I believe that judging by my near above average emotional IQ that the one area I should work on from the ten suggestions is relaxation. I participate in a great deal of extracurricular activities at Rider and I did in high school as well, so I typically found myself feeling very stressed but I never felt like I had enough time to relax. I learned while watching the video that relaxing for the sake of relaxing can lead to a positive response. I believe this to be very true, the more tired I am the harder it can be for me to be positive. I feel cranky and it’s easier for me to snap and get upset about little, unimportant things.
My job can also be very high stress because of the various responsibilities that I have, so the advice to try and find time to relax in the heat of a moment of stress was a very helpful suggestion that I plan to try and use in the work environment. Hopefully, with this advice and these tips I’ll be able to find time to relax for myself and create a more positive and stress-free for myself.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Interpersonal Communication and Conflict
For pretty much my entire life I have tried to avoid confrontation with others. Not out of fear, I just have always tried to put the needs of others before my own and because of this I tend not to argue if something is asked of me or if a person tries to start a confrontation with me, I’ll allow them to get their anger out of their system and then I’ll try and discuss the problem with them once they have calm down.
As I have gotten older and been given more responsibilities, I’ve realized that I can’t realistically accommodate the needs of all people, so I have tried to incorporate the defusing technique when I find myself in some kind of conflict with someone else. I have noticed that when most people are angry they will be completely unreasonable in their arguments and accusations, so it is best to get them to calm themselves down a little bit in order to have a conversation that will lead to a resolution of conflict rather than cause more problems. I also try and use elements of the empathy technique because even though I am more willing to take on a conflict if necessary, I would prefer to come up with a method that will suitably satisfy both sides of the conflict.
I think that my use of the defusing technique is one of the healthier options that a person can use in conflict because it will allow for an easier conversation where both parties are speaking to each other in a calm and civilized manner. However, I do think that the empathy method can sometimes be an unhealthy one for people, myself included. If you show too much empathy, you can easily be walked all over by the opposing party or your empathy could get the better of you which will leave you overwhelmed by someone else’s problem.
Speaking personally, I have three younger siblings so I have found myself in the middle of more conflicts than I could possibly begin to discuss here. Often, these are serial conflicts that have come up between us over and over again about chores around the house or even about who is going to use our car and when. My brother is a lot more stubborn than I am so I usually let him have what he wants, not because he’s right but because I have other things to do with my day then argue with him.
As I have gotten older and been given more responsibilities, I’ve realized that I can’t realistically accommodate the needs of all people, so I have tried to incorporate the defusing technique when I find myself in some kind of conflict with someone else. I have noticed that when most people are angry they will be completely unreasonable in their arguments and accusations, so it is best to get them to calm themselves down a little bit in order to have a conversation that will lead to a resolution of conflict rather than cause more problems. I also try and use elements of the empathy technique because even though I am more willing to take on a conflict if necessary, I would prefer to come up with a method that will suitably satisfy both sides of the conflict.
I think that my use of the defusing technique is one of the healthier options that a person can use in conflict because it will allow for an easier conversation where both parties are speaking to each other in a calm and civilized manner. However, I do think that the empathy method can sometimes be an unhealthy one for people, myself included. If you show too much empathy, you can easily be walked all over by the opposing party or your empathy could get the better of you which will leave you overwhelmed by someone else’s problem.
Speaking personally, I have three younger siblings so I have found myself in the middle of more conflicts than I could possibly begin to discuss here. Often, these are serial conflicts that have come up between us over and over again about chores around the house or even about who is going to use our car and when. My brother is a lot more stubborn than I am so I usually let him have what he wants, not because he’s right but because I have other things to do with my day then argue with him.
Self Disclosure and Social Networking
My thoughts on this article can be summed up pretty well with what I said in class on our day of discussion- “Remember when stalking used to be hard?” There is something incredible about the power that the internet has on our modern culture. Messages can’t be sent across oceans and countries and the ability to interact with people from every conceivable culture is only a few easy mouse clicks away. However, if there’s one thing we all should have learned from Spider-Man, it’s that with great power comes great responsibility. Nowhere is that more evident than the tragic suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi who was outed as being gay by his roommate via the web. Tyler isn’t the first young person, to take his own life because of internet bullying, and unless drastic efforts are taken to educate people that online bullying is just as dangerous and hurtful as bullying offline, he may not be the last.
When I first opened my Facebook account, I was very comfortable with disclosing a great deal of information about myself. My page included my email address, location, relationship status, and pretty lengthy entries as to my individual interests. It wasn’t until I got to college that I began to realize this was a bad idea, mainly because of the fact that I would soon be student teaching. In one of my sophomore year student teaching classes we were told a bunch of horror stories of teachers who had been reprimanded, or in some cases fired, due to content that they had put on their Facebook pages which were discovered by either parents or students. I was also advised to set my profile to private after being hired as a tour guide, since I was now representing the school. Needless to say, my profile was changed to private almost immediately. As time went on, I began to think that it was stupid for me to have all of this information about myself readily available to so many people so I immediately began to delete much of the information I had on my page. I still have a few things up, but for the most part it is things that only people close to me would understand. For example, I have my political views listed as “save the clock tower;” a reference to the film “Back to the Future.”
When I read articles about how much self-disclosure on the internet can interfere with a person’s private life, it makes me thankful that I have drastically changed my point of view on disclosing my own information online. Hopefully, as these technologies become even more widely used, we will be able to develop ways to properly safeguard young people against the dangers that the internet leaves open to everyone.
When I first opened my Facebook account, I was very comfortable with disclosing a great deal of information about myself. My page included my email address, location, relationship status, and pretty lengthy entries as to my individual interests. It wasn’t until I got to college that I began to realize this was a bad idea, mainly because of the fact that I would soon be student teaching. In one of my sophomore year student teaching classes we were told a bunch of horror stories of teachers who had been reprimanded, or in some cases fired, due to content that they had put on their Facebook pages which were discovered by either parents or students. I was also advised to set my profile to private after being hired as a tour guide, since I was now representing the school. Needless to say, my profile was changed to private almost immediately. As time went on, I began to think that it was stupid for me to have all of this information about myself readily available to so many people so I immediately began to delete much of the information I had on my page. I still have a few things up, but for the most part it is things that only people close to me would understand. For example, I have my political views listed as “save the clock tower;” a reference to the film “Back to the Future.”
When I read articles about how much self-disclosure on the internet can interfere with a person’s private life, it makes me thankful that I have drastically changed my point of view on disclosing my own information online. Hopefully, as these technologies become even more widely used, we will be able to develop ways to properly safeguard young people against the dangers that the internet leaves open to everyone.
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