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welcome! to emotional feelings, 4!
after looking things over here at emotional feelings, 4,
try out "the layer down under," (part of the emotional feelings
network of sites) & read a special "i just gotta say it" column concerning porn addiction by clicking here! Be sure to scroll down towards the bottom of the right hand column to find it!
just
another great suggestion... visit the homepage! you can read more about the emotional feelings network of sites there, as well
as, a heads up about who is feeling what emotions within the network each month!
How this site works best for you!
You'll
notice that there are many underlined link words in each article below. The reason for this is that you have reached not only, "emotional
feelings, 4," but the emotional feelings network of sites. There are many sites included
within the network that'll be visited by clicking on these underlined link words.
If you can't find what you came
here looking for, visit the homepage for the emotional feelings network of sites by clicking above & read the options on
the homepage for the networks index of sites. Try to be specific when looking for an emotion or feeling word & click on the site you need!
It's very simple & very
interesting to follow your way thru the layers of your buried or stuffed emotions & feelings that have accumulated throughout the years!
when you've reached this point, or this website, you know you're making
progress!!!! this part gets difficult because now is the time to look within & become emotionally honest with yourself!!!
Best of luck & if you're
still stuck, send me an e-mail anytime, by clicking here & I'll be glad to send you an immediate personal response!
Sincerely,
Kathleen
Determination Shows Character
by Ron Kurtus (14 December 2002)
A person with determination is someone who is earnest or unwavering in his or her purpose. If there's
something this person wants to do, he or she will not give up easily or get distracted by something else. Some people give up too easily. If you're determined to achieve a
worthwhile
goal, you'll reap the rewards.
Questions you may have are:
- What does it mean to be determined?
- What about giving up?
- What are the benefits of being determined?
Being determined
A person who is determined has a firmness of purpose & resolve to achieve a goal. It's a fixed intention or resolution to overcome obstacles.
i.e., a person may be determined to graduate from college & get a degree despite financial hardships.
Or a baseball player may be determined to catch a ball that seems hit too far away. He tries his best to catch
that ball instead of giving up on it.
If there's a possibility, a determined person will try to achieve the goal. Of course, there are some things judged out of your reach. The ball player would be foolish to run after a ball hit out of the ballpark.
The motto of the U.S. Marines, which goes something like:
"The difficult,
we do right away. The impossible takes a little longer."
Giving up
Some people give up too soon.
A person may have a goal to do something, but then the task seems more difficult than he or she thought it would be. The person then weighs the desire to achieve the goal vs. the work required & decides to quit.
i.e., a young man may want to get a job as an electrician. But then he finds that he must take classes & go thru a 2
year apprenticeship. To him, that's too much work. So he continues working at McDonald's.
Another situation is if the person doesn't have confidence in him or her self’s ability to complete the task.
i.e., suppose a girl wanted to get into the school play. She dreams of having the lead role, but then when audition time
comes, she feels she isn't good enough to make it, so she backs out.
Some people jump from one thing to another, without even completing what they started. They aren't very determined to achieve their goal.
Benefits of being determined There are a variety of benefits from being determined to achieve your goal.
Rewards
One major benefit of being determined is that you achieve what you set out to do. If it was a good goal, you'll reap the benefits of that achievement.
Other people usually can have a positive opinion of you. A person who is steadfast & determined to achieve an honorable goal is admired as having good
character. There's personal satisfaction
in achieving what you set out to achieve. And that achievement can make you feel like a champion.
Quotations
Famous people have made comments on the benefits of determination.
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall."
Confucius
"Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it."
Winston Churchill
"Never stop. One stops as soon as something is about to happen."
Peter Brock
"Stop looking for your purpose . . . Be it!"
Dr. Wayne Dyer
"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one
thing."
Abraham Lincoln
"The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility."
Charles F. Kettering
"Your opponent, in the end, is never really the player on the other side of the net, or the swimmer in
the next lane, or the team on the other side of the field, or even the bar you must high-jump. Your opponent is yourself,
your negative internal voices, your level of determination."
Grace Lichtenstein
"Act as if it were impossible to fail."
Dorothea Brand
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it's the size of the fight in the dog!"
Such sayings can be inspiring.
In conclusion
Some people quit too soon. If you're determined to achieve your goals, you'll most likely reap the rewards of your hard work.
It also is
an indication of your character.
Determinism: accepting all behavior, thoughts & feelings as being the inevitable, lawful, outcome of complex psychological laws describing cause & effect relationships
in human behavior.
Understanding
the causes of any behavior helps us accept it.
The ideas of free will, determinism, personal choice, moral responsibility & scientific prediction are old ideas, but in this century they haven't been discussed seriously. Too bad,
because we need a much clearer view of reality. Sappington (1990) believes some interest is being revived.
He believes free will can be compatible w/science. So do I.
