The Potential of After Age 50, the Growth of a Woman

I thought you’re headed down that slope after 50, apparently, I’m mistaken here!!!  Translated…

The sixty-year old Mr. Lai, had run his toddler percussion classes for a couple of decades now, in recent years, many of the preschools either closed up shop, or took their businesses to China, making the instructors unemployed, or making them find another kindergarten to teach in.

He’d sighed on how the market is getting smaller, but he wasn’t willing to keep these musical instruments in a storage unit, to let them rust up or gather up dusts, so, he’d decided, to build a musical instrument museum.  He said that nothing in his life had made him so energetic as this.

At fifty-two, Ya-Hui had planted pineapples for almost a decade, she’d wanted to make changes in her life, but, there’s nothing else she can do in the countryside.  She’d thought long and hard, and, decided to utilize the resources of the vegetable farmers in her region, and set up a restaurant that gets the produce from the growers, to cook what she knows best, to sell the tastes of her home.  She’d told me, that she was once, very swaying, didn’t know what a middle-aged woman can do, and now, life is so busy, she’d forgotten how old she is.

I’d once feared too, that don’t know what I can do at age fifty.  Worked for so long, the days became routine, it’d made me believe, that I was only, mediocre, and I’d felt fear when I contemplated about the future, I’d asked myself, “What, am I able to give back to the world?”

One day, I’d decided to combine my love of writing and photography, made it into a curriculum, sent it to an orphanage nearby, told them that I’d wanted to give a class to the older kids there on photography and writing, after they’d read my proposal, they thought it was interesting, and, I was able to make the trip there.

As the children took up the cameras, focused, took the pictures, whether they’re taking pictures of themselves, or the sceneries, the smiling faces, they’d moved me so.  After they’d shared their photos with one another, I’d asked them to pick one that was their favorite, and had them write something encouraging on the back, to make it into a card, that they get to keep forever.

Because of this experience, it’d made me sent out my second proposal, and, each and every time I’d finished a project or an activity, I feel my happiness factor rise up.  I’d found, that I can bring smiles to other people’s faces, and, this smile, became the strength for my own life as well.

Turns out, that everybody over fifty CAN have the ability to find a separate set of skies they can work under, and are able to offer energies to others too; because potential doesn’t fade with time, instead, it’s increased, with each coming year of life you’d had.

How old are you?  Are you afraid that people might ask you this?  Tell yourselves, so long as I’m willing, my potential is waiting, to EXPLODE!

So, this woman had found her drive, and, she used that drive, to help herself through her midlife crisis, and this goes hand-in-hand with E. Erikson’s Generativity vs. Stagnation phase of psychosocial development, because this woman was willing to step outside, she was able to find her own skies to fly under…

Allowing Children to Learn Through Play

Like I’d always said, “learning through play IS the BEST way to learn!!!”, translated…

With the various stages of development, you must design the games that are age-appropriate, so your children won’t feel too frustrated, or withdrawn from the games.

A lot of the educators pointed out, that playing is the work of the child, and, children ARE learning through the games they played.  Through games, the children can learn to discover about their surrounding environments, that can help them develop their senses, their intelligences, their language abilities as well, and they can learn how to solve problems, and how to interact with the world.  And still, with the various stages of developments, the games that are appropriate are different, so, the choosing of the games became especially important.  The suggested games for the various ages are as follows:

From 0 to 1: Ringing the Bells

At this stage, the baby is getting to know the world through her/his sense, the parents can use bells or other toys that make sounds to stimulate the infants’ visual and auditory abilities, to attract the baby’s attention, and, get the baby to feel motivated to grab on, if the baby can lie on her/his back for a long time, then, you can elevate the height of the toys, to increase the infant’s neck and shoulder muscle tones.

Age 1 to 2: Stacking Fun

After the baby can sit up straight, s/he will further the development of her/his hand activities.  The parent can use blocks of about five cubic centimeters, to play, have the children use one or two hands, to stack them up, to increase the children’s hand-eye coordination and fine motor movements in their hands, and, when the blocks fall, it can get the children’s attention andit would make them laugh; on top of that, you can have the kids, work on their imaginations with building blocks too.

