Why did I deactivate my facebook account? I was actually looking for a button that would delete my account. Was I acting out of rage or an emotional outburst? To a certain degree, yes I did. The truth is, I didn’t go on facebook very often even when my account was active. My average login rate was about one to three times a month, and three times a month would be on the high end. I must ask myself, why did I log in so sparsely? Well several weeks ago, there was an article that came out on yahoo that pinpointed exactly what I felt. Facebook makes me unhappy. Whenever I log in, it’s usually to respond to a friend who posted something on my wall or sent me a message. Otherwise, I hesitate to login and read the comments or view the pictures of people who I would not even consider acquaintances. Well why do I feel hesitant to read others’ comments and pictures? For one, the majority of comments and pictures have nothing to do with me. I’m not the type of person who will comment on a stranger’s comment or pictures. This then brings up, why do I even have strangers on my facebook list of friends? When I say strangers, I know these people go to my school. I know we went to the same high school. But, other than that, I do not know anything about them. I don’t know who they are as a person, what they like to do, or even what classes they may have been taking that year. Some of these people, even if I were sitting next to them in class, I still would not be talking to them. Some people might think that the reason for this is purely because I’m an antisocial and hostile individual. I do need my quiet time, and after seeing people for 8 hours a day at school, I’m ready to go home and recharge my social batteries. Yes, I would agree that I tend to be reticent in settings of four or more people. I tend to avoid people who are loud and noisy. I also avoid people who give off an attitude either by the way they dress and/ or behave. Unfortunately, this is one of the biggest misunderstood myths about introverts which I already covered in the “My Most Memorable Yearbook Comment” post.
Out of the 200 plus number of “friends” I had on facebook, I would consider less than 10 to be real friends. Why do we add people we don’t care about? Some people have hundreds of friends, so I understand that some people will want to match that number to show others how popular they are. Adopting this attitude, people start to add others, even if they don’t actually care about them, to prove their popularity. People who receive these friend requests don’t want to be rude, so they accept. And soon enough, everybody has hundreds of facebook friends. Surely people add others also because, subconsciously, they want to show their peers how cool they are to boost their social status. Pictures of parties with dozens of people posing for the camera, smiling, and appearing to have fun. In the not too distant past, I cared about smiling for the camera to try to show myself that I was good looking and was enjoying the moment, just like how celebrities would pose for cameras. Looking back on those pictures though, I can tell which smiles were genuine and in the moment, and which ones were faked. I would never post pictures of obvious failed attempts to smile on facebook. I wanted to show people the best pictures of me. I wanted to show to the world the pictures where I looked sexiest in. Ones that showed my muscles, oh yea, those were going on facebook. Pictures that I looked attractive in, those went up too. Pictures that would present me as not so good looking, those were denied as reality as those pictures did not go online. I don’t believe I am the only person to have presented myself as I did on facebook.
The fact is, facebook is a tool to show everyone in your school how cool you are, not to say that it doesn’t help share your life with your true friends. Those who come close to the media’s ideals of beauty and standards, post their pictures and comments about what they did to substantiate how “cool” they are and how they live up to Hollywood’s standards. For the rest of us that don’t meet up with the media’s standards, we are negatively affected by facebook. It’s a harsh truth unfortunately. Seeing people who I don’t care about having fun and “fake smiling” makes me feel disconnected from the majority of people my age. I feel out of place and annoyed at seeing how great other people’s lives are on a superficial level.
An excerpt from the article, “Facebook: Friends' Happy Pictures Make You Sad?”, seems to corroborate how I feel about facebook.
This is what it says, “According to the study, Facebook is making us sad. Why? It's all about the kinds of pictures people post on their pages.
Facebook photos generally depict smiling, cheerful people having good times, conveying a sense of happiness. Of course everyone likes to smile for the camera, so that good cheer may be inflated or false. As others view the photos, they may believe this conveyed sense of intense happiness is real, making them think that their friends are much happier than they are.”
It goes on to say, “After controlling for race, gender, religious beliefs and whether the volunteers were unattached or in a relationship, the researchers saw a pattern: The more time students spent on Facebook, the more they thought others had it better than they did.”
I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one who feels this way. At the end of the day, I am much happier when I am not on facebook reading comments of what people may have done or viewing pictures that display an inflated sense of happiness. I love the few friends I have, and I will no longer subject myself to the superficial, surface-level happiness depicted by others on facebook that merely suggests, “Look how great my life is, even though, it’s not”.
http://news.yahoo.com/feeling-sad-facebook-could-cause-180318638--abc-news.html
Remember Who You Are
Friday, March 9, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
My Most Memorable Yearbook Comment
A typical myth of introverts is that we don’t like people, we don’t want to be bothered, and are unfriendly. We tend to be viewed as quiet and hostile. In fact, my senior year economics teacher in high school read my college entrance essay where I talked about how shyness affected my past, and for my yearbook, this is what she wrote:
“Michael,
I’m glad my time spent writing your letter of rec paid off! Haha. Thanks for asking me to write it. At first, I was like, what the heck, what am I going to write about this guy- he never talks in class. Thanks for being open and honest in the information that you gave me to work with. Writing the rec really helped me get to know you, especially after I finished writing it because it helped me talk to you and understand how to connect with you. I’m glad I was able to support you through basketball too! It was a lot of fun and I’m glad you kept with it, even if it was tough. Keep always reflecting on who you are and having the courage to be bold with people, especially next year! First year in college is always the best time to make friends because nobody knows anyone. You have a great sense of humor and the others will love it if you show it. You’ll be great!”
“Let me know if you ever need anything! Congratulations on finishing high school!”
- Ms. Hwang
To be honest, I remember the moment she was passing out all the yearbook comments she had written for every student in the class, and I thought to myself that she was probably going to mention something related to shyness. I read it and the feeling I had that moment can only be described as a tingling sensation that emanated from my chest and it came across my body towards my arms and I could feel the hair on my body standing up. Deep down, I felt warm and soft. Her comment shall always be the most special and memorable comment in my yearbook- not that I had many comments in my yearbook though.
