean toward the side of less work, which in this case is Santa. However, just because something takes less work does not mean it is better than something that takes a lot of hard work, no matter how hard people try to make that true. Being a Christian takes more work than saying you don’t believe in God, but being a believer is a much better life than going without knowing about God.

On social media, young people seem to care less about the things important to religion or important to the betterment of the world and more about making funny images to share with their friends or getting a certain amount of attention on their pictures they’ve posted. This means some things, like the religion in Christmas for example, can be forgotten. Because of a survey, we know only 39% of young adults ages 18-29 see Christmas as a religious holiday, comparing to 66% of adults aged 65 and older. This shows the value of Christmas has changed over time. The importance of Christmas is looked over or seen as useless by 61% of young adults, which is quite obviously more than half. Those who are older, specifically those who are older than 64, see Christmas is a religious holiday more than adults who are in their twenties. What happened? How did a whole generation just decide Christmas had nothing to do with Jesus Christ? Perhaps they were influenced by those you do not believe online. Maybe they were told if they viewed Christmas as a religious holiday they were stupid or less than those who didn’t view Christmas religiously. It may also be possible they think they will look cooler if they say they don’t believe. Either way, this may mean the percentage of young adults who see Christmas as a religious holiday will drop even lower in the following years.

Around Christmas, it is common for people to be more stressed than they usually are. There is a lot of running around to find the perfect gift, the biggest Christmas tree, or the prettiest home decorations, which can take a toll on someone. If you are struggling to find the one thing your friend asked you for, it might make your stress levels rise. Many stores try to alleviate this stress by being open 24/7, or maybe they’re just doing it for business purposes, but it doesn’t always help. Some stores also allow online shopping so you don’t have to go out in the Christmas shopping rush that looms over people’s heads. However, some people just like to physically go out and shop for what they need or want, even though it might cause them more stress. Many people try to shop early for Christmas presents and ask for Christmas lists a couple months before December. For example, on Black Friday, a multitude of people go out and buy all sorts of things because practically everything is on sale in some way, shape, or form. It is seen by many as a great opportunity to do most, if not all, of their Christmas shopping. It can be quite stressful because there are so many people trying to buy the same things as you when the items are limited. Many people just want to get their shopping over with, but that can just bring more worry and stress. If you try to get everything done before the “rush” then you are rushing yourself, which isn’t the best idea if you are trying to make every little thing about the presents you are giving absolutely perfect.

In 2014, the average American spent $860 on Christmas presents for people they know. This means the amount of money spent for Christmas gifts had increased by 35% in the last thirty years before then. Over time, the prices of the majority of items has increased. If something is expensive then it is most often seen as a better product than an extremely similar product with a smaller price. Because of that, people may buy more expensive things even though they don’t need to or it isn’t in their budget. Speaking of budgets, how come people have bought things that have increased in price over time when the average American income has only increased 6.5% since 1985? That just doesn’t fit well with the increase in the amount of money spent for Christmas gifts. People are buying things that cost a lot of money or that add up to a lot of money, but not everyone has the money to do so and live without having to knock some things down on their priority list. 

On Christmas Eve, it is tradition for some families to drive around their neighborhoods to look at homes decorated with Christmas lights or inflated Santa Clauses. Many families also go to light set-ups like the one in Newport News Park on the weeks before Christmas. It is very common for American families to hang lights on the outside of their house, whether it be on the trim of their roof or the bushes and trees in their yards. Some families are more passionate than others and have an overwhelming want to have the best decorated house on their street. They want to outdo everyone else they know or see. This concept can be seen in the movie Deck the Halls, in which two neighbors compete against each other to see who can have the brightest Christmas lights that may be seen in space. Christmas lights are incredibly important to some people, more important than socializing with people they haven’t seen all year. Over time tangible things like lights and gifts have been focused on more than things like family and the birth of Jesus. You can be ridiculed greatly if you don’t have a Christmas tree somewhere in your house and will be told why you should have one, but if you don’t celebrate Christmas religiously than it is less common for someone to tell you why you should. Decorations seem to be more important than the real reason why Christmas is even celebrated.

In conclusion, Christmas has changed drastically in ways not in plain view for everyone, but if you think about it then it is quite obvious. When you look back and see how different Christmas was it makes you wonder how different Christmas will be in the following decades. The changes that have been made, from main focuses to decorations to beliefs, can be seen as bad, as good, or as the development of our world. Change isn’t inherently bad, but when changes are made to shift the focus away from Jesus and the truth He gives onto things of our human world, it isn’t the best change possible. All of the changes made that don’t fit with what the Bible tells us can be changed again. We have the opportunity to change things back to what God wants, instead of what our human brains want.

