What ray romero is thankful for :)

      I'm reading a book called “ Dont be Afraid Gringo” edited by Medea Benjamin, the story of Elivia Alvarado. This women speaks from the heart about the struggle to keep her children and herself alive. She talks about the living standards in Honduras and how impossible it is for low class families like hers  to find jobs, have a good man to stay around when you have a baby with him  and feed her family. You might be thinking well what does this have to do with what you are thankful for ,right? Well I never used to sit and think about what I was grateful for yet I always thought about what I didn't have and what I “needed”. This story really put an impact on my outlook of lifestyles.
   I want to start off with the basics. I'm most thankful for my loving and supporting family. They would do anything for me and in return I would give my life for any one of them. My parents always made sure I received the best education and pushed me to always give my best. They surrounded me with opportunities that many parents can't or don't care to.They always made sure I had food in my stomach and a roof on top of my head. My grandmother is like my second mom and was there when my parents couldn't be, And my little brother , he changed my life when he was born. I look at him as my everything, he brings the biggest happiness to me.
  I am thankful for my boyfriend of three years. I am thankful for his faithfulness and friendship. He will always have a special place in my heart. He taught me how to be comfortable in my own skin and reminded me how beautiful of a person I am when I had my dark days. He made me believe in the word "trust"so many before him abused it. Overall I am thankful for a man that has loved me and let me love him back.
  I am also thankful for all the mistakes I have made in my past . They have made me into a stronger person. I'm thankful for my best-friends who are always one ring away. There the reason I get through my deepest struggles with the advice to keep one foot in front of the other.
  And last but not least I'm thankful for life itself. Thankful to the Creator of it all, for making all the opportunities for us humans to receive.

cultivating a happier realtionship

Raiana Romero

English 101

             All who would win joy must share it; happiness was born a twin. –Lord Byron

Can people be happier in their relationships? How can people cultivate happier relationships with the people they love? This paper will show how people can better their relationships to make them happier and how they can cultivate their relationships with the people who are in their lives and whom they love. Cultivating a relationship takes work with every relationship you are in. According to dictionary.com to cultivate means to “to promote the growth or development of”. Relationships are cultivated based on the dynamic of the persons involved. The relationship between mother and child differ greatly than that of a Husband and Wife or of siblings. These relationships are all important according to Tal Ben -Shahar but romantic relationships are supreme.

According to Tal Ben -Shahar , Aristotle states, “Without friendship, no happiness is possible”. Every relationship starts off with some sort of friendship. Before you can try and please your partner or spouse you must first know your self. You must recognize your own morals, values and ethics. When you decide to enter a relationship with someone you begin to learn about his or her background beliefs and options. You may have different views on politics, religions and family lifestyles. You must ask yourself a question. Can I be with someone that does not share my views? Can I be open minded enough to listen to their thoughts and opinions and take what they say into consideration. Am I willing to change or bend my ways in order to have a meaningful relationship with this person. Is this person worth it? Does my partner feel the same, does he or she believe that I am worth changing for or believe that we have a future together.

             In researching exactly what “unconditional love “ is on the Internet, Wikipedia.com states that" Unconditional love is a term that means to love someone regardless of the loved one's qualities or actions." This rare type of love is not based on a persons looks, what they may have or want to achieve but who the person is. The reason you feel a connection to them and want to have them as part of your life. They may get fired from a great job or maybe even be in a terrible accident in which they may no longer appear physically the same. But non-the less your feelings for that person do not change you accept who they are not whom you may hope they would be. When you sacrifice and do something like for example take great interest in sports or something that you don’t really have an interest in you are cultivating your relationship by learning and compromising for your partner and in turn they would do the same for you. According to the lovefoundation.com “The greatest power known to man is that of unconditional love. “ In a relationship when you tell someone that you love them unconditionally doesn’t that mean that you are willing to change or try new things that may make the relationship stronger and more valuable? Are you willing to accept the thing that you don’t necessarily agree with?

Today, with 40 percent of marriages ending up in a divorce I wonder if people really have exhausted all possibilities for making their relationships work such as marriage counseling, trial separation, etc. In David Schnarch’s book Passionate Marriage he states that “ In order for the love and passion in a relationship to grow over time, both partners must be willing to be known, and this means gradually disclosing their inner most selves-their desires, fears, fantasies, and dreams. This allows partners to have a deeper understanding of their spouses’ values, concerns, and passions. If a person isn’t truthful, honest and open about what they think is wrong in their relationship how can they really put 100 percent into trying to fix what they may think is wrong. How does his or her partner even know that there is an issue if no one is mentioning it? We grow as people once we accept that there is indeed something that needs fixing and we are willing to put the effort in to repair it.