“Michael,
I’m glad my time spent writing your letter of rec paid off! Haha. Thanks for asking me to write it. At first, I was like, what the heck, what am I going to write about this guy- he never talks in class. Thanks for being open and honest in the information that you gave me to work with. Writing the rec really helped me get to know you, especially after I finished writing it because it helped me talk to you and understand how to connect with you. I’m glad I was able to support you through basketball too! It was a lot of fun and I’m glad you kept with it, even if it was tough. Keep always reflecting on who you are and having the courage to be bold with people, especially next year! First year in college is always the best time to make friends because nobody knows anyone. You have a great sense of humor and the others will love it if you show it. You’ll be great!”
“Let me know if you ever need anything! Congratulations on finishing high school!”
- Ms. Hwang
To be honest, I remember the moment she was passing out all the yearbook comments she had written for every student in the class, and I thought to myself that she was probably going to mention something related to shyness. I read it and the feeling I had that moment can only be described as a tingling sensation that emanated from my chest and it came across my body towards my arms and I could feel the hair on my body standing up. Deep down, I felt warm and soft. Her comment shall always be the most special and memorable comment in my yearbook- not that I had many comments in my yearbook though.
The Difference Between Average Friends and Close Friends
I find it interesting to compare the level of depth between my friendships. What makes one friendship so much deeper than another? Why is it that you can talk with one friend for hours on end into the early morning hours with unlimited conversation? Why is it with other friends, we talk for an hour or so before we feel like we are running out of things to say and we feel like we have to fill that silence with meaningless, superficial small talk? I’m not going to lie, these superficial, light small talk I have with some friends bore and frustrate me at times. It has even come to the point where I’ve started to wonder how I define and categorize people in my life as friends. I’ll get to that in a future article. But what is it about superficial, light small talk that frustrates me? Based on my initial observations, these conversation topics tend to be about nonzealous interests such as IM basketball games, NBA games, school work, and school tests and quizzes. I’m sure there are more superficial topics we talk about but these are the ones off the top of my head right now. One thing I just noticed is that if we delve into the more personal thoughts and feelings about these topics, then I do not feel as frustrated and I start to become really invested in the conversation. I don’t mean to say that when I see a friend that I haven’t seen in a while, that I find these lighter topics to be an utter chore. If I haven’t seen a friend for a several weeks, I want to know about how they are doing in their school work, their grades. Of course I want to know these things. However, if that is all we talk about, then that is where my problem with light conversation is. Small talk is necessary to get an idea of how they are doing in their school work and things that they are doing day to day. I don’t mind some small talk at all. It would be awkward if there was absolutely no small talk. If I see my friend, and proceed to immediately ask him a deeper, more personal question that brings his personal and private feelings and thoughts to the conversation, I would certainly get a confused look back. That would be weird, so small talk is necessary.
I have one friend who I see about once every three or four weeks. Every time when we meet up, we shoot some hoops together. We use that time to catch up to see how each of us are doing in our school work, our grades, midterms, exams and quizzes. Any of the academic related topics, we talk about. We talk about some NBA basketball, some IM basketball, maybe some camping and nature related stuff, and perhaps briefly joke about UFO’s and aliens as he is a believer. It’s this routine every time. Have I really taken the responsibility to make our relationship deeper? To be completely honest with myself, no I have not. Then again, he tends to make it difficult unintentionally to bring it to a deeper level. I believe in order to delve deeper into meatier conversation, spending some alone one on one time where there are no distractions but to talk is absolutely necessary. If we are always shooting or dribbling a ball while conversing, we will have something to distract us with. This can allow either of us to steer away from more personal and intimate thoughts and emotion based discussions. One on one and doing nothing but talking is absolute necessity in order to bring the conversation deeper. If I were to rate our level of connection and closeness, it would be about a 7 out of 10. My personal feelings regarding our friendship would be described as a moderate connection level. I don’t know what he thinks and feels on a human level. I only know the outer shell of him. It’s frustrating at times as I ask him to hang out after we shoot around, but the huge majority of the times, he turns down my request. We have similar interests. We both are interested in basketball and nba, although my interest for basketball has gradually dwindled to nil. We both love nature and the outdoors. We both are interested in wildlife and camping. He loves astronomy, the night sky, and the discussion of potential life of ET’s and so do I, although not to the same amount of vigor. How do most people describe someone they are friends with? The common answers are that they get along together, so their personalities are compatible, they have similar interests and hobbies, and that friends tend to be like yourself.
I have another friend who I can talk with for hours on end. Every single time we meet up, we sit and talk for hours after hours. We might catch a movie first, but then we go to his house or park by a park and talk in his car. I absolutely love it. The stillness of the night. The quietness of the night, next to a beautiful park with a large field of grass, trees, and playgrounds. We start out by talking light small talk, but we go deep relatively quick and without having to try hard to go deep. He’s pretty voluntary when it comes to telling you his personal thoughts and feelings about things once you’ve earned his trust. This is something I really admire and respect about him. I need to learn to be more vulnerable when it comes to revealing my own personal thoughts and feelings to others. He’s a great story teller and he’s quiet introspective as he knows and understands himself well. I get the feeling that some people resist going deeper. It can be scary to have someone truly understand who you are on the very inside. People can be afraid of the potential for disapproval and rejection by putting their true thoughts and feelings out there. That’s why it’s critical to be accepting of everyone. Be accepting and nonjudgmental of who they are as a person, no matter what their faults may be and what mistakes or embarrassing things that may have happened in the past. It’s important to be vulnerable yourself and to appropriately disclose who you are to them as well. If there still is resistance from them from trying to go deep, using a cold read can be helpful to get them to start talking about themselves and open up. Again, when they open up, that is the most critical moment for the listener. You must show them through your body language, facial expressions, your voice tone and choice of words that you understand, accept them, and are nonjudgmental. You must show them that you are actively listening to them, be interested- notice how I said be, not seem interested- in what they are saying through soft and appropriate amount of eye contact and open body language, and allow them to express themselves.
