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Making a positive contribution by volunteering
Making a positive contribution by volunteering
Making a positive contribution by volunteering
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Happy is Healthy In the modern day, most people have heard that being happy is good for health. We all hear this, but no one really tells us why it is so. When striving to be truly healthy, a person must keep in mind that a happy attitude is directly correlated to a healthy physique. Happy people feel healthier because they are more comfortable with themselves, more likely to help others through things like volunteering, and are usually better educated. Once individuals sustain a generally constant feeling of happiness, they start to feel healthier. It is also said by some that happiness helps prevent serious diseases but this is not a known fact, (Healthy Happiness). To be happy and get the benefits requires effort, but it is far from impossible, even so overdoing it can have harmful effects. Stephen G. a former Ph.D., wrote an article with collective studies that showed that volunteering and helping people increased …show more content…
This study showed that 68% of volunteers say that volunteering made them feel healthier physically, and 92% said it made their life seem more enriched and meaningful. These helpers were shown to have increased happiness and life longevity. Another study found that “. . . Maria E. Pagano, a Ph.D. led the study of helping behaviors of alcoholics with a range of 16 to 25 years of abstinence to alcohol . . . those who were helping [other alcoholics] were significantly less likely to relapse in the year following treatment”. This means that just by helping other people, these former alcoholic subjects were able to significantly increase their chances of recovering from their alcoholic tendencies for a whole year after helping other people reach their goal as well. This seems to good to be true, and in a way it is. Over helping
However, happiness also takes into account a wide range of other aspects of our lives, including our thoughts and actions, and even genetics. Therefore, happiness should be defined as the amalgamation of how we think and act, and how we interpret our experiences as positive or negative. What this means is that in order to become happier, we must simply force ourselves to become more optimistic. This is easier said than done, however. In order to have a noticeable increase in happiness, people must be willing to make lifestyle changes in addition to changing their mindset. However, the difference between optimism and delusion is a fine line, so people must be cautious to not exaggerate the positive parts of an experience or become overly optimistic. If we practice seeking out the positive views of our circumstances, with time we will find ourselves happier than
Ultimately being happy is not as great as it is talked up to be. Having too much happiness is not good. Being too happiness can cause us to miss the true value of happiness, only focus on ourselves, and it can cause us to be less alert to threats and dangerous situations around us. Being happy is a good thing but like all good things there are also some
Utilizing a pie chart, she illustrates the crux of her research; 10% of our happiness is increased or decreased by our circumstances. 50% of our happiness is increased or decreased by genetic predisposition, 40% is within our ability to control. We have “opportunities to increase or decrease our happiness levels through what we do and how we think” (22). She provides 12 specific happiness enhancing activities. She implores us to commit time, resources and energy to this “intentional activity”. Promoting these changes in our lives to accommodate being happier, which will benefit everyone in the end.
A powerful influence over happiness is how people perceive situations and how they choose to engage with others. Life may change within an instant and have a spiraling spin of high and low points, but the positive state of mind and the value of social relationships determine the
Prior to this discovery, I was a part of the populace thinking that the impact of volunteerism was limited to what I was told. I was told that the impact of volunteering was that it helps you in school, that it taught you new skills, and that it helps the economy. It is not to say that these things aren’t true because they are. It has been proven that volunteering helps the economy by saving roughly 150 billion dollars in the United States and 400 billion dollars around the world annually. It has been proven that volunteering increases academic performance by sixty percent. It has been shown that ninety percent of volunteers state that they gained a new skill or ability (Wu, 2011). But those are just added bonuses - numbers collected by a national corporation studying
Positive health looks at what aspects of health are there and which ones make us healthy.
Volunteering enables an individual to make a positive impact on his or her community, while empowering the individual to better his or her life. This summer, I had the opportunity to volunteer at many diverse locations. From the hospital to the local library, I truly value my experience and treasure everything it has thought me. Volunteering lets us experience and learn things that we otherwise would not have learned; volunteering opens doors for us that we may not have been able to open before. Volunteering provides us with guidance and tolerance which we may use in the future to aid us in our decisions. At first glance, volunteering may seem to only benefit those who are helped, but on a deeper level, one can realize that volunteering benefits the volunteer as much as, if not more than, those who are helped. Not only does volunteering make a difference in one’s community, but it also helps the volunteer become a smarter, happier, friendlier and more caring individual.