A big part of cultivating a relationship is the sacrifices you are willing to make in order for the relationship to grow stronger and more valuable. In a relationship you don’t want your partner to feel as if his or her sacrifice is not appreciated or un-valued. The person making the sacrifice should make it because they want to not because they feel they have too. In the chapter “Love and Sacrifice” in Shahars book happiness he states that “There is no easy way to distinguish between behavior that is sacrificial, and hence destructive to the long-term success of the relationship, and behavior that is conducive to the growth of the relationship. The only way to begin to sort out the harmful from the beneficial is by evaluating the relationship, as a whole, in the currency of happiness.” For example working parents of a small child may have a system where they rotate taking off days of work when the child is ill and cannot go to day care. The sacrifice for the care of their child is mutual. Shahars book also states that “while comprise if a natural and healthy part of any relationship, while at different times each partner will forgo some meaning or pleasure for the sake of the other, over all the relationship must profit both partners- both must be happier for being together.”

In reading this paper, I hope that the reader can see my point of view that people can cultivate happier relationships with work, understanding, change, and unconditional love. Many factors go into making a relationship work and grow strong, by putting the time and effort into it. Mr. Ben-Shahar notes that there are many aspects to cultivating happier relationships such as: understanding unconditional love, knowing your core self, the circle of happiness, love and sacrifice and the meaning and pleasure in love.

Works Cited

Dictionary.com

Wikipedia.com

Tal Ben-Shahar – Happiness

Lovefoundation.com

David Schnarch – Passionate Marriage

Blog #5

- Spending more time with loved ones.

    As we know it time is more precious than anything, so why waste it doing the wrong things and spending it with the wrong people? Sometimes I am so overwhelmed with school and other things that I never spend quality time with my family and boyfriend. My mom and I fight alot now because we barely see each-other and she feels I only go to her when I need something and its not that at all! I wish I can set a schedule where the time is right for both me and my family but they have lives too. I try my best to reach out and I will keep on, things will get better once I find the right time for both my parents, boyfriend and me. And when we do spend time together the memories just build up. We laugh and the vibe is just unbelievably loving that it makes up for the weeks that we havent hung out!

-Complaining vs. fixing

   I have always been the type to complain about a situation thats going wrong or has went the wrong way. I would sit there and be all fed up about the situation instead of thinking of ways to simply fix it. It really is so much more stress free when you think of ways to fix the problem because complaining doesn't get you no where! When fixing a situation at the end of it you will be happy instead of complaining about it and being annoyed things didn't go as planned. Also remember things wont always go as planned! So when they don't ,don't feel as if its the end of the world just think of another solution to fix it!

-Real love vs. the ideal love
  
   The ideal love is a perfect love with no flaws, unrealistic in the real world. In order to achieve an ideal connection between two people you must have a perfect relationship. Real love is when you have flaws in the relationship and no matter what they are there accepted. You love each other unconditionally  and without regret. A real love is felt deep within you soul, its a magical feeling. One that you feel right from the start. Like having a child, the love automatically is there once you meet your babies eyes. A happiness, a willingness to do anything for that baby . That right there is Real Love.

dan gilbert asks, Why are we happy? | Video on TED.com

Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy? | Video on TED.com

Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy? | Video on TED.com everyone has their own idea of happiness ,happiness is within your brain and heart. To me i think of happiness as something that isnt forced its natural

In my education, I try my best to find happiness through my creativity.

Raiana Romero
English 101

  I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein .    

     In my education, I try my best  to find happiness through  my creativity. The quote above has moved me in ways that are unexplainable. But, for the most part this quote has made me realize that within my creativity I can go far in life. In this essay, I will discuss the challenges I go through within my education such as procrastination and lack of effort  and how I find solution's to over come those challenges. When it comes to education everyone has personal challenges they have to overcome to become happy and satisfied .
   Schooling was never my strong point , it was just another one of those things that had to be done I am more athletic than scholarly. Procrastination was my best friend and it haunted me everywhere I went, I never felt a rush or pressure to get my work done. I believed there was always time  “to do it later”. Once I realized there was no escaping it,  stepping up to it would be my only solution and my only way out. As I got older I have progressed in my education but still my enemy (procrastination) is attached to one side of me. I try to understand  why it just wont  go away and then I realized maybe its my time management or my prioritization skills. I admit to leaving things to the last minute because I forget how time flies. I am making it my business to leave this enemy behind today . I have come to realize that I have stupid distractions like going out ,(knowing I have things to do )or being on my phone when I should really be going over my notes. My Mom nags me persistently about my work and my priorities and I simply ignore her. This has hurt my grades tremendously . Easy assignments would be graded poorly because of my lack of effort and not necessarily because I didn't know or understand the work ,but because I didn't put the effort or time into going over it.
    Boredom eats me alive, I get bored so fast its unbelievable. I get distracted very easily. This causes me to lose concentration on what I'm learning at the moment or even the task that I'm in the middle of doing. Something that's around me may catch my eye and that's the end of it.  As a child my mother had me tested because she thought I had Attention Deficit Disorder I would make her crazy at homework time but I tested with a very high I.Q. In 8th grade I was reading on a 12th grade reading level so it wasn’t that I was “stupid”  I just couldn't remember what I was suppose to be doing or that I even had a test that day. I was diagnosed with  “Short Term Memory Disorder”. If my mom would tell me to study, by the time I got to my room I totally forgot what I was suppose to do and did something completely different. Its sad that I suffer from this but as I got older I learned to deal with it a little better than when I was a child (with the help of my parents persistence on teaching me to concentrate on the task at hand and to complete one thing before I start another) Now in college, I started to find myself drowning in the amount of work I am getting not because the work is too difficult to understand , but because of my love to procrastinate and my lack of concentration. 