I believe this is especially true with introverted people. One thing I’ve learned from analyzing myself who is an introvert, is that introverts need time to feel warmed up and to get them talking. Introverts just like anyone, like to talk, it’s just that introverts like to talk about deeper, more meaningful topics, and that they need someone who will be patient, interested in what they are saying and gradually asking more personal questions out of genuine curiosity to allow them to reach that level where they are fully invested in the conversation about talking and expressing themselves about who they are and their personal thoughts and feelings. This isn’t to say that you, the current listener, won’t be able to express yourself. However I believe this them first approach is necessary to show that person that you are interested in taking this relationship to a deeper level. Do that for them and they will love you for it. I truly believe the majority of the people out there do not have someone who wants to actually know the real them deep down. I feel the majority of people these days, at least those around my current age- 19- are only thinking about drinking, getting high, getting girls, and portraying the cool, popular image. Unfortunately it makes me feel like there are few people out there that would want to have these types of deep relationships. Again, it feels that way from all the media portrayal of partying and hype of getting laid. I believe deep down, the majority of people out there do desire to have someone understand the real them inside. I do find that more introverted individuals tend to have and also enjoy having one on one interactions over a group setting with multiple people. This should be good news. Introverts also tend to prefer depth over variety, whereas extroverts tend to enjoy variety over depth. That means introverts will enjoy deeper, more meaningful conversations over the loud and rowdy social activities, more extroverted individuals prefer.
I’ve digressed onto a tangent, but an important tangent that I want to get out and express. I would rate my level of depth with this friend as about a 9 out of 10. Whenever we get into talking about our more personal thoughts, feelings, beliefs, fears, and life stories, I always feel hit of happiness. This is actually a term used by the author of the book, “The Introvert Advantage”. When the personal thought or feeling is one that expresses vulnerability and pain they’ve experienced in their life, I always feel a strong and deep level of connection with them. I would describe it as a pure, zen moment in time, where your entire world is just you and your friend, and nothing else matters but connecting and empathizing with what they are feeling. This is something that happens and I can only describe it as “a gift from god” and this is what I feel whenever someone expresses some level of pain or vulnerability in their life in a calm manner and tone of voice. When he expresses a painful emotion, you can tell that he is currently reliving that emotion, and you can understand how he felt at the time. The pace of his speech slows down, his voice gets quieter and becomes softer. He tells it in a voice tone that conveys that he wants to tell you something because he trusts and likes you, but he conveys with his voice tone and body language that he is not looking for you to help him solve his problems. He expresses his pain to you without smothering you with needy or insecure behavior.
I’ve learned a lot from him. This is definitely one of the most enriching relationships I have had in my life. I’ve learned that I love close, deep relationships. I feel I’ve gained a lot of one of the deepest, nonsexual affection possible from this friendship, and I never would have thought that this guy would teach me so much about myself and what i want. It’s because of him that I desire to understand myself in the deepest ways possible. It’s because of his admirable level of depth to which he understands himself that I’m writing these articles on my private blog. He will be transferring to UC Davis next semester which only leaves me about six months left with him. I will miss him when he leaves no doubt. I know I can’t tell him to come back to see me every weekend. It would be unfair for me to do so. Six more months…and the clock keeps ticking.
I have one friend who I see about once every three or four weeks. Every time when we meet up, we shoot some hoops together. We use that time to catch up to see how each of us are doing in our school work, our grades, midterms, exams and quizzes. Any of the academic related topics, we talk about. We talk about some NBA basketball, some IM basketball, maybe some camping and nature related stuff, and perhaps briefly joke about UFO’s and aliens as he is a believer. It’s this routine every time. Have I really taken the responsibility to make our relationship deeper? To be completely honest with myself, no I have not. Then again, he tends to make it difficult unintentionally to bring it to a deeper level. I believe in order to delve deeper into meatier conversation, spending some alone one on one time where there are no distractions but to talk is absolutely necessary. If we are always shooting or dribbling a ball while conversing, we will have something to distract us with. This can allow either of us to steer away from more personal and intimate thoughts and emotion based discussions. One on one and doing nothing but talking is absolute necessity in order to bring the conversation deeper. If I were to rate our level of connection and closeness, it would be about a 7 out of 10. My personal feelings regarding our friendship would be described as a moderate connection level. I don’t know what he thinks and feels on a human level. I only know the outer shell of him. It’s frustrating at times as I ask him to hang out after we shoot around, but the huge majority of the times, he turns down my request. We have similar interests. We both are interested in basketball and nba, although my interest for basketball has gradually dwindled to nil. We both love nature and the outdoors. We both are interested in wildlife and camping. He loves astronomy, the night sky, and the discussion of potential life of ET’s and so do I, although not to the same amount of vigor. How do most people describe someone they are friends with? The common answers are that they get along together, so their personalities are compatible, they have similar interests and hobbies, and that friends tend to be like yourself.
I have another friend who I can talk with for hours on end. Every single time we meet up, we sit and talk for hours after hours. We might catch a movie first, but then we go to his house or park by a park and talk in his car. I absolutely love it. The stillness of the night. The quietness of the night, next to a beautiful park with a large field of grass, trees, and playgrounds. We start out by talking light small talk, but we go deep relatively quick and without having to try hard to go deep. He’s pretty voluntary when it comes to telling you his personal thoughts and feelings about things once you’ve earned his trust. This is something I really admire and respect about him. I need to learn to be more vulnerable when it comes to revealing my own personal thoughts and feelings to others. He’s a great story teller and he’s quiet introspective as he knows and understands himself well. I get the feeling that some people resist going deeper. It can be scary to have someone truly understand who you are on the very inside. People can be afraid of the potential for disapproval and rejection by putting their true thoughts and feelings out there. That’s why it’s critical to be accepting of everyone. Be accepting and nonjudgmental of who they are as a person, no matter what their faults may be and what mistakes or embarrassing things that may have happened in the past. It’s important to be vulnerable yourself and to appropriately disclose who you are to them as well. If there still is resistance from them from trying to go deep, using a cold read can be helpful to get them to start talking about themselves and open up. Again, when they open up, that is the most critical moment for the listener. You must show them through your body language, facial expressions, your voice tone and choice of words that you understand, accept them, and are nonjudgmental. You must show them that you are actively listening to them, be interested- notice how I said be, not seem interested- in what they are saying through soft and appropriate amount of eye contact and open body language, and allow them to express themselves.
