Fortunately, people are slowly starting to realize that mental health is an important, and necessary, topic of conversation.
There is a growing effort to help people become better informed about various mental health related subjects, and articles about anxiety and depression are easily found in most mainstream news sources.
Here are seven things you should know about mentally “getting better.”
Read MoreDon’t judge a book by its cover? In one regard, my question is: how can you not?? If we are mindful and actively police our thoughts, we are constantly judging one another and everything around us, labeling everything as good or bad.
If you went through life without judging things, how would it go? Judgement, I’d argue, can be vital to survival.
Read MoreFor more than a decade I had taught a unit about Social Labels. The base novel was the novel Monsterby Walter Dean Myers. In the book, the main character Steve is hanging out with the wrong people and gets caught up in this crowd. This group commits a robbery and murders the store owner in the process.
What I like about this story is that it focuses heavily on social and self labels. There are the social labels that Steve fights against such as: criminal, felon, murderer and monster.
In regards to the class, I challenge them to look at people for who they are, not what someone on television or social media might tell them about that person or group.
Read More“The Road Less Traveled” is a poem about choosing a path. On the surface, our author ponders and then chooses a path in the woods on which to walk. One path has been trekked upon by many a wanderer; the grass has been tamped down, the ground evened by traffic. In a word, safe, even comfortable. The other path “was grassy and wanted wear” or untouched; long grass and knotty tree roots so rudely taking up real estate. Potentially dangerous for an incautious, hasty surveyor.
Our subtext here is (just one interpretation anyway) there is a decision to be made; a literal crossroads. What we often face in making any decision is that there are multiple avenues.
Read MoreVery recently, my sister was trying to teach my 6 year old niece a life lesson about thinking for one’s self. My niece was copying a behavior of some of her friends that my sister did not think was appropriate for a 6 year old girl. After a wily exchange, my sister finally asked my niece, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do the same?”
To which my niece replied, “Well… is there water under the bridge?”
Read MoreThere are so many reasons why writers are the biggest procrastinators.
They tend to hide behind the excuse that writing is just a hobby. That way, they don’t have to invite criticism in. After all, it is just a hobby. And if it takes weeks, maybe even months, to get back to actually writing, then that’s okay, because hobbies don’t have to be habitual.
But what about if a writer courageously makes writing a habit, therefore earns the identification of being a writer?
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