Bibliography

Mazza, Juliana. 22WWLP. LIN Television Corporation, 25 Dec. 2014. Web. 26 Sept. 2016. http://wwlp.com/2014/12/25/christmas-has-changed-over-the-decades/.

Pruitt, Sarah. History. A&E Television Networks, 24 Dec. 2013. Web. 24 Sept. 2016. http://www.history.com/news/christmas-traditions-past-and-present.

What Differences Do Childhoods Really Make?

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Katie Kenney

What happens in your childhood sticks with you when you are an adult. Variations of that statement are spread far and wide, so practically everyone understands it. When you grow up believing one thing you tend to keep those beliefs when you are older because it is all you have known or been exposed to. All sorts of things influence kids, whether it be their environment or their openness with their parents. Kids take things in and keep it with them. Now, practically everyone knows that, but not everyone knows the extent of things that make a difference in a child’s life.

In school, it is quite typical to know the questions that come first on your study guide better than the ones at the end. When you have a longer time to study a certain concept than a different concept, you should be able to recall facts about the first topic a little bit easier than the second topic depending on how much you have studied. This is like what happens when you are a child: when you are a child you are given a certain sphere with a specific amount of knowledge within it. Over time, they are given more information, but what they were first given stays with them. The impact the first nugget of knowledge had on them is bigger than the impact from later knowledge added on top of it.

Many things influence a child and that can make the kid grow up to be a great person or an awful person. It is unfortunately common many serial killers had some sort of trauma in childhood, whether it be abuse from an adult, an accident that brought death upon a loved one, or being close to a type of crime, which led to a mental break and brought them to murder. What happened to them when they were kids started the building blocks of a criminal to be stacked on top of one another. The bad stands out more vividly than the good things that happened. This is still the case for most people. It is easier to remember the bad things that happened during the day, is it not? People try to forget the bad things that happen because no one wants to remember sadness or embarrassment, but it sticks out against the good things that happen. It is like seeing one single blue paper laid out amongst a sea of yellow papers: your eyes quickly go to the blue paper that stands out. It is also hard to forget something when you are trying to forget it because you keep thinking about getting it out of your mind, therefore you still have it in your mind.

Your environment is a big part of what happens. It is an important part of the setting in a story. It can help or hinder a person’s journey and it can decide how far they get until they need to stop. Daycares and preschools try to be aware with how clean they are and how they can prevent the spread of germs. At home, however, if a kid isn’t in the richest family on the block then that is not entirely true. If a kid lives in a mobile home where their parents can’t afford all of the cleaning supplies a house should have, then they won’t always be in a clean environment. And when germs are spread around freely, they can get people sick. Children are more susceptible to illness and, depending on where they are, can be sick quite often. People aren’t happy when they’re sick. If you feel nauseous or have just the general cold then you won’t want to get up, go outside, and play with friends; you’ll want to stay inside and sleep off the pain. Kids are known for being rowdy and jumpy, always wanting to play with someone somewhere. A big part of being a kid is having the time and the leisure to play, but when that is taken away what kind of childhood is that? If a child is always sick, then when can they play? They can’t go out and run around when they feel like their stomach is going to implode on itself. They can’t push their friend on the swing when their head hurts so badly that their vision is blurred. How can a child who loves to play, play when they are always in pain? When someone grows up not being able to do the one thing they want to, then when they are all grown up they will most likely have an underlying belief they can’t do what they want to.

Mental illnesses are underdiagnosed in children. It is less common for parents to bring their kid in to a psychologist because they act like two completely different people, than for a teenager to be brought in. Kids emotions are often seen as over-exaggerated and played up. People who are taking care of them use the “I am acting like I believe you, but in reality I think that you are just speaking lies” voice and do not take them seriously. This can seriously hurt a kid when no one listens to them talking about what they feel. No one likes their words to be trampled over by others, but when whatever you try to say is always dismissed, you get used to it. When kids are told they are lying when they are actually telling the truth, it either makes them want to stay silent or makes them not want to tell the truth anymore. If you grow up keeping quiet because you are scared people will ridicule you and say you’re lying, then that mindset will stick with you until you have a reason to change it. Not saying things you want to can keep people from hearing.