I am a very creative person , I love to see things in a way others don't. I am one of those people that prefer to “see the glass half full,rather than half empty”. I like to draw things out and label each when I have a assignment to do . It helps me understand what I have to do more easily.So in an effort  to overcome my weakness’  I am going to use my creativity to seek what interest me the most in the criteria I am learning. I always took the information I learned into different perspectives then my classmates. I would take in the information in a way that satisfied myself and a way I could study and understand it the best. Sometimes it benefited me and sometimes it didn't but it helped me keep interest .

As George Lowenstein states “ Happiness is a signal that our brains use to motivate us to do certain things. And in the same way that our eye adapts to different levels of illumination, we’re designed to kind of go back to the happiness set point.Our brains are not trying to be happy ,our brains are trying to regulate us”. So I have decided  to try something different . I now will try my best to find the littlest thing in the subject or task I'm doing, that will keep me interested and keep my attention. I will fight off the boredom that use to over come me and make me day dream. I will not allow this thing called “procrastination” to control my life. I have to do  this because at the end of my education will be what I consider happiness. Maybe I will set a picture of happiness in my brain of all the smiling little faces that one day I will make an impact on as a teacher and maybe make a difference in their lives.

loving a child

loving a child

I love my job! I am a babysitter and boy it some times gets out of hand but the kids make it worth it. Most of my past jobs dealt with children either in summer camps or after school programs but now I simply just watch them when there parents go out or have to work late. At first i would’nt even take the money given to me ,get that! i loved it so much and still do . I think its very important when it comes to work that you love what you do because if you dont I feel as if you wont give it 100%. When I was younger I had no clue what I wanted to be but the past couple of years it hit me! I love kids so I chose to study education in college and I think its one of the best choices Ive made in my life so far.
 I sometimes think about double magoring because of the fact that I want to open up my own day care so I would need to have a business license .I definitely want to deal with children in my career, they have apart of them that just gives me a natural happiness that i cant seem to find anywhere else. I believe that in my future I am going to be a very happy individual because unlike others my job isn’t about looking forward to the pay checks its about putting a smile on children’s faces and teaching them and for the most part seeing them grow as a person. My goal in life is to become a great teacher and be remembered as one. I remember my kinder-garden teacher, I loved her and for that I look up to her. I look forward to learning as i teach as well, no one realizes it but children can teach you things unexpectedly .Things you ill remember forever. :)

hot and cold states

  Hot and Cold States are places a person can find themselves in while either being very anxious in the hot state or  by being content in the cold state. In life everyone at least once expeirences both a hot state when you think before you act and a cold state where as you can be very thoughtful.
I have to admit I find myself in more hot states then cold. My mother always taught me to say whats on my mind and at times it can be bad for me because i may find someone i care for upset with me or insulted about what i said to them.Although i try to be in a cold state as much as i can. I like shopping and even more I like shopping for others. I love there expressions when they see what I bought them ,I mean who doesn’t love getting presents!
   Hot states can be very dangerous for people. Anxious poeple tend to be in hot states often or even all the time rather.As I said I  can be a hot head ,when i loose sometimes i get angry and yell for something that simply isnt worth it but at the moment i explode and can’t seem to control what i say because of the anxiety inside of me.
  Where as cold states i find my self more peaceful and in a happy place. I think twice about what i say and if I’m saying it in the right way and tone.I feel as if i get along with others better when I’m in a cold state. I have a friend that always seems to be in a cold state and she says that she just likes to be a content person it seems to please her in a way better fashion then being in a hot state. I cant argue with that , can you?

                                                                                       Raiana Romero