A recent publication by Bruce Waller (1999) is a clear, readable, convincing discussion of "will power" & the sense of personal responsibility that accompanies the notions of personal freedom & choice. Free will, as most people think of it, is a term describing the vague, mysterious process by which we come to some decision about what to do
or think.
While we have no way to see how our mind comes to any given decision, in the case of "free will" it does seem to us as though decision-making, while guided by some of our thoughts, is a rather autonomous & sometimes almost magical process.
"Our" decisions certainly seem to come out of our head & often seem only distantly connected to outside or historical causes or influences. No wonder choices & decisions are assumed to be our responsibility.
But the question is:
Are we totally
responsible or are many complex uncontrollable & often unknown factors, inside
& outside of us, involved with what merely seem to be our "free choices?"
Waller says one reason for a culture keeping the concept of "free will," a common notion which has never been scientifically explained, is so society (& each of us)
can hold the actor "morally responsible" for his/her actions.
Our system of punitive control of bad behavior is mostly built on this assumption. We think:
The murderer deserves to die.
The rapist should be severely punished. The drug dealer & chronic criminal should just be locked up, perhaps forever.
Moreover, we think the person who doesn't "help himself" deserves what he gets. The drunk who refuses treatment is responsible for his behavior; he is "weak willed" or wants to drink & fall in the gutter.
The 15-year-old girl who becomes promiscuous & then pregnant "should have known better" & deserves to be a poor,
uneducated, ostracized mother.
The abused woman, who knows there's shelter & help available but stays with her abuser, is "making her own choice" & is "morally responsible" for her own pitiful condition.
The
unmotivated worker or student is "lazy" & has to assume responsibility for his/her being fired or failed.
They're
getting their "just rewards." The anxious person who has lots of physical problems the doctor can't understand is "neurotic" or "sick" or "crazy" or "all messed up."
Even
the psychotic homeless person sleeping under cardboard on the street is assumed to be to blame for his/her condition, at least "no one else is to blame!"
Our explanatory labels given to these people convey no deep understanding
of the origin of their problems. Our thinking simply uses "free will" to blame the victims.
Waller also points out that many Behaviorists believe that "free will" & "moral responsibility" are intellectual cop outs, i.e., convenient & easy excuses for not looking deeper into the person's
history, the environmental causes, for understanding.
Why would we do that? If we can pin the responsibility on the victim, we can quickly dismiss the importance of unequal education, wealth, health, trauma, child care, social-family conditions, etc. If the immoral, addicted, criminal, incompetent, emotionally upset & psychologically disturbed are "responsible," then why bother with exploring their history / environment / thought processes to understand what has happened to them?
Sounds
like a mind-set to prolong ignorance to me.
Although society assigns undue responsibility to the actor (often a victim), relatively little research has been supported to enhance the control an individual might have over his/her behavior.
.... how many schools or colleges
offer courses in self-direction or self-control or self-help? These skills could be taught to everyone. But once we start thinking in terms of teaching coping skills, the concept of "free will" loses some of its power to blame the actor.
This is because as we teach self-control to others it becomes more & more obvious that outside-the-actor factors (environmental, educational & historical) have influenced how every human being behaves.
Consequently, assigning "moral responsibility" exclusively to the individual becomes harder & harder to do.
Research has studied why some people are industrious & others are lethargic.
The results included interesting concepts:
These traits turn out to be clearly the outcome of the individual's reinforcement history, often occurring in early
childhood & not the result of some innate trait, not just a character flaw, not intentional decisions & not "free will."
industrious: characterized by hard work & perseverance
lethargic: deficient in alertness or activity; "bullfrogs became lethargic
with the first cold nights"
The lethargic ("lazy") or oppositional ("argumentative") person is certainly not "morally responsible" for how he/she was rewarded & dealt with as a child.
In short, the evidence is weak for the belief that "free will" is largely responsible for what we do. If we don't have "free will," then we aren't totally "morally responsible" for what we do (but maybe we
are partly responsible).
Similarly, we should question the beliefs in a "just world," that everyone gets his/her "just deserts,"
& that everyone has access to a level playing field.
All these beliefs may be convenient delusions for the advantaged & the successful,
who want to avoid responsibility for making it a better world.
Waller's
article focused primarily on the philosophical & social justice implications of believing in "free will." While that's very important for a society, my focus in this section is on the personal use of thinking as a determinist in terms of self-acceptance & tolerance of others.
justice:
- The quality of being just;
fairness.
b. The principle of moral rightness; equity.
c. Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness.
d. The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment & due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
e. Law. The administration & procedure of law.
f. Conformity to truth, fact, or
sound reason: The overcharged customer was angry, and with justice.
Everything has its causes.
Things don't happen by magic. According to determinism, there's nothing that "just happens,"
no "accidents" without a cause, no arbitrary divine intervention (or, at least, very rarely), no unavoidable
fate, no mystical "free will" & no predetermined destiny.
Furthermore, all events or actions are lawful, i.e.,
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