Everyone has responsibilities they need to be aware of. New ones can pop up and old ones can no longer be your responsibility. People always need to take care of things. It is harder for some people to see the importance of their responsibilities than others, causing them to just not want to do them. If you grow up with things you have to do or others things won’t work, it allows you to be more prepared for the big responsibilities in adulthood, like bills and taxes. If you grow up without having to do anything for yourself, it will be incredibly hard to know how to do things you need to when you are on your own. The only time you won’t need to know how to do stuff is if you’re rich and have every type of servant there is serve you. Now seeing as that is highly unlikely for most of us, it is beneficial to know how to keep up with all of the responsibilities you have and if you have been taught how to prior to being in the actual situation, you can save yourself quite a bit of stress.

It is well-known military families tend to move a lot. They are stationed different places in the United States or in different countries across the world. Some people who don’t have anyone in the military move around just as much as those who are a part of the military community. When you move, you have to leave friends behind along with everything familiar to you. You lose many connections you had with people, and the ones you do keep are hard to keep strong because of the distance. Many military kids, who have lived in multiple places, stop making connections other kids their age make because they know it is just a matter of time before they move again. This causes them to never have a true feeling of trust. This doesn’t just pertain to military families, it could be people who have some other job responsibility or just like to move around often. Trust is hard to build and takes time, but when you are unable to obtain the time to work on trust, you never build trust. When kids grow up lacking the ability to trust others, they are found to be disconnected and isolated. They might think they don’t need trust, that trust isn’t worth the time, or they will never be able to trust others. They block people off and disable deep connections that could be formed in fear of those bonds being broken later on, because it is what they have known for the longest time.

It is a regular occurrence in many homes for parents to ask their kid(s) how school went today and how they’re feeling. I know a lot of kids lie and say school was good that day and they’re tired because of this and that, when they actually had a bad day because they failed this and was called that. They don’t tell their parents everything that happened because they feel like they would overreact and say something that wouldn’t help their case, not understand in the slightest, or ignore what they say they are feeling and call it “just a phase” or “teenager problems.” Now, I’m not saying everyone does this, I actually have a friend who tells her mom practically everything, but it is a common thing that takes place. Saying someone is lying about their struggles doesn’t make you want to speak about them; it makes you want to stay quiet and act like nothing happened. It isn’t beneficial to keep all of your emotions inside, but when someone misinterprets what you are saying or dismisses it, you might think it is better to hold everything. This kind of mentality is hard to break. Once someone starts to think like that, it is hard to switch that viewpoint.

It is common for babies and toddlers to have separation anxiety. They don’t like it when their parent leaves them and so they end up crying and throwing a tantrum type of thing. Children just don’t like being away from the people who are most familiar to them: their parents. Most of the time, parents just walk away and don’t look back when a crying session occurs, which is beneficial to whomever is watching the child because the baby no longer sees the parent and eventually “forgets” about them. However, there is always that one parent that won’t leave or they will look through a window. This doesn’t help the baby because they can still see their parent and they don’t understand why they can’t just go to them and definitely doesn’t help the person who is watching the child because the baby continues to freak out. Over time, the parents learn to just walk away and out of sight. There are some parents that don’t stop looking through the window, though, and it causes the anxiety to continue on as they grow up.

Everyone gets mad at or at least annoyed with someone at some point in their life. There is always going to be that one person who just gets on your nerves. Now, to be completely honest, kids can be annoying, from toddlers to teenagers and those kids who are about ten. They just seem to get on everyone’s nerves. Some kids can make you mad, whether because they disobeyed you and did something stupid or they made a bad decision. It’s okay to be mad at kids, but while you’re mad you still need to show them love. It is almost universal for kids to think if someone is angry with them then they aren’t loved by that person anymore. Kids need to be shown unconditional love through the mistakes they make. You can’t let them get away with making bad decisions over and over again, but you need to love them through their problems and help them not make the same mistake twice. Kids aren’t the only people in the world who need unconditional love; adults do as well. To have a good family structure, you need to be able to love each other through the problems another person may make. If a kids grows up thinking they will stop being loved when they make a mistake, it is likely for them to have the underlying thought that when they mess up people will leave them because they made a mistake, whether it be simple or catastrophic.