Volunteering increases a person’s physical health. A person who volunteers is found to live a longer life. Even more so, volunteers found themselves with lower mortality rates (Dietz et al.). Volunteerism has been helpful in increasing health and consequently lowers mortality rates. Furthermore, people experience less chronic pain when volunteering. Specifically, people experiencing chronic pain found it to decrease when volunteering and serve the public (Dietz et al.). Volunteers experience better health overall, but also specific enhancements such as reducing chronic pain like stated above. Additionally, volunteering can be physically demanding, increasing strength and stamina. Notably, Volunteers for Experience Corps found themselves with
Volunteering benefits a person by building connections with peers, improving family life, expanding career skills, overcoming self doubt, having lasting life impressions, and creating new opportunities. Just a small act can make a huge difference in someone’s life. The future is dependent on the individual person and the people they surround themselves with. Just a few hours will change both the volunteer’s life and the one that is in need.
Achieving long-term personal happiness is possible with hard work and perseverance by using several methods. Understanding and following various steps to have fulfillment can change your life. By consistently following an assortment of important steps, you will develop a life pattern that is generally happy. Many people throughout history have attempted to find ways to become happier, and share the information with others. While there are occasionally things that should make a person unhappy, it is important to not allow unhappiness to become a lifelong pattern that destroys you mentally and physically. In addition, happy people tend to have more friends and success because they are fun to associate with.
Happiness is a feeling that humans naturally desire. Without it, one feels incomplete. In this generation, happiness has taken on a definition by how we are presented to one another. It is measured by how much money we have, how famous we are, or the things we possess. When in reality, none of these things guarantee a happy life. Happiness is something that cannot be bought with money, but rather, it must be found, earned, sought after. Each and every one of us has our own list of things that we consider to make us happy. However, happiness shines brightest through the relationships we create, and the goals we make for ourselves to strive after. Along with these two essential sources, we then can mix and match those things in life that we enjoy to create our own unique formula for happiness.
Volunteering impacted my life by building my self-confidence, relationship skills, and social skills. Helping others and devoting my time to this organization supplied me with a sense of pride. I now know that I have the ability to accomplish a wide spectrum of tasks. Volunteering gave me a positive outlook on life. While doing so, I met numerous people whether they were patients, coworkers, or other volunteers. I learned how to share similar interests with others which created friendships. As relationships began forming, I felt an enormous amount of support. I ceased to be timid; my interaction with others strengthened.
When we are young children, we are introduced to the concept of "living happily ever after". This is a fairy-tale emotional state of absolute happiness, where nothing really happens, and nothing even seems to matter. It is a state of feeling good all the time. In fairy tales, this feeling is usually found in fulfilling marriages, royal castles, singing birds and laughing children. In real life, an even-keeled mood is more psychologically healthy than a mood in which you frequently achieve great heights of happiness. Furthermore, when you ask people what makes their lives worth living, they rarely mention their mood. They are more likely to talk about what they find meaningful, such as their work or relationships. Research suggests that if you focus too much on trying to feel good all the time, you’ll actually undermine your ability to ever feel good because no amount of feeling good will be satisfying to you. If feeling good all the time were the only requirement for happiness, then a person who uses cocaine every day would be extremely happy. In our endless struggle for more money, more love and more security, we have forgotten the most fundamental fact: happiness is not caused by possessions or social positions, and can in fact be experienced in any daily activity. We have made happiness a utopia: expensive, complicated, and unreachable.
...ed and accepted. This is because not only does it aid those who are have mental illnesses but it is also designed for the betterment of society as a whole. Additionally, there are also medical treatments such as drugs for these kinds of mental diseases and although both have had successes both also have limitations. As drugs come with side effects, have high relapse possibilities and there are also dosage problems whereas, in positive psychology the debate over how happiness is measured in the first place is controversial. As a result, using past experiences like in ww2 psychologists have designed positive psychology so that it is helpful of all people in society and not only those in need of help. All in all, it can be said that although there are limitations to both of these fields under psychology both also have numerous success and benefit society as a whole.
I believe that happiness is the key to living a good and prosperous life. Through all of the sadness and hate in the world, happiness gives me hope. It gives not only me, but others hope and joy. Happiness gives us something to hold onto, therefore we cherish it as much as we can.