Ages 2 to 3: Passing Across the Small Islands

As babies start walking, they would love to move all over the places, discovering bigger movements, and games using bigger movements.  You can put the square mats on the floor, in patterns, have the child hop or jump her/his way to the other side of the room, this can challenge the coordination between the limbs and the torsos, and the balance of the child, on top of that, the surfaces of the mats also offer the child varied stimulations on the skin.

Ages 3 to 5: Stepping on Towels

At this level of development, the child is filled with energy, loved to challenge an assortment of movements, and, you can increase the level of difficulty in the games.  Use two bath towels, twist them, grab on to the tips, so the towel became a circle, have the child’s feet step on the towel, and when you’d pulled up the towels, the leg on the same side would also get lifted, if the child can manage walking in this method, you can add obstacles in her/his paths, and, this will improve the child’s hand feet coordination.

In sum, the designs of the games must take into considerations the cognitive developments of the child, and the level of difficulty shouldn’t be too hard or too easy, so the child doesn’t feel discouraged, or withdrawn.  On top of that, you must also consider the safety of the external environments, to allow your child to grow up in the safe and happy gaming-learning process.

So, this, is on the appropriateness of games that children can play, and, you must consider the developmental stages of Piaget, Sensori-motor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational, to make the games you develop appropriate for you child.  If this is done correctly, your child is surely to have a memorable childhood, filled with fun and learning too!

Understanding Stress, the Body is More Honest than the Mind

The words of a psychotherapist, translated…

A rare chance came for my day off, naturally, I’d utilize it all I can, head outdoors first, then, catch a movie, and still, the moment I’d walked out of the air-conditioned room from the theatre, I’d felt my brain was kinda stuff, I’d immediately decided to go for a haircut, unknowingly………

The hairdresser, “You don’t look that well.”

Psychologist, “I’m off from work, there’s absolutely NO pressure I’m dealing with right now!”

The hairdresser, “But………your hair begs to differ, the right side, there’s a circular bold pattern, and, there are over ten extra white strands on the left.”

Psychologist, “Did someone shave my head when I wasn’t aware?”

The hairdresser, “it’s not THAT serious, it’s just, that your scalp is really in bad shape.”

Psychologist, “I did have some migraines awhile ago………okay, my body is more honest than my mind, I will, keep listening to my body.”

After I got my hair washed, my body felt lighter, but, my body felt tightened, and so, I’d canceled my plans for the huge meal, and went to the massage therapist instead.

The massage therapist, “the right side of your neck is way too tight, do you not feel it at all?”, he’d asked as he was massaging me.

The psychologist was too much in pain to reply.

The massage therapist, “Are you absolutely sure, that this doesn’t hurt?” (continued exerting pressure.)

Psychologist, “Yes, it really HURTS……” (with a tone that sounded like begging or graveling.)

“If the passageways are opened up, then, there shall be no pains”, after my body was opened up, I feel much better, and my thoughts became clearer too, and I’d finally understood, “Turns out, I’d overplanned my days off, and ignored the calls from my body, and, the sores, aches and pains, are the warnings my body was giving to me.”

Stress is Explained from P=F/A

The Buddhists said: life is never the same.  From the makeup of the Chinese character for “push”: if you’re still living “above ground”, then, you will face “things that come to annoy you.”

If this is a bit too passive for you, without scientific basis, or you’d still believed in the words such as, “if I can push myself harder, then, I can accomplish it,” along with other words of encouragements, then, let me explain it to you through the angle of a psychologist.

Borrowing the formula of P=F/A (P is the amount of stress placed on the given surface.)  The pressures in life (P), in psychology, it means the things you’d come in contact with (F), and its interaction with your personality (A), creating a change in feeling.

The happenings in life (F) naturally includes everything big or small one may encounter in one’s journey’s in life, and naturally, we couldn’t rule out accidents.  As for the way the body experiences and personality (A) would include the genetic predispositions and the shaping of one’s personalities.  Whether or not one is too sensitive, had already been set in motion when one was still quite young.

Instead of fixing the problem (F), or work your minds through (A) the issues, you don’t know, that so long as we’re still living, we couldn’t get rid of living in the shadows of pressure (P).

A lot of experiments on animals showed, that for the sake of the health of the body and the mind, it’s more important, to be able to know when one feels the stresses than to getting rid of them.