Children’s opinions can be seen as meaningless to those who are older than them. People say kids don’t understand what is coming out of their mouths and dismiss what they have to say. Therefore, to fill up the empty space, they talk about their opinions and what they think is right. Some adults can be quite forceful and get mad if the child doesn’t agree with what they are saying. They just want the kids to believe what they have to say is the only option, when in reality, there are so many different thoughts and expressions they could have that are completely unique compared to other ways of thinking. Having your own opinion can give you confidence in yourself and your abilities. It can make you more passionate about the things you love and more willing to share your point of view with others. But if you are never given the opportunity to form your own special views, then it will be incredibly hard for you to think for yourself. Taking someone else’s opinions and using them as your own never allows you to express what you think and what you want. You can’t express the changes you want to make or the passion you have. And if you grow up being an impassionate slate who takes everything in but doesn’t give anything out, you won’t really want to share what you think when you’re older. You won’t necessarily know how to, seeing as you were used to adults always giving you way to think. That would make it hard to create things that are special to you. You won’t be able to have your own thoughts, and that is not a good way to go through life.

It is common knowledge children collect all sorts of information and keep it with them as they grow up; however, I don’t think people understand how much of it they actually keep. I mean children, as a whole, are curious and want to know all sorts of things about every object, topic, or even person they can get their hands, or mind, on. It has been said children are like sponges: they soak up an abundance of knowledge as a sponge collects a large amount of some type of liquid. Children take in the things they see, hear, and experience then bring them with them as they grow out of childhood. We need to be gentle and loving to kids, because they matter. Just because they aren’t adults doesn’t mean what they say is invalid. They have importance and value in God’s eyes, so they should have importance and value in ours. We should do everything in our power to help them get through the struggles imminent to them.

The Benefits of Reading

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Katie Kenney

Reading is one of the best things a person can do, in my opinion. You can immerse yourself in a different world with every single book you read. It shows you different ways of thinking. It exposes you to opinions that aren’t yours, that aren’t the most common thought process and explains it is good to understand what other people think. Reading can give you valuable information on different cultures, people groups, and what other people’s lives are like in different parts of the world. Books are able to improve your mental state and give you more confidence. So, if books are so beneficial then why don’t more people read? It is quite strange because reading can help you in more ways than the common man knows.

Reading helps you exercise your mind. People exercise their bodies when they do sports or go to the gym and similarly, reading is the way to get your mind in shape. It stimulates your mind which keeps it healthy. Studies have shown a stimulated mind can delay the effects of Alzheimer’s and dementia. This happens because when your mind is active it fights off things it can’t when it is doing nothing. If you are trying to figure out the meaning of a word you don’t understand, your brain is working harder than it would be when just staring at an electronic screen of some sort, which has support saying it can be harmful to certain parts of your brain by researchers and their experiments.

When you learn about different worlds where extravagant things happen and where there is almost always a hero, your imagination expands. If you talk to anyone who prides themselves with how many books they have read you can tell their mind has multiple roads their thoughts walk. They can make up uniquely weird things you can’t help but be intrigued by. This doesn’t mean every reader is like this though. Readers who like fiction are exposed to new characters, a new plot line, and a new adventure every time they open a book. Then we have the people who don’t necessarily prefer fiction, but like nonfiction or historical pieces better. They still get shown new things like people and events. Just because they don’t like the utopian universes doesn’t mean they don’t have an active imagination. People who prefer nonfiction can imagine different things for themselves. They have to get their own creative juices flowing without a big kick-start, unlike most fiction readers who get their imagination going by getting ideas from some prominent idea made by an author.

An array of words is what you’ll find in all kinds of novels. You can be exposed to words you don’t the meaning of or how to pronounce them. When you spend time looking at the pages of a book and learn new words, your vocabulary is enlarged by a great sum. When you keep seeing different words and continue to try to comprehend their meaning, you get a better knowledge of what other words are.

In almost every single book that exists, different opinions are expressed. Many books have some sort of conflict, and it most often comes from opposing thoughts that lead to argumentation. When you read about the opposing opinion you are being shown different view points. This helps you accept other people’s beliefs and how they see the world without being judgmental. It can help you be more acceptant and kind to what they say. In current times, if you don’t agree with someone or at least acknowledge their opinion is valid then you get eaten alive by those who are watching. But when people see you understand or at least accept their thoughts when most others don’t, they back off and leave you alone instead of trying to make you completely agree with what they have to say.