I believe this is especially true with introverted people. One thing I’ve learned from analyzing myself who is an introvert, is that introverts need time to feel warmed up and to get them talking. Introverts just like anyone, like to talk, it’s just that introverts like to talk about deeper, more meaningful topics, and that they need someone who will be patient, interested in what they are saying and gradually asking more personal questions out of genuine curiosity to allow them to reach that level where they are fully invested in the conversation about talking and expressing themselves about who they are and their personal thoughts and feelings. This isn’t to say that you, the current listener, won’t be able to express yourself. However I believe this them first approach is necessary to show that person that you are interested in taking this relationship to a deeper level. Do that for them and they will love you for it. I truly believe the majority of the people out there do not have someone who wants to actually know the real them deep down. I feel the majority of people these days, at least those around my current age- 19- are only thinking about drinking, getting high, getting girls, and portraying the cool, popular image. Unfortunately it makes me feel like there are few people out there that would want to have these types of deep relationships. Again, it feels that way from all the media portrayal of partying and hype of getting laid. I believe deep down, the majority of people out there do desire to have someone understand the real them inside. I do find that more introverted individuals tend to have and also enjoy having one on one interactions over a group setting with multiple people. This should be good news. Introverts also tend to prefer depth over variety, whereas extroverts tend to enjoy variety over depth. That means introverts will enjoy deeper, more meaningful conversations over the loud and rowdy social activities, more extroverted individuals prefer.
I’ve digressed onto a tangent, but an important tangent that I want to get out and express. I would rate my level of depth with this friend as about a 9 out of 10. Whenever we get into talking about our more personal thoughts, feelings, beliefs, fears, and life stories, I always feel hit of happiness. This is actually a term used by the author of the book, “The Introvert Advantage”. When the personal thought or feeling is one that expresses vulnerability and pain they’ve experienced in their life, I always feel a strong and deep level of connection with them. I would describe it as a pure, zen moment in time, where your entire world is just you and your friend, and nothing else matters but connecting and empathizing with what they are feeling. This is something that happens and I can only describe it as “a gift from god” and this is what I feel whenever someone expresses some level of pain or vulnerability in their life in a calm manner and tone of voice. When he expresses a painful emotion, you can tell that he is currently reliving that emotion, and you can understand how he felt at the time. The pace of his speech slows down, his voice gets quieter and becomes softer. He tells it in a voice tone that conveys that he wants to tell you something because he trusts and likes you, but he conveys with his voice tone and body language that he is not looking for you to help him solve his problems. He expresses his pain to you without smothering you with needy or insecure behavior.
I’ve learned a lot from him. This is definitely one of the most enriching relationships I have had in my life. I’ve learned that I love close, deep relationships. I feel I’ve gained a lot of one of the deepest, nonsexual affection possible from this friendship, and I never would have thought that this guy would teach me so much about myself and what i want. It’s because of him that I desire to understand myself in the deepest ways possible. It’s because of his admirable level of depth to which he understands himself that I’m writing these articles on my private blog. He will be transferring to UC Davis next semester which only leaves me about six months left with him. I will miss him when he leaves no doubt. I know I can’t tell him to come back to see me every weekend. It would be unfair for me to do so. Six more months…and the clock keeps ticking.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
The Power of Little Touches
When I arrived at Saint Francis memorial hospital for my 8 hour clinical shift this past Wednesday (Leap Day February 29, 2012), the sun had just risen and I wondered how fast the day would go by. I was still in a semi-asleep mode as I was staring blankly at my surroundings. I proceeded to find the nurse that would be taking care of my patient so I asked around for my nurse, whose name is Miranda. I looked around the hospital floor for several minutes as I could not find her. Feeling a little frustrated, I asked another nurse if she had seen her. She pointed down the hall as my nurse just came out of a patient’s room. As I walked over to her, I smiled and told her that she was difficult to find. From these initial seconds, I could tell from her smile that she was going to be delightful. I introduced myself as the student nurse for one of her patients. She informed me that my patient was going to be discharged around noon so I could shadow and tag along with her as she operated throughout her shift. She was a cute blond, about 5 feet 6 inches and in relatively good shape from what I could observe with her dressed in light blue scrubs. She is about five or six years older than me but I couldn’t help but feel a little attracted to her.
As I talked with her, she smiled occasionally when appropriate and held eye contact as I felt a bit hypnotized while looking at her blue eyes. She projected a sense of warmth and caring attitude through her voice tone and by occasionally touching her patients to reassure them. She had a slightly peppy and animated personality although it was early morning and I presume she must have felt tired inside. All these things made me feel even more attracted to her. However, it was her gestures of touch that made me feel such a flood of warmth towards her. She would occasionally place her hand on my back or arm as she would be explaining something to me. This slight gesture made my tense muscles and body loosen up instantly. My muscles and tissues literally softened up inside, and I experienced a warm and caring feeling flooding my body that emanated from where she touched me. I could feel the rush of oxytocin as I felt safe to lower my shields and feel instantly more opened up emotionally. I felt warm, taken care of, loved, and accepted all in one touch.