Seyle’s Mice

The psychologist, Seyle from observing the reactions of mice after getting electrocuted concluded that the mice that were electrocuted for a shorter time can slowly recover and return to their original states afterwards, but the mice that were electrocuted longer, after they’d been taken out from that environment, couldn’t recover at all.

We can use this sort of a metaphor: stress is like lifting a cup filled water, if you can lift and put it down, then, doing it continuously for 100 times is merely strengthening your muscles; but, if you are asked to lift the cup for half an hour continuously, then, you would’ve hurt your arms, before it’s time, to put down those cups!

In other words, stress is not at all scary, what’s scary is soaking your brains in stresses constantly.  So, do remember, “When you’d engaged in something for a very long time, DO take a break, so your minds can have a different perspective.”

A Do-It-Yourself Pressure Assessor

You can find someone, a family, or a coworker, and gently tap or massage one another’s back and shoulders, to see whose body is tightened up more?  Of course, finding a questionnaire online is also another way to figure out your stress levels.

Naturally, there are three reasons why the necks and shoulders would be tightened, one, age.  Without the analysis of professionals, as we get older, the easier it is, for our bodies to tense up.  The body is not feeling well, naturally, the organism wouldn’t be well either.  Secondly, you didn’t stretch your bodies out enough.  Some people exercise regularly, but without the warm ups or the cool downs afterwards, and this, can also cause the body to tense up.  Thirdly, something’s on the person’s mind, or s/he is losing sleep.  The thoughts that you can’t chase away, will cause the mind to become anxious, and, the body would naturally, tense up because of it.

Based off of these three reasons, the first one, nobody escapes from, the last, there’s no way of prevention OR treatment, normally, with the times moving forward, the stresses will be gone.  Only the second, is trainable.

If you can find a small period of time, to relax your bodies, then, you can avoid getting sick from being under too much stress.

“How can I find the time to de-stress?”, that’s what you’d say, actually, it’s because you hadn’t been tortured long enough by your bodies yet.

Living in this day and age, we’re faced with this high-pressure environment, a lot of the cases that came to the hospitals to seek out treatment but still couldn’t let go of their families or work.  And, the shrink didn’t tell the patient to stop bothering about everything around her/him, just for the individual to insert a small activity of “focusing on introspecting”, but the patient would use, “I don’t have it that easy!”, then, continued, soaking up in the pressures s/he came into the doctor’s office with.

Or maybe, you’d have to get really sick (being trapped in the hospitals, then, time suddenly, opens up), then you will being to put your priorities straight.

Then, how come, there are so many those who are “free”, walking around the parks for exercise, or practicing martial arts?

This just shows how important it is, to relieve one’s stresses regularly, you can exercise, you can do some activities that you enjoy, such as reading, window-shopping, heading outdoors, point is, don’t get too caught up in the environment, because if you get trapped, it will take you a hell of a lot longer for you, to get back out!

Lived Under These Storm Clouds

Lived under these storm clouds, I had, for so very long now, and each and every night when I lay me down to sleep, I’d heard the storm clouds, raging outside my bedroom doors.

Lived under these storms clouds, and, I thought it was normal, that everybody was just like me, living under these same old storm clouds.  It wasn’t until that I’d left home, and gotten educated, and gotten to know others, who lived differently than I had as I was growing up, did I realize, that what I’d lived through, wasn’t at all, normal.

Lived under these storm clouds, and I had NO clue, that those storm clouds were the sole causes of my misery, it wasn’t until I’d taken a step backward, and I saw better.  Lived under these storm clouds, and, they became a normal part of my regular routine, and, there was, NO way out for me then, I’d been trapped, inside these harsh storm clouds, for too long now, I don’t know how, I can possibly live outside of them now…

Wanting Privacy, Posting Anyway

From the New York Times, written by: K. Murphy…

Imagine a world suddenly devoid of doors.  The controlling authorities say if you aren’t doing anything wrong, then you shouldn’t mind.  That’s essentially the state of affairs on the Internet.  There is no privacy.

Increasingly, people are coming to understand how their online data might be used against them.  You might not get a job, a loan or a date because of an indiscreet tweet.  But less obvious is the psychic toll.

