How a notebook and a pen next to your bed can change your life
What can you do with a notebook and a pen next to your bed? What’s the point of putting them there? The answer is this: you can write a diary. A notebook and a pen next to your bed will encourage you to write a story your life for the day, a diary. Right before you go to bed, right before you turn the light switch off, you can reflect on your day just by writing down what you did or what you felt—even just what you want to write. What’s the point of writing a diary after all? Diary does help you perceive your feelings. Isn’t knowing what you are feeling as easy as breathing for yourself? No, absolutely not. You might have heard people saying, “I’m not really sure how I feel about that” or “I feel so numb.” This ‘not knowing your own feelings’ or ‘numbness’ is caused when there are too many feelings and thoughts in your brain. Your brain is simply too confused and overwhelmed with emotions to feel anything at all. Writing those emotions in a journal or diary can help you sort out those feelings. “Putting our feelings into words helps us heal better,” said Matthew D. Lieberman, UCLA associate professor of psychology and a founder of social cognitive neuroscience, who led a study regarding the emotional effect of writing feelings down on people. The study found putting emotions into words has relieving effect on people, partly because doing so helps people sort out their feelings. Secondly, writing diaries or personal journals creates your own history. If your life is not written down, then the details of your days and efforts won’t be recorded and thus forgotten. Once you write a diary, your history is created and you can reflect on and look back to past days of your life. Ten minutes of writing everyday will create a priceless and unique treasure of your own and the treasure will allow you to relive your past life in your brain simulator. I, personally, think this is a good deal. Using 10 minutes of time from your sleep or free time can create a history of “you”! Lastly, keeping a diary lets you look back on your mistakes of that day and appreciate your successes today, making you a better person tomorrow. Those little improvements may seem infinitesimal at first, but “penny and penny laid up will be many.” It won’t make much of a sense if you don’t keep your diaries after reading this article, because there is no reason to not keep a diary. Ten minutes of writing a day will bring you a relieving effect, your very own personal history, and improvements based on reflections and self-assessments. You will find you feeling proud of yourself, reading your own columns of your diary.
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Response to a Sneeze: Cultural Differences
Written by Justin Jin Woo Won There are many cultures around the world. Thousands of languages, cultures, and religions dominate each continents, nations, and even a local towns or villages. Among the many aspects that reflect the cultural differences, the response to a sneeze throughout the various cultures is very intriguing one. Here are some very interesting differences among different cultures in the respect to the response to a sneeze. Prevailing majority of this culture of responding to a sneeze is saying words like “God bless you,” or “Health.” European and Arabian cultures have the culture of responding to a sneeze with the aforementioned words. “Bless you,” or “Gesundheit” (an obscure way of responding to a sneeze; means “health” in German) is used in English-speaking nations such as United States, Great Britain, and Australia. Other European countries have similar practices. For example, the Dutch sneeze-listeners say, “Gezondheid” (“health” in dutch), the French “vos souhaits” (“To your loves” in French), the Georgian “Itsotskhle” (“live long” in Georgian), the Italian “Salute” (“Health” in Italian). European cultures are among the cultures that do respond to a sneeze. Middle Eastern and Indus cultures also do have the practice of responding to a sneeze. Persian speakers say “Afiat Bahsheh” (“May purity be bestowed upon you”). Arabic speakers say “Sahna” (“Health”). Though considered different languages, the members of Arabic language group overall have it a norm to respond to a sneeze. Similarly, Indian cultures such as Gujarati, Punjabi, and Hindi customarily respond to a sneeze with words meaning “Truth,” “May you be blessed,” etc. Indian, Middle Eastern, European, and American cultures all customarily respond to a sneeze, revealing people’s good will to wish good of others. Although most cultures have a response to a sneeze, East Asian cultures, which consists of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese cultures, do not have such custom. For instance, in Japanese culture, it is a norm not to respond to a sneeze and it is normal to have an “awkward (to the Westerners)” silence after a sneeze. Chinese and Korean cultures similarly do not have the practice of responding to a sneeze. It is one of the possible reasons why Asians seem to people from other cultures emotionally detached and indifferent. It is very fascinating how what some people of a culture feel it necessary to say something to a person who sneezes and another people from a different culture feel it weird to respond to other person’s sneeze. Distinct, different, and varied, cultures around the world are extremely engrossing subjects. A culture of responding a sneeze reveals a seemingly trivial but very entertaining example of cultural differences. Don’t you have an experience of feeling awkward and uneasy to sneeze because you feared somebody will say bless to you? I figure you do if you have traveled abroad, exploring an exotic culture of other countries of not your own. |
Written by Jin Woo WonThese articles and stories are original works of Jin Woo Won. Archives
June 2016
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