In F block Journalism, we are tasked with writing 1 blog per week, which sounds like it would be no problemo. But it’s not. A lot of work goes into these 1 paragraph idea dumps, but not much of that effort goes into the writing. It’s all in the ideas. I would have to say that 85% of writing a blog is coming up with the idea. That shit is not easy. I mean how can you be expected to come up with an idea out of nothing, that is entertaining or interesting to you, and the reader. It’s a small scope of topics that are interesting and easy to write about without creating a sermon. The blogs are a surprising hurdle to overcome in this class. Boy, is my life hard.
Over the summer, I had one homework assignment for AP Psychology. It was to read Forty Studies That Changed Psychology and write two paragraph summaries for ten of the forty studies that caught my eye. In normal fashion, I read only ten of the studies and wrote the paragraphs the night before the due date. One of the studies that caught my eye was a study called Masculine or Feminine … or Both? that explored gender in psychology and proposed the idea that instead of masculinity and feminity being measured separately based on sex, they would be two variables on the same graph. Not only did this study introduce the idea of androgyny, but it also completely changed how psychologists studied gender.
The study was done by a professor who gave her students a list of positive attributes and asked her them which ones she felt were desirable to the opposite sex. This made it so that it strictly abided by gender norms in society. She then took the list and turned it into a test in which different attributes were listed with an “agree-disagree” spectrum with masc attributes contributing as negative variables and femme contributing as positive variables. She then made scoring guidelines: anyone -.05 or under was on the masc spectrum, anyone 0.5 or over was on the femme spectrum, and if the score ranged from -0.49-0.49, the person would then be considered “androgynous”.
In 1974, this was one of the most progressive gender studies in human history as it suggested that gender attributes weren’t exactly tied to sex. However, this study was done in 1974, not only have gender studies come a long way, but some of the research methods are outdated. For example, the attributes that are labeled “masculine” or “feminine” are only based on hetero-normativity and do not consider same-sex or other forms of attraction. Although it is likely a lot of the attributes will stay the same, some might change which is very important if something like this is to be measured. Then there’s the possibility that androgyny as a measurement of gender is outdated as well.
I’m not saying that we should all remove androgyny from our vocabularies altogether, as it is a good adjective for someone who has physical attributes of both sexes. What I do think, is that it limits psychological studies of gender as it still somewhat adheres to the idea that there are only two real classifications/identifications of gender. Realistically, a study such as this is really more useless than anything. In today’s world, there are so many gender identifications such as non-binary that completely exclude masculinity and femininity altogether. It might even be better to exclude gender identification in psychology altogether as it is extremely difficult to study something that has an actively growing number of variables.
The mind is a dangerous place and as a former hopeless nihilist I feel I have earned the right to say that. The worst part about thoughts is that they don’t stop. It can be torturous to spend a single protracted moment in your mind when every thought is weaponized in some way to be destructive. The psychological degradation brought on by a depressed mind is exhausting. Every thought drags you deeper into the pit until your mental breaks and you give up.
I was lucky enough to break this seemingly endless loop by repressing emotion and taking away meaning and depth from every emotional outlet. My past statement of being a former nihilist was a lie, however I am no longer a hopeless nihilist. I’m just a person who copes with stress and anxiety by believing nothing should make me stressed or anxious because it lacks meaning and worth. I understand this might not sound like a valid process of thoughts as people will question my morals around every corner, however, I assure you, I have decent morals. As well as many other decent qualities. Greatest of all though, the biceps. The biceps s h r e d, and that among other things boost my dopamine levels giving me dreams and ambitions to quickly acquire. Finding something, anything interesting would lead me to want to try, learn, and quit. However some dreams in my head take a long time to learn. These thoughts of my future give me ambition to live an active and fulfilling life. I found reason along the ashes of self destruction.
How can someone stay happy all the time? Physiologically, it’s due to chemicals like dopamine. They get released and you feel great. A single smile can lift your mood, some might say. I too agree with the “smiling effect.”
However, I am moody in many scenarios. In those situations, I find it hard to smile—I can’t smile when people let me down. When someone has messed something up for you and you’re in a position with the power to either forgive that person or not because of the gravity of the situation, you won’t find yourself smiling.
Okay, you might be wondering why I’m explaining where your negativity comes from. But sometimes, you’ll have to lower your expectations in people in order to be happy. Once I asked a friend of mine about why he felt depressed, he told me it was because the people around him were all letting him down.
When he said that, he wasn’t smiling. His expectations in others were too high to achieve. If anything went wrong, he felt let down. Oftentimes he was in the shoes of either forgiving someone or not. That someone would apologize to him because of the stiffness of his face—that he wasn’t smiling.
However heavy the gravity of the messy-situation, the position to choose either going against our own impulses to forgive or indulging them by attacking that someone can be even heavier. With all that weight on his shoulders, my friend couldn’t smile. So we need to lower our expectations in people to feel happy, it’s not the end of the world. Say if your friend has forgotten to return your text messages and you feel undeserving for it, you should lower your expectations, smile and think that he/she might just be in the middle of something—and in most cases, that is the reason why they’re not replying. No one is failing you because they want to, and they’re not really failing you, because in my opinion, standards that are too high can bring nothing but frustration.
So, how can we feel happy and deserving? When lowering your expectations for happiness seems to be too much to ask, start by giving your friend a smile.
Don’t get me wrong – education is supposed to be challenging. But more frequently I’ve heard people say “Is he okay?” Following comes the response, “Yeah but he’s all burnt out.”
Burnout is real. It’s a state of chronic stress that can cause lethargy, depression, and general numbness and not a care in the world. (I suggest you read the link given below.)
“Burnout happens when you’ve been experiencing chronic stress for so long that your body and your emotional system have begun to shut down and are operating in survival mode,” says Dr. Sara Denning, a clinical psychologist based in Manhattan who specializes in dealing with stress and anxiety. “You numb out because you can’t think. You can’t even make decisions anymore.”
Further delving into the article reveals that burnout symptoms were arriving in younger and younger people, as early as college freshman. Which is where I will be next year. And it’s also where I feel like I’m heading next year.
There’s something called Senioritis, and it’s, as described as me, “a high school senior lacking in motivation because WE’RE GRADUATING OMYGOSH.” The symptoms are similar to a burnout, lacking motivation, lethargy, etc. The difference is that Senioritis isn’t usually stress or depression caused. It’s just that knowing how I won’t be here next year to deal with consequences makes me want to… Slack off.
I’ve gotten off topic.
Burnout.
If a college freshman is already feeling the symptoms of burnout, then what does that say about the education system? Are we supposedto be holding these children over a fire with a stick? Maybe. But are we then supposed to let them slow roast until a perfect, golden brown –
– or let them catch on fire and watch them try and quench themselves?
Graphic image aside… There goes my two cents. And I don’t care enough to get them back either.
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