Studies have been conducted and evidence shows people who read are most often better in daily conversation. They use larger words, but not too large as to make the person they are talking to confused. They pay attention to the person they are talking to and don’t drift off or look closely at other things like many people find themselves doing in conversation. They may find it easier to hold a conversation because they’ve seen and read about a variety of them. The variation of communications assists the learning and social skills of the reader in growing. It teaches people different ways to hold a conversation because of this.

People who read often have a better attention to detail. They notice things the common man does not see. They are better at understanding certain social cues in a conversation. They look for how people react to what they are seeing because they read about main characters who do the same thing. When characters in a book miss details crucial to a positive outcome, even though they didn’t know how big of a deal it was earlier, the importance of paying attention is enforced. No one wants to make the same mistake someone else did that led to a disaster in her life. This causes them to be more attentive to their surroundings and what words are said in friendly, everyday conversations.

Everyone gets stressed, some more often than others. Reading can help alleviate the stress put on by outside sources. When you read, you are sucked into a world not your own. You don’t have to worry about that math test tomorrow, or the job application you think you messed up, or what someone said about you behind your back. You get so focused on the characters’ lives and everything that happens in their world you forget about your own. It distracts you from the constant daily stress everyone is plagued with. However, if you keep avoiding the source of stress, reading to get rid of it will only cause you to miss what is happening in the book and think about the responsibilities you are ignoring.

Reading can build up one’s self-esteem. Main characters are often praised for their faults. They are seen as still being good people beside the fact they have many flaws. Their flaws are what makes them real to us. When you see the person whose life you have been following has some of the same problems you do it makes you feel better about yourself. You feel like you can relate to someone even though he may not be real, depending on what genre you are reading. You get comfort from knowing someone out there understands, to a certain extent, how it feels to have specific faults because the author who wrote about it has either experience or knowledge in the realm of what you are feeling. Most people want to have some similarities to others so when they find someone they can relate to, that person greatly influences them because they see themselves in the person.

If you see someone who is similar to you or someone you look up to stand up for something they believe then it encourages you to stand up for your beliefs. In books, even if the person is nothing like you, although the reader almost always seems to find something to relate themselves to the main character or a supporting character, anyone who stands up and fights for what they think is right influences you. Seeing all sorts of people who are vastly different with different lives in different worlds all speak passionately about things important to them makes you want to do the same. It gives you a feeling of confidence; a confidence in which you want to talk about things that greatly matter to you and what you do in and with your life.

When you read an entire book you have to have a somewhat good memory to remember the characters and everything that has happened so far. When you meet new people or learn about a new subject it can be hard to recall certain things like names and important conversations. If you don’t know these things it can hinder you later on. That’s why people who read books tend to have a better memory. It can be annoying to go back to the beginning of your novel to freshen your memory on something you weren’t able to comprehend enough to know what is happening where you actually are in your book. If you are continually tested on the abilities of your memory then you are able to recall things easier. It’s like studying for a test. Typically, the more you study the better you will be able to retain the knowledge you were going through, which will help you on tests, quizzes, and classwork. If you don’t study at all and you can’t remember what was said during class when the information was given, then it will be terribly hard to perform well on a test. However, if you do remember most of what was said in class then there is the possibility of you doing well when tested. This is the same for books: if you can’t remember what was said prior to the scene you are currently reading then there is likely no way you can understand what is happening without the context clues.

People who read can be more in touch with their emotions and what they feel than the average person. In every fictional book are characters with deep, complex minds who have emotions they sometimes can’t understand and other emotions they know like the back of their hands. If a 10-year-old boy reads his book and sees the hero isn’t always happy and can be sad or angry, then he understands it is okay to have feelings no matter what other people say to him. If you grow up reading books in which the people don’t always have everything going how they want it to then you are better equipped to deal with situations in which it feels like nothing is going right. If you see how other people, even though they could be purely fictional, get through tough situations, then it is almost like getting advice from an outside source who is wiser than you and has had experience in the position you are in.

All characters in books have an ultimate goal. They work toward meeting it every chance they get all throughout the story being told. If they find an obstacle in their path, then they do every little thing they can in their limited power to overcome it. Unfortunately, an abundance of people mill through their lives with no real goal or purpose in mind. Often people just go through the motions and let what happens happen, without lifting a single finger of effort to change. Sometimes, people don’t know what they want to do. They could be completely lost and incapable of deciding what they want to do for the rest of their lives. However, when they see others with an initiative do something they want to with passion, then it makes them want to do the same. If some are doing something that makes them happy then you obviously want to find something of your own that brings you joy.