I’ll admit that I am still thinking about the touching experience more than two days after clinical. I don’t know if I will see her again. Nurses rotate three day shifts every week. I know it's likely that I may never see her again, and at the same time, I know that even if I do see her and get to work with her again, the relationship we did have won’t go further to match how I felt about her. Just several days ago on Sunday night and early Monday morning (AM), I was discussing with my friend about love and I laughed while saying, “how is it possible to love someone when you don’t even know anything about that person?” I believed that if we liked somebody, it would purely be a physical attraction for that person. It’s not possible to love someone you’ve just met. After hanging out with Miranda for half a day of clinical, I feel it is possible to love someone you’ve just met. Love is several levels deeper than liking someone. Perhaps I didn’t feel love. Perhaps I just really liked her a lot to the point that I am still thinking about her more than a day later. Is that level of obsession strong enough to be considered love? I guess the answer to that is subjective. Then again, the love I felt resulted from how she made me feel. Yes I thought she was cute, but it was the fact that she made me feel cared about and loved through the power of touch, that I feel like I can say I really liked her. As much as I would enjoy the idea that she likes me back at that same level, I don’t feel that is so. Deep down I know her caring and empathic personality is her nature. Deep down, I want to take something away from this experience to enrich my own relationships. I don’t want this feeling of affection to merely be a wasted passing by feel-good emotion. After watching the lion king, I know deeper, closer relationships is what I desire at the essence of my soul and is something that has been missing throughout most of my life. I absolutely love that feeling of being emotionally open and close to someone and having as much appropriate nonsexual affection as possible for the few friends I’ve felt really close with.
This explains why the majority of my favorite youtube videos are songs that would be considered touchy-feely or I believe listened to mostly by girls. Unfortunately I do feel hesitant and insecure to reveal my love for certain soft, emotional songs. In fact, as I am writing this, I am listening to Truly Madly Deeply by Cascada. I suppose I feel scared to show people the love I have for soft, emotional songs due to potential risk for being humiliated and teased. The media’s general portrayal of men to be tough and deny feeling any vulnerable emotions certainly doesn't help either. While listening to the lyrics of Truly Madly Deeply, I can imagine and feel myself standing on a mountain peak with a friend I feel truly connected with. I can imagine ourselves on that mountain peak looking out over a breathtaking scene and enjoying the beauty of nature undisturbed by other people or the sound of cars and civilization. There are other times when I feel lonely where I would imagine how good I would feel if I were lying on a patch of green grass with a close friend under a clear sky looking at the stars on a cool night discussing our most intimate thoughts and feelings. I guess I really desire moments of deep connection with another.
Throughout middle school and high school, there were a few times where I remember shedding tears and sniffling by myself over seemingly insignificant reasons. One time, I was playing basketball at my elementary school’s courts with my brother and a friend and I lost an emotional one on one game with my brother that we had really gotten into. We were bumping each other around and playing physically. When I lost and my friend entered the court to play my brother one on one, I remember walking away towards the playground and grassy field and feeling myself about to cry. I remember thinking to myself that I was so soft and emotional. Looking back at that incidence now, I feel glad I am capable of feeling so much. I am glad I can really feel and empathize with the hardships of other people as long as they are communicating their emotions through stories and a calm tone of voice and not purely ranting to blow off steam.
It truly is amazing the power a touch has. It is said that a touch is ten times more powerful at communicating compassion and empathy than that of facial expressions and voice tones. I have never considered the use of touch to deepen my relationships before although now I feel like I have unlocked an important tool to deepen my relationships. Reading an online article called, “Hands On Research: The Science of Touch” by Dacher Keltner, I am convinced we should all show our compassion and love for those special people in our lives through the power of touch. It is proven that the majority of Americans are touch deprived as evidenced by a study that was done by psychologist Sidney Jourard. It is scientifically proven that we are all wired to connect with other people on a basic physical level as well as emotional, and to deprive ourselves of this is to deny ourselves one of the deepest and most comforting feelings of affection we can show towards those we care about deep down.
http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?sid=9
http://jameslau88.com/building_blocks_for_deep_friends.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/health/23mind.html?_r=1
As I talked with her, she smiled occasionally when appropriate and held eye contact as I felt a bit hypnotized while looking at her blue eyes. She projected a sense of warmth and caring attitude through her voice tone and by occasionally touching her patients to reassure them. She had a slightly peppy and animated personality although it was early morning and I presume she must have felt tired inside. All these things made me feel even more attracted to her. However, it was her gestures of touch that made me feel such a flood of warmth towards her. She would occasionally place her hand on my back or arm as she would be explaining something to me. This slight gesture made my tense muscles and body loosen up instantly. My muscles and tissues literally softened up inside, and I experienced a warm and caring feeling flooding my body that emanated from where she touched me. I could feel the rush of oxytocin as I felt safe to lower my shields and feel instantly more opened up emotionally. I felt warm, taken care of, loved, and accepted all in one touch.
I’ll admit that I am still thinking about the touching experience more than two days after clinical. I don’t know if I will see her again. Nurses rotate three day shifts every week. I know it's likely that I may never see her again, and at the same time, I know that even if I do see her and get to work with her again, the relationship we did have won’t go further to match how I felt about her. Just several days ago on Sunday night and early Monday morning (AM), I was discussing with my friend about love and I laughed while saying, “how is it possible to love someone when you don’t even know anything about that person?” I believed that if we liked somebody, it would purely be a physical attraction for that person. It’s not possible to love someone you’ve just met. After hanging out with Miranda for half a day of clinical, I feel it is possible to love someone you’ve just met. Love is several levels deeper than liking someone. Perhaps I didn’t feel love. Perhaps I just really liked her a lot to the point that I am still thinking about her more than a day later. Is that level of obsession strong enough to be considered love? I guess the answer to that is subjective. Then again, the love I felt resulted from how she made me feel. Yes I thought she was cute, but it was the fact that she made me feel cared about and loved through the power of touch, that I feel like I can say I really liked her. As much as I would enjoy the idea that she likes me back at that same level, I don’t feel that is so. Deep down I know her caring and empathic personality is her nature. Deep down, I want to take something away from this experience to enrich my own relationships. I don’t want this feeling of affection to merely be a wasted passing by feel-good emotion. After watching the lion king, I know deeper, closer relationships is what I desire at the essence of my soul and is something that has been missing throughout most of my life. I absolutely love that feeling of being emotionally open and close to someone and having as much appropriate nonsexual affection as possible for the few friends I’ve felt really close with.