“With all the focus on the legal aspects of privacy and the impact on global trade there’s been little discussion of why you want privacy and why it’s intrinsically important to you as an individual,” said Adam Johnson of the University of the West of England in Bristol.

Perhaps that’s because there is no agreement over what constitutes private information.  It varies among cultures, genders and individuals.  Moreover, it’s hard to argue for the value of privacy when people eagerly share so much personal information.

But the history of privacy is one of status.  Those who are institutionalized for criminal behaviors or ill health, children and the impoverished have less privacy than those who are upstanding, healthy, mature and wealthy.

“The implication is that if you don’t have it, you haven’t earned the right, or aren’t capable or trustworthy,” said Christena Nippert-Eng of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

So it’s not surprising that privacy research in both online and offline environments has show that just the perception, let alone the reality, of being watched results in feelings of low self-esteem, depression and anxiety.  Whether observed by supervisor at work or Facebook friends, people are inclined to conform and demonstrate less individuality.  Their performances of tasks suffers and they have elevated levels of stress hormones.

A three-year German study ending in 2012 showed that the more people disclosed about themselves on social media, the more privacy they said they desired.  The lead author of the stud, Sabine Trepte of the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, said the paradox indicated participants’ dissatisfaction with what they got in return for giving away so much about themselves.

“It’s a bad deal because what they get is mainly informational support like maybe a tip for a restaurant or a link to an article,” she said.  “What they don’t get is the kind of emotional and instrumental support that leads to well-being, like a shoulder to cry on or someone who will sit by your bedside at the hospital.”

And yet, she added, they continued to participate because they were afraid of being left out or judged by others as unplugged and unengaged losers.  So the cycle continued.

“There’s also this idea in our society that if I just embarrass myself enough I can be the next Snooki or Kardashian,” said Anita L. Allen, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.  “There’s a real financial incentive to not care and give it all up.”

The problem is that if you reveal everything about yourself or oit’s discoverable with a Google search, you may be diminished in your capacity for intimacy.  This goes back to social penetration theory, one of the most cited and experimentally validated explanations of human connection.  Developed by Irwin Altman, and Dalmas A. Taylor in the 1970s, the theory holds that relationships develop through gradual and mutual self-disclosure of increasingly private and sensitive personal information.

“Building and maintaining an enduring intimate relationship is a process of privacy regulation,” said Dr. Altman, now an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Utah.  “It’s about opening and closing boundaries to maintain individual identity but also demonstrate unity with another, and if there are violations then the relationship is threatened.”

But privacy researchers said they are starting to see signs of a backlash.  People are beginning to exercise a bit more reserve online or are otherwise engaging in subversive tactics to thwart data miners.  Such small acts of defiance might include setting up multiple fake identities and not “liking” anything on Facebook or following anyone on Twitter, making their social networks and preferences harder to track.

Professor Nippet-Eng said, “When people want privacy there’s often this idea that, ‘Oh, they are hiding something dirty,’ but they are really holding onto themselves”.

And so, even though the internet is giving us that edge of connection, we can NO longer keep our privacies, because everything that’s posted online is and can be used against you (NOT in the court of law, of course…), so, IF you want to post things, DO make sure, that you don’t post anything intimate, like nude photos of you, because “anything you say, can and will BE hold against you”, and if you’re afraid of getting judged, then, don’t P-O-S-T at A-L-L!!!

Kept Locked Up for Too Long

She was kept locked up for too long, now that she’d regained her freedom, she doesn’t know what to do with it, so she crawled, BACK inside that cage that she had been kept in…

That, would be the aftermath of being locked up for too long, you would forget how to be free again.  Kept locked up for too long, these secrets had been, and yet, they’d still snuck their ways out of my body at night.

Kept locked up for too long, when she is finally freed from her jail cell, she started running wild, uncontrolled, and, NOBODY could EVER get her back inside that cage again.  Kept locked up for too long, you’d forget what free feels like, and even if the gates were to swing right open in front of you, you wouldn’t know how to react, or what to do, you’d probably just sit inside that small cage, where you’d been kept for so long, and, this “jail cell” will NEVER be broken again, because you now had, trapped yourselves, inside your mental prison!