It always seems to be that whenever you pull out a book someone desperately needs to talk to you or has some sort of important story to fill you in on. If you read in public then you know the pain of people talking unnecessarily loudly. Focusing on your book can be hard sometimes. Over time, you get used to all of the noise and it becomes a background to the story you are immersed in. You get better at focusing on what is important: your book. This skill of focusing can be taken into other places of your life like your job or school. The work that you do will normally be better if you aren’t interrupted or distracted every five seconds. Your ability to ignore outside problems while reading helps you ignore the noise while doing other things. This is not purely pertaining to words. If you can focus on a novel’s plot line, then you can focus on doing tasks like chores or drills during a sport practice.

Reading can be cheaper than other forms of entertainment. Movies are expensive nowadays, being around ten dollars for one adult ticket. Most paperback books are about ten dollars as well and hard covers are about twelve dollars. However, you don’t have to buy every single book you want to read. There are these convenient things much nicer to your wallet and have all sorts of books in them, from fiction to informative books. These wonderful, magical places are called libraries. They are truly amazing. You don’t have to pay for the books you want to read and you can get as many as you want, as long as you return them. Now some people just want to have all of the books they could possibly have. They like to fill up all of the bookshelves they have and then make more room when all of the empty spaces are filled up. Now this definitely makes your wallet cry a little bit, but those people think it is worth the pain. The great thing is you don’t have to buy every book you want to read. With movies, you have to buy the movie if you want to have it. Even if you are renting a movie, like from a Redbox, then you have to pay a fee. If you want to go watch a movie in a movie theater then you have to pay for tickets. There are no legal ways to see a movie without paying some sort of money unless you are borrowing it from someone. So reading is definitely a better form of entertainment and education in this case, so you can add that to the list of reasons why reading is superior to movies.

There are many advantages too many people are missing out on. Picking a book up, opening its pages, and letting what is inside of it make an influence can benefit you in more ways than one. Books can help you emotionally, mentally, and even physically. Some novels are found boring by people, but there is a book for everyone and when they find one interesting to them, it will positively change their lives. There is a plethora of books in the world, all with the intention to change you in some way. If you go through life only reading books you are made to, then all of the positive possibilities are thrown out of the window. Pick up a book. Let it change you. Let it benefit you.

Bibliography

Gelman, Lauren. “Benefits of Reading: Getting Smart, Thin, Healthy, Happy.” Reader’s Digest. Trusted Media Brands, Inc. Web. 6 September 2016. www.rd.com/health/wellness/benefits-of-reading/

Winter-Hérbert, Lana. “10 Benefits of Reading: Why You Should Read Every Day.” Life Hack. Life Hack. Web. 6 September 2016. www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-benefits-reading-why-you-should-read-everyday.html

Gender Roles: Why Do They Still Exist?

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Katie Kenney

All around the world, people are told to act a certain way and do certain things just because of their gender. Boys are told to like sports from a very young age. Little girls are only given dolls to play with. In middle school and high school, if you don’t live up to what your gender is supposed to be you get bullied and made fun of. If girls are “too involved” in sports, sometimes they aren’t let into certain social groups. If a boy wears a pink shirt to school, he is ridiculed for his choice of fashion. As people get to adulthood, the roles placed on them increase in responsibilities. Men are shamed if they are stay-at-home dads and don’t bring in the main income. Women are treated differently if they can’t cook well for their family.

This greatly affects how many see themselves. People can get hurt emotionally, even physically, because of the roles associated with their sex. For some, it comes to hurting themselves and even suicide because they feel like they don’t fit in. This obviously isn’t a good thing. However, many people don’t see how this hurts anyone. They don’t understand how it can’t be a good thing to have standards to live up to. Well, there are many reasons why.

First, gender roles influence everything a person does almost immediately from birth. If a couple is told they are going to have a baby boy they most likely will incorporate the color blue somewhere, whether it be the clothes, the crib sheets, or the walls. If a couple is told they are going to have a baby girl, then they most likely will incorporate the color pink in the baby’s life. What do colors have to do with a person’s life that makes them so important? Why are they gendered? The only time colors should have genders is in foreign languages we learn, and that’s just so we know how to put them into sentences.