This explains why the majority of my favorite youtube videos are songs that would be considered touchy-feely or I believe listened to mostly by girls. Unfortunately I do feel hesitant and insecure to reveal my love for certain soft, emotional songs. In fact, as I am writing this, I am listening to Truly Madly Deeply by Cascada. I suppose I feel scared to show people the love I have for soft, emotional songs due to potential risk for being humiliated and teased. The media’s general portrayal of men to be tough and deny feeling any vulnerable emotions certainly doesn't help either. While listening to the lyrics of Truly Madly Deeply, I can imagine and feel myself standing on a mountain peak with a friend I feel truly connected with. I can imagine ourselves on that mountain peak looking out over a breathtaking scene and enjoying the beauty of nature undisturbed by other people or the sound of cars and civilization. There are other times when I feel lonely where I would imagine how good I would feel if I were lying on a patch of green grass with a close friend under a clear sky looking at the stars on a cool night discussing our most intimate thoughts and feelings. I guess I really desire moments of deep connection with another.
Throughout middle school and high school, there were a few times where I remember shedding tears and sniffling by myself over seemingly insignificant reasons. One time, I was playing basketball at my elementary school’s courts with my brother and a friend and I lost an emotional one on one game with my brother that we had really gotten into. We were bumping each other around and playing physically. When I lost and my friend entered the court to play my brother one on one, I remember walking away towards the playground and grassy field and feeling myself about to cry. I remember thinking to myself that I was so soft and emotional. Looking back at that incidence now, I feel glad I am capable of feeling so much. I am glad I can really feel and empathize with the hardships of other people as long as they are communicating their emotions through stories and a calm tone of voice and not purely ranting to blow off steam.
It truly is amazing the power a touch has. It is said that a touch is ten times more powerful at communicating compassion and empathy than that of facial expressions and voice tones. I have never considered the use of touch to deepen my relationships before although now I feel like I have unlocked an important tool to deepen my relationships. Reading an online article called, “Hands On Research: The Science of Touch” by Dacher Keltner, I am convinced we should all show our compassion and love for those special people in our lives through the power of touch. It is proven that the majority of Americans are touch deprived as evidenced by a study that was done by psychologist Sidney Jourard. It is scientifically proven that we are all wired to connect with other people on a basic physical level as well as emotional, and to deprive ourselves of this is to deny ourselves one of the deepest and most comforting feelings of affection we can show towards those we care about deep down.
http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?sid=9
http://jameslau88.com/building_blocks_for_deep_friends.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/health/23mind.html?_r=1
Monday, February 27, 2012
Awkward Telephone Call
I was doing my math homework one evening and I was just sitting there in the chair and I had just called my friend with the home phone regarding the math homework, since we had the same teacher but different periods. I had just called him literally like a minute ago when the home phone rang, and I assumed it was my friend calling back about something. I picked it up and said, “hello?” and he replied, “is this Michael?” And wanting to banter a bit I replied, “Do you think this is Michael?” as I wanted him to guess if it was me or David. There was a slight pause and he replied, “uhh, I don’t know”. At this point I was getting confused. The voice sounded like my friend’s voice, but if this was my friend and if he didn’t know if the person he was talking to was my dad, my brother, or me answering the phone, I assumed he would have said something like, “oh, I need to talk to Michael about the math homework”. The pause had been drawn out for a while between us as neither of us had said anything for several seconds. At this point I don’t remember how the conversation went exactly but I think I replied, “who is this?” and to my surprise, if he was an actual telemarketer, I thought he reacted rather unprofessional, he replied, “who are you?” at this point I felt like it was getting extremely awkward. I didn’t really want to give in because at this point I was pretty convinced this was not my friend calling, so if he was trying to sell me something, I felt like he should have told me who he was. It definitely was an ego issue, but I could just tell my body was all tensed up and I was gripping the telephone like I was holding onto to dear life, and I felt really uncomfortable with the call, so not knowing what to say and wanting to stop feeling that awkwardness, I just quickly hung up. Right after I hung up the phone I just remember thinking, “wow, what was that?” I started to think who the caller just was because I wasn’t expecting any phone calls. I thought to myself, “was that my friend calling or not?” “Is it possible that was my friend?” the voice sounded similar to my friend’s voice but I know his personality and I’m pretty sure if he called my home phone and needed something, he wouldn’t respond to me by saying, “who are you?”. I just remember feeling incredibly awkward after that phone call and just sitting there just telling myself, “nah, there’s no way that could have been my friend.” Turns out I was right as he never said anything about that call and he didn’t react differently to me the next time I saw him at school. In hindsight, I should have handled the conversation better and not let that awkwardness get to me, but oh well, it makes for a funny story at least.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
My Young-Life Crisis
What impacted who I am today?
Some time around junior year in high school, one can say I was having a young-life crisis. My life was missing something. I felt unhappy with life. As I walked home everyday from school by myself, I thought to myself, why do I feel this way? Why do I feel like something was missing in my life? I read self-improvement articles regarding How to find what you love to do in life and any article that I thought would pertain to my feeling of unhappiness and lack. As I really thought about why I was unhappy and felt like my life was missing something, I started to reach vague yet specific things I wanted to improve on. To put it simply, I was unhappy socially, and as I walked home everyday from school I felt like my current life was lacking purpose. I was going to school everyday only to go home later to study hard and do homework I was not interested in so I could potentially succeed in a career that I didn’t enjoy that much in the future. I didn’t have a steady group of friends to hang out with at the time. My social life was definitely transitioning at the time and I didn’t have any friends I was close with. At the time, these few guys I hung out with were just guys I could talk to during brunch. It’s not that I thought they were bad people but I never extended myself to get to know them better outside of school.