A Fractured Personality

There was a man, with a personality that’s been fractured into million bits AND piece, because he’d endured through a TON of abuse and what-not growing up.

The day the man realized that he wasn’t a “whole” again, was the day he’d lost parts of his memories, and, things just went SOUTH from there.  A fractured personality, how would it adapt to this world we live in?  Oh wait, it IS, maladapted, and, anything OR anyone that shows a deviation from the standard or the norm should get tossed inside a looneybend, should her/him not be?

A fractured personality, it’ll be like looking at a puzzle, with most of the pieces gone missing (either got taken by that child, or mistaken as treats by the dog), and you’re sitting right in front of it, looking at this huge BLOCK of BLANK, not knowing how to piece it all together…

A fractured personality, personalities get fractured easily, and no, this, is still NOT from the easily shattered at all.  But, the personality WILL be fractured, each and every time you’d done, or said mean things to it, so, how many times had you fractured someone else’s or your OWN personalities today???

A fractured personality, it must be reconstructed, and, the missing pieces must all be recollected, then, we can finally, use our sewing threads and needles, and start patching that “quilt” back up, and, there would still be threads that came loose from time to time, so yeah, this work is real hard all right!

Cave Dive, by Joe Dunthorne

He remembers being six

Lying on his back beneath a kitchen chair

Gazing up at his father’s unmapped nostrils

His mother’s skirt riffling past like a spotted eagle ray

Underneath the dining table

He found pencil marks: a quarter circle and two words underscored

Possible extension

Back then it was a code or perhaps a solution to a code

On the cave bed

It takes a blue whale’s long blink

To fathom what one plus one turns into

The sky peers down from blue-green slots like the lamp fittings of his youth

His slow mind thinks time is just another surface he can pass through

The swirling halocline that keeps us from our pasts:

The fresh and the preserved

Back in his father’s study, pouring a bag of marbles across the rug

In the glow from the tentacled lampshade

He holds up his Bosser, sees himself swimming in its spiral reef

Letting drift his aqualung

He is either young or drunk

From his lips he scatters balls of glass

From this, you can see how ACTIVE the imagination of a child can be, and this poet wrote with such lively imagery too, didn’t he?  And, with the shattering of the fish tank, comes the reality of how he realized, that he can’t always dream, that he must live in the reality of things, and that, is the cruel part about growing up…

Heard Her Screams

Uh oh, this, is what happens, in a neighborhood, “crowded” with residents…

We’d all heard her screams, but, because we KNOW that we’re NOT the only ones who can possibly hear her scream, and so, we’re NOT at all, likely to go over to her place, to check on her, after all, if we’d heard her screams, someone else must have too, right?

Heard her screams, but you CHOSE to ignore, and now, she’s dead, and, like it or don’t, you WILL forever, BE haunted, by your guilty conscience, because you could’ve done something, to change the outcomes of her life, after all, how H-A-R-D is it, to dial 9-1-1, that’s JUST three numbers, and, you don’t even have to pay for it on your phone bills, I think…

Heard her screams, but why did you NOT do anything about it?  Because her screams were so FUCKING loud that it SHOT through the roofs, and, IF you’d heard her screams, than, someone ELSE must have too, right?  So, let someone ELSE call the cops for her!  Heard her screams, oh wait, that scream did NOT come from her, NOT this time, it came from you, and yet, you feel your voices, being muffled up, and, you struggle, to get back above the water, but, the water kept coming down on your heads, and, you ended up, drowning………

Lose the Self to Get Everybody to Like You

From the “lips” of Joan Erikson, the late wife of E. Erikson, the psychosocial theorist???

“Don’t, for the sake of appeasing to others, to negate the self, otherwise, you’d only be losing your sense of the self”.

And now, take a look around yourselves, and at yourselves too, how many of YOU are people-pleasers, who ended up, throwing YOUR own values away, to comply with the “wishes” and “demands” of the mass majority?  And, what DID you get out of it in the end?  Did more people like you better?  Or, do they just go on, about the rest of their lives, as if, you didn’t do ANYTHING?  So, what, DID you gain, from going along with the “mass majority”?  Absolutely N-O-T-H-I-N-G, and, what’s WORSE, is that you’d lost YOURSELVES, and so, the cost still beats OUT the gain, doesn’t it?