Now as children grow up, gender roles can cause them to act certain ways. If every girl grows up playing with dolls and is told to not get rough with her brother just because she’s a girl, she will think she can’t be rough and loud but has to be gentle and quiet. Girls will grow up thinking they have to stay silent all of the time, because if they get loud or fight for what they think is right they will be unladylike. If they play multiple sports and get really physical then they will be equated to a man for the sole reason she played rough. Women should be able to play rough or play hard without being told those things are characteristics of men.

If a boy grows up and is told to not play with a baby doll because it’s a girl’s toy, then he will live in fear of being associated with typically female things. What is so bad about a little boy, who may be a father in the future, to play with a baby doll and take care of it? There shouldn’t be anything wrong with being kind and caring, yet many men are shamed if they show those signs because those characteristics are typically associated with women. Men are told not to cry because it makes them “less of a man.” They should not have to be scared to show their emotions, yet most men are.

Because gender roles still exist, it can be hard for women to have jobs known as important and big. Not a single woman has ever been president even though forty-three people have sworn into office, six of them with the name “James,” four of them with the name “John,” and four of them with the name “William.” No rule or law says a woman can’t be president. However, being president is almost always seen as a male’s job. Now Hillary Clinton seems to be trying to change that, but I don’t think it will change anytime soon. It has been imprinted in our minds the president is supposed to be a man, just like a person who runs a big company is supposed to be a man.

In the world of business, more men named “John” own and run big companies than all women; all of them. Also, more men with the name “David” run big companies than all women. If there isn’t something wrong with that then I don’t know what else could be. A woman should be able to run a business just as easily as a man can. Women should be seen as capable of being in a big-time work position instead of the secretary standing in the background looking pretty.

A big problem with gender roles is how people see themselves. There are many standards for men and women to live up to. People mainly see the standards of women because they seem to be shown more in our society through magazines, billboards, and other advertisements on TV and other places. There are still standards men feel like they need to live up to, but they are subtler than women’s. On every magazine cover, there are pictures of shirtless men, who are insanely in shape, used to entice women daily. The people who take these pictures and put them everywhere are giving every man the idea he needs to look like that to get a woman to like him. They are shown these pictures of men with six-pack abs and freakishly muscular arms with captions that say something along the lines of women wanting them and pictures of men who don’t work out every day, all day with captions of people being disgusted by the way they look. No one should be ashamed of how they look and publishing companies are completely ignoring that and blowing the egos of fit men up and lowering the self-esteem of the men who aren’t necessarily in shape. Also, because men supposedly are not allowed to talk about how they feel, especially if they feel inadequate, almost every man and boy stays silent in their struggles with seeing their worth.

Now as I said before, women also have standards they feel they need to meet. A lot of magazines today show pictures of women wearing revealing clothing with completely flat stomachs and beautifully clear faces. As women and young girls see these covers everywhere, from stands in a clothing store to the racks in an aisle at the grocery store check-out, they just assume everyone is supposed to look like that and are discouraged when they look in a mirror and realize they don’t. Young girls don’t know the girl on the cover has been photoshopped to an unbelievable extent, they think the woman really looks flawless. They don’t understand almost no one goes through life without at least one pimple and uneven skin. They don’t understand it isn’t completely healthy to aim for and obtain a perfectly flat stomach.

There are many misconceptions with how the “perfect body” looks. Let me tell you something: there is no such thing as a perfect body. What?! Yeah, no such thing can be obtained. People are all made differently with different body types, different looks, and different thinking processes. Nobody is the same so there is no way everyone can look the same, but our society has put it inside our minds we can and should look exactly alike. Every girl wants to have the perfect body that is fit and beautiful. But, we have been trained only to see beauty in what is perfect in societal terms and that leaves out every human being who hasn’t been altered by a computer tool. No one seems to get that anymore. The people we see in magazines aren’t us, and we can’t live up to them. We shouldn’t have to. Women should not feel like they need to look a certain way to be desirable and wanted. Women shouldn’t have to feel like they need to wear makeup to look pretty and buy expensive clothes to look cute, yet many women feel like they do need to. They feel like need to look a certain way to be accepted by others.