I was unhappy socially and life felt meaningless. These emotions really helped me in the long run. I learned mainly from brian kim, whose self-improvement articles and books really helped me answer a lot of questions regarding living a meaningful life. With his articles I was able to hit on tiny pieces of the puzzle to the question what I really wanted to get out of life. I knew I wanted more friends, I wanted to become socially confident, to be able to talk to girls, and I wanted to get a hot girl friend, I wanted to be able to have a great conversation with anyone all inspired by the very first dating product I ever read: david deangelo’s double your dating. I wanted all these things but it seemed like I still couldn’t sum up what I wanted. I couldn’t put a finger on a word or phrase that would sum up what I wanted. Same with my feelings of a life lacking purpose. I knew when I read brian kim’s self-improvement articles and ebooks that I wanted to live a life that I would be passionate about. Through brian kim’s articles and books, I was able to come to the conclusion that I wanted to do something with animals, wildlife, nature, outdoors. These answers were pieces to the puzzle of the ultimate answer to the question of what I wanted to do in my life. The reason I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what I wanted was because the questions were asking me what had excited me or I had loved to do in the past. I had lived in a household with parents- who I do love and appreciate- who taught me that working hard academically was significantly important and to put off play and fun for after you get a good job. I had never done anything extraordinary. At the time, I had never been camping, hiking to my liking only a few times, and spent my weekends watching t.v. and playing some basketball. I didn’t even hang out with friends to just talk before if I wasn’t holding a basketball. Point being, if I wasn’t playing basketball with a friend, I wasn’t socializing.
Life felt boring. It was work, work, work, and boring weekends without much excitement. I hated living such a mundane life. My soul was crying out for more. My emotions told me something was missing in my life. I thought to myself so many times when I was alone, “there’s got to be more to life than this (meaningless work and boring weekends). So to continue, I searched long and hard. I read how to find what you love to do article by brian kim and bought his book how to find what you love to do and get paid for doing it. I knew I could not live a life where it was all work and no excitement. The more you think about these questions and write down your thoughts, the more clear your answers to the question becomes. I wanted a career that would give me the things I was missing in my life at the time: more people and a career that was interesting for me. By this time it was almost before we had to turn in out applications for colleges and decided majors. There was about a couple months of time. I wanted to do psychology. I felt like being a psychologist, talking to patients and helping them with their problems, after going through the feelings I was going through, I wanted to help others go through these tough times. I was pretty convinced that I wanted to be a psychologist for quite a few weeks. Then a few weeks later, my mom told me about nursing field. She told me how our cousin wanted to get into nursing. At first I thought it was an utter joke. Why would I want to take care of sick people? Being a psychologist I felt like I could help people who were hurting or suffering emotionally, so I could relate to that. But sick people? My mom proceeded to tell me that nursing allows you to work three days a week 12 hour shift, and you make a good amount of money. This got me intrigued. I could have 4 days off to go do what I want whereas most other jobs are 5 days a week and only 2 days off? I researched the benefits of a nursing career. Turns out the nursing career has many benefits such as good pay, and the 3 days 12 hour shifts, flexibility (although I somewhat doubt this in our current economy), and high in demand for years to come. What really got me intrigued into nursing was the travel nursing career. The idea that you can travel to almost anywhere in the US and with some agencies all around the world, with good pay, good benefits, and time off seemed to be too great to pass up- and as I still don’t know for certain because I have begun my nursing career yet. With this career, I felt like it would give my life meaning. I would be travelling, helping people, making good money, have time off to pursue my interests and hobbies that I wasn’t able to pursue as a kid, I wanted to become a travel nurse. That’s where I am now, working and studying in nursing school.
Some time around junior year in high school, one can say I was having a young-life crisis. My life was missing something. I felt unhappy with life. As I walked home everyday from school by myself, I thought to myself, why do I feel this way? Why do I feel like something was missing in my life? I read self-improvement articles regarding How to find what you love to do in life and any article that I thought would pertain to my feeling of unhappiness and lack. As I really thought about why I was unhappy and felt like my life was missing something, I started to reach vague yet specific things I wanted to improve on. To put it simply, I was unhappy socially, and as I walked home everyday from school I felt like my current life was lacking purpose. I was going to school everyday only to go home later to study hard and do homework I was not interested in so I could potentially succeed in a career that I didn’t enjoy that much in the future. I didn’t have a steady group of friends to hang out with at the time. My social life was definitely transitioning at the time and I didn’t have any friends I was close with. At the time, these few guys I hung out with were just guys I could talk to during brunch. It’s not that I thought they were bad people but I never extended myself to get to know them better outside of school.
I was unhappy socially and life felt meaningless. These emotions really helped me in the long run. I learned mainly from brian kim, whose self-improvement articles and books really helped me answer a lot of questions regarding living a meaningful life. With his articles I was able to hit on tiny pieces of the puzzle to the question what I really wanted to get out of life. I knew I wanted more friends, I wanted to become socially confident, to be able to talk to girls, and I wanted to get a hot girl friend, I wanted to be able to have a great conversation with anyone all inspired by the very first dating product I ever read: david deangelo’s double your dating. I wanted all these things but it seemed like I still couldn’t sum up what I wanted. I couldn’t put a finger on a word or phrase that would sum up what I wanted. Same with my feelings of a life lacking purpose. I knew when I read brian kim’s self-improvement articles and ebooks that I wanted to live a life that I would be passionate about. Through brian kim’s articles and books, I was able to come to the conclusion that I wanted to do something with animals, wildlife, nature, outdoors. These answers were pieces to the puzzle of the ultimate answer to the question of what I wanted to do in my life. The reason I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what I wanted was because the questions were asking me what had excited me or I had loved to do in the past. I had lived in a household with parents- who I do love and appreciate- who taught me that working hard academically was significantly important and to put off play and fun for after you get a good job. I had never done anything extraordinary. At the time, I had never been camping, hiking to my liking only a few times, and spent my weekends watching t.v. and playing some basketball. I didn’t even hang out with friends to just talk before if I wasn’t holding a basketball. Point being, if I wasn’t playing basketball with a friend, I wasn’t socializing.
