After reading Originals by Adam Grant I was left feeling challenged. Grant brings about many different subjects, from parenting methods to organization, that have an impact on an individual’s creativity. I have never considered myself the most original thinker and I had always dreaded “outside of the box” projects, but Grant’s guidance throughout the book showed that that being a logical thinker and being original are not mutually exclusive concepts, as I had once thought. Instead, when it comes to being creative Grant focuses on how to break away from what he calls “default thinking”. Grant challenges the norms by considering that procrastination is not always the worst option, which I found to be interesting and a little stressful, as I am …show more content…
I am what my parents and friends define me as a “sandbagger”. I go into tests saying, “I am going to fail. I should change my major. My world is ending.” Then, I would come out of my test saying similar phrases. More often than not I receive my scores back to find that I had successfully prepared myself for the exam, and that I can continue on panicking for the next world ending test. Grant covered this phenomenon, which I was not aware was a phenomenon, towards the end of his book. Grant calls it “The Power of Negative Thinking”. Essentially there are two major ways to prepare for handling challenges. One, strategic optimism, is where an individual anticipates the best. The second, defensive pessimism, is the opposite, where an individual excepts the worst. I am without a doubt a defensive pessimist. Grant goes on to explain, that although the pessimist is usually more anxious and less confident, they preform just as well if not better than the optimist. After reading this section I felt relieved that I was not just irrational, but there was a method to my madness so to say, even though it does drive my parents and friends crazy. Of all the interesting points made in this book, this is the one I was most excited about, because I connected with this argument on a personal
Ever hear one say, “Sometimes I’m busy making others happy, that I forget to make sure I’m okay.”? After reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided I have learned that balancing both positive and negative thinking is the single most important life lesson shown throughout the book. Ehrenreich tells readers that the power of positive thinking Is undermining America and how being too positive and too optimistic, can lead to trouble. One that knows how to balance the amount of positivity and negativity will create a proper outcome for their future.
This shows that positive thinking can get in the way of all your hopes and dreams. You may have an image of a life that seems perfect, but you need to be able to separate that from reality and not get the two mixed. It sometimes blinds you from the true reality. Also in the same text, it stated ‘’the pressure of positive thinking can result in suppressing any pessimistic thoughts or unpleasant emotions because they might attract bad things. You deprive yourself of access to the complete picture and the full range of emotions.
Imagine a world without artists, poets, inventors, authors, or designers… Can’t do it? You don’t have to .All you have to do is look at the students being molded by the American public school system, a group of boring conforming unimaginative robots. The problem with the American school system, as argued by John Taylor Gatto in his article “Against School”, is that it’s designed to create students to conform and adapt, to determine their social roles. Schools don’t pay nearly as much attention in encouraging the students to think more critically or creative as they do in making sure they are labeled by some absurd “standardized test”. The school system needs to focus on creating a group of innovators, creative students who think outside the
If someone thinks negatively towards something the outcome will not be good, and vice versa. Thinking you can achieve the American dream is a major key in doing so, and some Americans are already on the right track. In the U.S., a survey showed that 36 percent of Americans say they have achieved the dream, and another 46 percent believe they are on the path of achieving it. It is not so easy, though, to always look on the bright side. Sometimes it seems as if nothing is going right; that is when negativity occurs. People can argue that mindset has little impact on the outcome, or that it does not matter how positive a person is because some things are just not meant to be. An article, however, proves this wrong. The paper argues how negative emotions prevent humans from flourishing; it also states, “if your ratio of positive to negative emotions is greater than 2.9013 to one, you will flourish both physically and psychologically.” If a person believes in themselves, they are more likely to accomplish their
With the scheduling of their parents, they have no opportunity to let their minds wander without guidelines. Moreover, the structure put in place has taken away the opportunity for children to develop their own interests outside of what others tell them. Furthermore, they are given countless opportunities to develop their knowledge without room for creativity, and hence become a shallow adult. She argues that creativity leads to the great artists, authors, and composers. Consequently, Quindlen’s argument is that scheduling has stunted children’s creative
In their article, “The Creativity Crisis”, authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explore the urgency of the downfall in the public’s “creativity quotient.” Bronson and Merryman emphasize the necessity for young children to be imaginative. Through an IBM poll, they verify that with the decrease of creativity in our society comes an array of consequences seen in the work field. The authors remind readers of another reason for the importance of creativity; they argue that creative ideas can solve national matters. Hence, Branson and Merryman believe that original ideas are key for a better world. Though I concede that creativity is a vital key to the solution of many national problems, I still insist that teaching creativity,
This shows how much society has changed since the 1900’s. Modern-day children are worse in almost every aspect of creative thinking when compared to previous generations. Society is hurting children’s imagination by not being supportive of outside time and social connections. With modern electronic devices, kids seldomly need to leave the house in order to be entertained. The lack of play time and social interactions severely hamper the development of children’s creativity. In summary, society is developing into something that lacks encouragement of creativity, and that is a major
In this notable Ted Talk video "Do schools kill creativity?", Sir Ken Robinson discusses how public education systems demolish creativity because they believe it is essential to the academic growth and success of students. Robinson created a broad arrange of arguments to persuade the viewers to take action on this highly ignored issue, and he primarily focuses on how important creativity is. There are classes within schools that help utilize creativity, but they are not taken seriously by adults in society. Therefore, the value of creative knowledge decreases. Robinson uses an unusual combination of pathos and ethos to make an enjoyable dispute for implementing an education system that nurtures rather than eats away at creativity.