Going along with the societal standards of everyone’s bodies, people feel like they need to dress a certain way. Often girls feel like they can’t wear baggy sweatpants and large t-shirts because it isn’t feminine enough for everyone else. Sometimes boys feel like they can’t wear pink or certain shades of purple because they are too girly and not masculine enough for them to be accepted. Girls are told to show off what they got because people need to know they have a nice figure. Boys are told to wear tight shirts that show off their abs if they are fit and to just generally not wear clothes that make you think of women. This just shows men are told not to be like women, not to show characteristics typically feminine. This also shows women are told not to be seen as masculine because it means they aren’t acting the way they are told to. There is so much fear of the opposite sexes being somewhat similar to the other, and I don’t understand why. We were both created by God with the same purpose: to glorify Him and preach His word, so there should be no trouble in being a little bit like the opposite gender.

There are always problems when diagnosing someone with a mental disorder. There are multiple questions you need to answer before you can know what is wrong with them, and sometimes some questions are answered incorrectly, looked over, or misunderstood. It is hard to fully understand what is going on in another person’s mind, but people have done enough research and experiments to understand a part of the human brain and the emotions it makes people feel. However, many people live their lives with mental disorders because no one was able to understand what was going on with them inside their heads.

Many people are not diagnosed with certain disorders because they are acting the way society says they should be based on their gender. ADHD can go undetected in men because some symptoms of it are aggression, impulsive actions, lack of restraint, and many other things associated with how the typical male acts. It is not new for autism to go unnoticed in women because some symptoms are poor eye contact, inappropriate social interaction, and a repetition of speech that all seem like things people who feel like they need to act certain way do. Women are often told to look and act a certain way in social situations so they often are nervous and act similarly to the symptoms of autism. It is unspeakably awful someone is denied the knowledge of having a disorder and the help she needs just because she seems the stereotypical version of her gender. Some boy can go through his entire life overwhelmed by his constant anger and his inability to focus and never know he could’ve gotten help.

Sixty-four years: that’s how long it took for white women to vote after all white men were enabled to. That doesn’t even account for all women of color who had to wait for a longer time to vote, some longer than others. Other rights have been withheld from women even though men were allowed to have them. Women had, and still have, an entirely different set of rules to follow than men. They are often seen as less than men. Women’s opinions can be seen as unimportant or useless just because they are made by women. They are told what they are saying shouldn’t be taken seriously because the emotions they have are clouding their thoughts and making them say things they don’t really mean. Therefore, their voices were unwanted and ignored completely for an exceptionally long time.

Women go through life being told their emotions are invalid. They are told what they’re feeling isn’t real and it is all an illusion they made up in their pretty little head for some attention. Either that, or they are told their raging hormones made them believe what they are feeling is real when it is all just a figment of their imaginations. Many women stop talking about how they feel because of this. Telling themselves they are making everything up, girls think nothing they feel is real. When no one accepts what you think, speak, or feel, what are you supposed to do? How can you continue to be happy in conversations where everyone grinds your opinions to a fine dust? It’s hard to do that, no matter who you are, and it shouldn’t be a normal thing that happens every day to people all the time.

I dealt with how men can be scared to share their emotions earlier and I will again. Men are told to stay emotionless. They are told to have a hard façade and to not let anyone into their minds. Men bottle up all of their emotions because they are so often bullied and shamed for showing some feeling every once in a while. If they are in a rough patch of their lives, they feel like they can’t go to anyone and talk about it. Everyone should be able to talk to someone about the hurt they are feeling and other emotions they have. People should be able to talk to people if they don’t know what is happening inside their minds. But a lot of people don’t. And that is all because of the stereotypes given to them.

Frequently gender roles are forgotten and overlooked. Other times they are neglected because if they were paid attention to, then whatever the person was saying or doing would not seem proficient. At certain times, I guess it is okay, but when it makes people, who want to be themselves and not care about what the social norm is, feel bad, it is obviously not good. When people are scared to share how they feel it is not beneficial. These gender roles aren’t helping anyone. They aren’t making people joyous. They are trying to confine people in boxes that are uncomfortable and impossible to be cheerful in. They try to make people act a certain way because it’s what they believe is right. But they don’t care about all of the self-esteems they have caused to fall so low they will never be lifted all the way back up again or the people who feel like they don’t and never will fit in somewhere. They don’t care and don’t seem to matter, but they absolutely do.

Bibliography

Christina, Greta. “5 Stupid, Unfair, and Sexist Things Expected of Men.” AlterNet, 24 July 2010. Web. 29 August 2016.

“Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics.” Rainn, 2016. Web. 25 August 2016.

Wolfers, Justin. “Fewer Women Run Big Companies Than Men Named John.” New York Times Company, 02 March 2015. Web. 29 August 2016.