Life felt boring. It was work, work, work, and boring weekends without much excitement. I hated living such a mundane life. My soul was crying out for more. My emotions told me something was missing in my life. I thought to myself so many times when I was alone, “there’s got to be more to life than this (meaningless work and boring weekends). So to continue, I searched long and hard. I read how to find what you love to do article by brian kim and bought his book how to find what you love to do and get paid for doing it. I knew I could not live a life where it was all work and no excitement. The more you think about these questions and write down your thoughts, the more clear your answers to the question becomes. I wanted a career that would give me the things I was missing in my life at the time: more people and a career that was interesting for me. By this time it was almost before we had to turn in out applications for colleges and decided majors. There was about a couple months of time. I wanted to do psychology. I felt like being a psychologist, talking to patients and helping them with their problems, after going through the feelings I was going through, I wanted to help others go through these tough times. I was pretty convinced that I wanted to be a psychologist for quite a few weeks. Then a few weeks later, my mom told me about nursing field. She told me how our cousin wanted to get into nursing. At first I thought it was an utter joke. Why would I want to take care of sick people? Being a psychologist I felt like I could help people who were hurting or suffering emotionally, so I could relate to that. But sick people? My mom proceeded to tell me that nursing allows you to work three days a week 12 hour shift, and you make a good amount of money. This got me intrigued. I could have 4 days off to go do what I want whereas most other jobs are 5 days a week and only 2 days off? I researched the benefits of a nursing career. Turns out the nursing career has many benefits such as good pay, and the 3 days 12 hour shifts, flexibility (although I somewhat doubt this in our current economy), and high in demand for years to come. What really got me intrigued into nursing was the travel nursing career. The idea that you can travel to almost anywhere in the US and with some agencies all around the world, with good pay, good benefits, and time off seemed to be too great to pass up- and as I still don’t know for certain because I have begun my nursing career yet. With this career, I felt like it would give my life meaning. I would be travelling, helping people, making good money, have time off to pursue my interests and hobbies that I wasn’t able to pursue as a kid, I wanted to become a travel nurse. That’s where I am now, working and studying in nursing school.
The Scariest Thoughts of the Elderly?
"I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour. I want to cross one last finish line as my wife and my ten children applaud, and then I want to lie down in a field of those famous French sunflowers and gracefully expire, the perfect contradiction to my once anticipated poignant early demise."
- Lance Armstrong
Being in Saint Francis Hospital for the first time and knowing that this semester would bring on new challenges and learning experiences, I was nervous but excited to get going. My patient only speaks Cantonese so I found the language barrier to be a barrier to getting things done. There were times when my patient would try to communicate with me and he seemed to be saying something of significance to him as he would repeat the same sentence over and over again. Yet I looked at him trying to show him that I’m here for you, but yet not being able to help him with what he was trying to say. There were a few times when I was talking with the dialysis nurse regarding that this patient might be on his last legs in life due to his need for constant dialysis for the rest of his life and suffering from a hip fracture that would cause issues with mobility. As I am writing this, I wonder to myself what I would be thinking if I were in his situation. I wonder what emotions I would feel being in that uncomfortable hospital bed wondering if life would be worth living anymore. To be completely honest, if I was at that age and in this predicament, I would think to myself, “so this is what my life has come to.” “Did I get to do all the important things I wanted in my life?” Deep down I would be thinking about my life, my regrets, the things that stick out to me from my life and just in the back of my mind knowing that there were things I wish I could go back and do differently. Different choices I would have made in my life that would have led to a different and better road. For me, I am not satisfied with my life. If the rest of my life is a mirror of my first 19 years of life and if I were to be in his position at age 91 with tubes hooked up in me and not being able to even move and take care of myself, I would be crying deep down feeling that I have failed my dreams and that life has handed me the raw end of the stick. I hope he doesn’t feel that way, and I certainly hope I don’t feel that way if I live to be that old.
- Lance Armstrong
Being in Saint Francis Hospital for the first time and knowing that this semester would bring on new challenges and learning experiences, I was nervous but excited to get going. My patient only speaks Cantonese so I found the language barrier to be a barrier to getting things done. There were times when my patient would try to communicate with me and he seemed to be saying something of significance to him as he would repeat the same sentence over and over again. Yet I looked at him trying to show him that I’m here for you, but yet not being able to help him with what he was trying to say. There were a few times when I was talking with the dialysis nurse regarding that this patient might be on his last legs in life due to his need for constant dialysis for the rest of his life and suffering from a hip fracture that would cause issues with mobility. As I am writing this, I wonder to myself what I would be thinking if I were in his situation. I wonder what emotions I would feel being in that uncomfortable hospital bed wondering if life would be worth living anymore. To be completely honest, if I was at that age and in this predicament, I would think to myself, “so this is what my life has come to.” “Did I get to do all the important things I wanted in my life?” Deep down I would be thinking about my life, my regrets, the things that stick out to me from my life and just in the back of my mind knowing that there were things I wish I could go back and do differently. Different choices I would have made in my life that would have led to a different and better road. For me, I am not satisfied with my life. If the rest of my life is a mirror of my first 19 years of life and if I were to be in his position at age 91 with tubes hooked up in me and not being able to even move and take care of myself, I would be crying deep down feeling that I have failed my dreams and that life has handed me the raw end of the stick. I hope he doesn’t feel that way, and I certainly hope I don’t feel that way if I live to be that old.
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