Howard Gardner has studied many creative masters within the context of his theory of the three core elements of creativity. These include the relation between the child and the adult creator, the relation between the creator and others, and the relation between the creator and his or her work. Karen Horney’s childhood and adult life have been reflected in much of her work. She was born in 1885, the end of the Victorian era. Horney’s father was a “God-fearing fundamentalist who strongly believed that women were inferior to men and were the source of all evil in the world” (Hergenhahn & Olson...
“The optimism bias stands guard. It’s in charge of keeping our minds at ease and our bodies healthy. It moves us forward, rather than to the nearest high-rise rooftop.”– Sharot. In this quotation, Sharot shares her belief that we have a tendency to overestimate positive events that will happen in our life, this is the optimism bias; and this tendency keeps us living. It is also a long-term effect and not a short term one. Researchers have long discussed the question of why we still have an unrealistic optimism even though reality throws events at us that could change our view and believes. They have found that indeed, people tend to be optimistic about themselves, they also accept an information that has positive implication for them more easily that one that has negative implication for them. But do we have evidence that people have an unrealistically optimistic view of themselves; in other words, do they never predict that something negative will
In Patch Adams, Robin Williams portrays a doctor who strives to “improve the quality of life.” The movie is a perfect example of many cases of sacramental awareness and the sacrament of Annointing of the Sick. Patch encounters a “once-brilliant” man in a psychiatric clinic. Arthur Mendelson helps hunterThe first character Patch meets is Arthur Mendelson. Arthur influences Patch’s ability to see through problems. In a Christ-like manner, we must see through and past the problems and look ahead toward the solution. Christ died for our sins by looking past the problem.
There is a magnitude of research put behind trying to find the link between creativity and...
Patch Adams is a movie about a person named Henry “Patch” Adams that self-committed himself to a mental hospital because he was struggling with depression. After seeing how people are treated he is inspired to go to medical school so he can treat patients better. While in the mental institution he notices abnormal behaviors in his roommate. While at medical school he experiments with conditioned social responses in people. He defines the norms in medical school by being one of the oldest people there and breaking the rules to go and see patients before his third year, and did not conform to the student body. After much mischief and struggle he finally graduates medical school and opens his own hospital called the Guesdentite Institute. A
Anna Quindlen writes about how to foster creativity in children, and by extension adults by doing nothing and allowing their minds to foster creativity during this time, free time. She expresses her thoughts in “Doing nothing is something” a short essay. Quindlen proposes that kids are too busy and do not have enough free time. In this down time or free time they make their own adventures and form their own ideas. She presents the idea that to even start the creative process to create literature, music, and art one must have free time to let the mind wonder and create. On a moment’s reflection, the thesis that Quindlen presents looks sound but she does not allow for a person can think creatively without down time.
Herein lies the problem. The children that we are educated are and will be faced with new challenges that current education systems all over the world have been failing to meet. It would seem that structures of mass domain education suppress the innately imprinted creativity found in every living person and widely known specialist on the subject, Sir Ken Robinson, goes as far as saying that we are, “educating people out of their creativity” (Giang, 2013). But if the school system is to make adjustments to explore and cultivate creativity more how are they to do so without losing total structure? Robinson acknowledges this by saying that, “in every creative approach some of the things we’re looking for are hard, if not impossible to quantify. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t matter.”