This week I made an effort to thank the janitors in school and my teachers more often than usual. It was easy to thank my teachers because it is something I usually do but the janitors were more difficult because they aren't expecting to be thanked. This means that when passing them in the hallway they don't slow down or stop to share conversation, they may say "hi" in passing but I found it difficult to slip "thank you for cleaning up the classrooms everyday" into about one second. Eventually at the end of the day I was able to talk to one of the janitors and thank him. He seemed happy to be thanked for his work and the look on his face made me smile.  My teachers seemed to enjoy being thanked but not as much as the janitor did, my best guess as to the reason would be that I think teachers most likely get thanked more often.

Someone from my life who inspires me is my friend Emily who I danced with many years ago. She has been my inspiration for the last five years of my life in almost everything I do because of her strength and perseverance. She has endured unimaginable pain both mentally and physically and has never given up. It is Emily's determination, persistence, and refusal to admit defeat that has always inspired me to push myself. Over the many years that I have known her, I have done my best to be like my friend and mentor. My strengths are also determination, persistence, and a refusal to admit defeat which I believe I developed from watching Emily, I am also a perfectionist and very epithetic which I believe to be among my greatest strengths. I think that my determination, persistence, and empathy would be most helpful in the world and would help me to make a difference. My empathy would be beneficial doing charity work and my determination and persistence have always been beneficial when I need to get things done.

Unit Assessment Write

 

If I were to choose one person in my life to help by creating a happiness plan it would be my little brother. In many ways he lives what would be considered a healthy and fulfilling life. He follows his heart and does what makes him happy even if it isn't common ( he is a competitive dancer), and he surrounds himself with friends who don't judge him his hobbies. Ideally, he would also be self confident and as carefree as possible. He would not be burdened by society's views on appearance. Unfortunately this is not all true of my little brother.

He has a tendency to be very self conscious about his weight and he lets this get in the way of his amazing personality. When he first began gaining weight he was only slightly bothered by it, but more recently he has begun to let it interfere more with his personality. He is very careful about what he wears and always asks if he looks chubby during the day. I believe that this change has come from a growing realization of the way our society views being overweight. He never cared much before because he knew that his weight didn't make him a different person. However, now that he has started middle school, he has begun to see that when he meets new people they make snap judgments based on appearance, even if they don't mean to. He is visibly gloomy and upset by how he looks and I would like to help him to lead a happier life, unconcerned with his appearance. 

 In order for my little brother to live a happier life he needs to shed his insecurities and learn to accept how he looks or lose weight while still being comfortable with the way he is. I have learned from personal experience that even though people do make judgments on appearance, those judgments can be influenced by confidence in one's image. If you are happy with the way you look, people are less likely to notice the feature it is you are insecure about. I would want to teach my little brother how to think positively about himself and how to ignore the voice in his head that tells him he isn't perfect. Hopefully then he wouldn't be so concerned with the way he looks and what other people say about his appearance. 

The main happiness strategy that I would teach my little brother would be cultivating optimism. I believe that this strategy would be most effective for my little brother because hopefully replacing his negative thoughts about his body image with positive ones would boost his self confidence and make him more comfortable with the way he looks. I would instruct my little brother to take any negative thought he has about the way he looks throughout the day and replace with a positive one. He would have to say the positive comment to himself three times for every negative comment he thinks. He would also only be allowed to use a scale once a week and any time he looked in a mirror he would have to think something positive about the way he looks. I would also give him  inspirational quotes to carry around in his pocket that he could look at when he feels sad (I have already done this). Hopefully this would become less forced over time and he would start to think positive things about himself without prompting and on a regular basis. I would be able to enforce my happiness plan at home with him and be able to help with positive feed back. 

I believe that the biggest struggle my little brother would face in his happiness plan would be when he was at school. However, I think that keeping inspirational quotes with him could help him stick with the plan through the school day. I would also be able to help by adding positive notes into his binders and lunches, something my friends have done for me before that I have found very beneficial. In time I think my little brother would find himself to be happier and more comfortable with how he looks by following my happiness plan.

When I made a list of five things I was afraid of attempting because of failure, the most reasonable on the list for me to try was talking to my parents about the possibility of me majoring in dance in college. The conversation took about a week of dropping hints and seemingly meaningless stories about how much I love to dance. While the conversation did not end in the best possible way, it was not a complete failure. My parents basically said they didn't want to pay college tuition just for me to dance, but they are fine with me minoring in dance as long as I major in something else. The response was more than I had hopped for and enough for me to work with. I am glad I overcame my fear of failure long enough to confront my parents, even if it was mostly because I knew it had to be done sooner or later. I am not sure if I will have the courage to attempt the other four things on my list but the results of this exercise have been encouraging.

My list of 75 simple pleasures

1. smiling
2. sleeping
3. listening to music
4. dancing with friends
5. talking to friends
6. achieving a goal
7. stretching
8. coloring
9. watching T.V
10. making someone smile
11. flirting
12. singing in the shower
13. playing cards
14. eating dinner with your family
15. taking colorful notes
16. shopping for a new season
17. drinking tea
18. making the perfect cup of hot chocolate, and giving it to someone else
19. winning
20. giving or receiving a hug
21. performing
22. sitting in the sun on a beach
23. being lifted
24. eating fruit straight off the plant
25. eating chocolate
26. playing in the mud
27. running through the forest
28. hiking
29. breathing morning air
30. swimming in a river
31. reading quietly
32. taking a bubble bath
33. sitting in a sauna
34. sitting in a hot tub
35. sitting in front of a fire
36. cuddling
37. thunder storms
38. dancing in the rain
39. singing in the rain
40. sitting in the grass in the sun
41. sitting in the rain
42. running through a field
43. playing board games
44. staying up late with friends
45. reading in the bath tub
46. stage lights
47. applause
48. dancing alone
49. dancing with strangers
50. teaching a child to dance
51. coloring
52. when rain hits pavement that is so hot steam rises off the street
53. fluffy blankets
54. making friends
55. changing your hair
56. painting your nails fun colors
57. eating ice cream
58. wearing fuzzy socks
59. talking to old friends
60. wearing new lipstick
61. reading in the sun
62. losing weight
63. getting asked to prom
64. talking to someone new
65. having a dance party
66. seeing old friends
67. making lists
68. completing lists
69. making a decision
70. jumping off a dock into a lake
71. losing and being proud of yourself anyway
72. finishing a project early
73. wearing dresses
74. eating candy
75. finishing a workout

Over the course of the day I did roughly 30 of my listed simple pleasures including smiling, listening to music, talking with friends, reading in the sun, reading in front of the fire, watching T.V, making someone else smile, drinking tea, and many others. I wouldn't have described my day "beautiful" but it was better than my average day. Taking a few minutes to do something like color was a refreshing break from my busy schedule. I found it difficult at first to do something that didn't seem productive but after several of the simple pleasures had a positive effect on my mood it was easier to take time to do the others.