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Virginia Bola, PsyD - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Dr. Virginia Bola is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, a vocational expert, a social commentator and a self-admitted diet fanatic. After 20 years of owning a vocational rehabilitation company, she is now Manager of Clinical Operations for a major MBHO.
She has authored numerous articles on the psychology of weight control, the emotional correlates of unemployment and job search, social issues, politics, and the graying of America.
Her latest book, completed in June, 2005,is Diet ... [More]
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- Why Terrorists Are Not Typical Mass Murderers
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Terrorists don't win when they kill people - murders happen all the time. They win when we become so terrified that we are willing to trade anything for a sense of security. In the 1930s, people were so tired of the uncertainties and confusion of democracy that they handed themselves over to fascists who brought order, calm, and made the trains run on time.
- Katrina: The Lessons Unlearned
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] The lessons of Katrina were clear and simple: any response must be expeditious or it is worthless. Despite the hundred of stump speeches and the endless public posturing, the government has again proved to be disorganized and helpless in the face of a humanitarian threat.
- Politics: Creating An Unsafe World
[News-and-Society:Politics] What have we created - a more unstable, troubled, and violence-prone world; an earth that shudders at the armed convulsions racing across its brittle, fragile surface. From the world's model of a democracy forged out of the wilderness and renowned for its desire for peace, prosperity, and humanity, we have become the hated face of the enemy, an imperialistic throwback to the 19th Century. We have become the all-powerful but hated Rome of the ancient world.
- 9/11: The Psychological Fallout
[News-and-Society] There are not enough airplanes in the universe to blow up the entire United States. That was never anyone's intent. The goal of terror is to change the enemy through the psychology of threats and fear. Each new step we take to modify our lifestyles and our dreams, because of such attacks, moves us further away from the totally free society we built so long and so painfully, and closer to the cultural imprisonment our enemies seek to impose.
- Death Of The Internet: The Duplicate Content Glut
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] Scams are not just the phishing sites, the strident letters from African widows, or the non-existent lottery winnings, they are also the shysters and cheaters who pass off the creations of others as their own and go into a feeding frenzy whenever a new piece of software appears that promises, for a substantial fee, to develop thousands of pages overnight that will generate income without effort and create experts out of neophytes.
- Successful Job Search: Don't Eliminate Yourself Prematurely
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] Job announcements are written to include everything the employer would like to have, not necessarily what is absolutely required. If you have at least a few of the skills listed, apply anyway and let the potential employer, not your own lack of self-confidence, screen you out.
- Prolonged Unemployment: Reconnecting With The Labor Market
[Business:Careers-Employment] If you have been unemployed for an extended period of time, you may find that when you apply for one of the positions now appearing, that you are competing with individuals who are either still working but looking to make a change, or with others who have been working until very recently. From experience, you know that potential employers are going to look at your long period of unemployment with a jaundiced eye.
- Unemployment Blues: Become Your Own Support Group
[Business:Careers-Employment] There are several national groups that provide support for unemployed workers. They have been quite successful in mitigating the emotional toll of layoff as well as having beneficial effects on job search. Forty Plus and local VA groups are among the best. If none are available, start your own!
- Unemployment Blues: Is The Internet A Viable Alternative To A Job?
[Business:Careers-Employment] Before you invest any money in "get rich" schemes, or get excited about how much you can earn from home, get yourself a "throw-away" address on Yahoo or Hot Mail and join a few groups and safelists. Your bulk inbox (tabbed as spam by your Internet host) will soon be bursting with thousands of emails all promising that this opportunity is the one that can't fail. As you empty the bulk mail without bothering to read it, remember that everyone else is doing the same thing!
- Unemployment: The First 48 Hours
[Business:Careers-Employment] In homicide parlance, the first 48 hours of an investigation are crucial. If something positive is to be found, or the case resolved, it is likely that it will happen before 48 hours have elapsed. No one would suggest that you are most likely to obtain a suitable position within the first 2 days after layoff nor that your chances diminish after that time. However, there are many aspects of unemployment and job search that need to be addressed as quickly as possible in order to develop a situation optimally organized for your eventual success.
- Employment Interviewing: Ask For Feedback
[Business:Careers-Employment] Often, after an interview is over, we spend days mulling over what the interviewer may have liked or disliked about our background and how well our skills stacked up against the competition. We remember all the details we forgot to bring up and wonder if that was the decisive factor in our not getting an offer (if we got the job, who cares about the interview?)
- Employment Interviewing: Follow Instructions
[Business:Careers-Employment] No employer wants to hire someone who can't take the time to read directions. Even if a position requires management or leadership qualities, duties are still performed within set company procedures and a defined corporate culture. Show your abilities throughout the application process by reading the fine print before jumping in.
- Unemployment: Become Your Own Job Coach
[Business:Careers-Employment] Try reframing your perspective and instead of looking at yourself as an unemployed applicant, think of yourself as a professional job coach. Your mission is to assist someone in finding work. Luckily, you have only one client to devote your time and effort to: YOU.
- Unemployment: Keep Yourself Healthy
[Business:Careers-Employment] A lingering sub-clinical level of depression is common for the unemployed, especially when the time period out of work is prolonged. Worry, frustration and guilt take a toll on all of us: they sap our energy and our enthusiasm, and eventually make us sick.
- Successful Job Search: Momma Said There'd Be Days Like This-
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] You're happily humming along, religiously seeking work on a daily basis, feeling positive and confident and enthusiastic. Then one day you wake up and can't summon the energy to get out of bed. The sun may be shining but suddenly your world is gray and bleak. It seems that nothing you are doing is getting you where you want to go and you just don't have the inner strength to keep going.
- Unemployment Doldrums: Celebrate Yourself
[Business:Careers-Employment] Unemployment can be so emotionally devastating and carries so little positive feedback until you get that one great offer. Giving ourselves little perks along the way, rather than waiting for the final payoff, keeps us more balanced, relaxed, and motivated. Just think: would you continue to play a slot machine with a million dollar jackpot if you didn't get lots of little payoffs along the way?
- Unemployment Blues: Make Time For Me
[Business:Careers-Employment] So much to do, so little time, is a constant refrain heard from those seeking work. Everyone gives lots of advice (including me): send out resumes, apply on the Internet, read the Classified, go to job fairs, and network, network, network. Some of us become so overwhelmed with all that we need to do that we can't figure out where to start so end up doing nothing at all.
- Reframe Your Job Interview Approach
[Business:Careers-Employment] If at all possible, approach your next employment interview as just one more opportunity for practice. Try to convince yourself that this is not the job of your dreams but an expenditure of time to allow you to watch yourself to learn for future interviews when you really want to receive an offer. The stress will be lower and your performance consequently superior.
- Weight Loss: The Cheat Codes
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Trying to lose weight often leads to the same frustration as playing a video game and coming to a point where you can't find a way out without getting more ammunition, or more health, or a bigger gun. No matter what we try, we can't seem to move on to the next level. We hit a plateau and no matter which way we turn or what strategies we use, the scale refuses to budge. For those days that threaten our best laid plans, we need our own diet cheat codes.
- Weight Loss: Suicide By Chocolate
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] We weight watchers are so gullible, so naïve, so desperate for relief from the drudgery and boring routine of a diet, that we clutch at any straw that promises an interruption to our misery. We embrace any concept or substance that will make us human again. We erase our guilt with the sure knowledge that we are only following the dictates of objective science that has proved, so wonderfully, that chocolate is good for us!
- Job Search Secrets: Make An Organizer
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] Creating a central organizer for our activities can help assure that we have a clear understanding of where we've been and what we've done, and provides a private resource chart for on-going contacts and re-contacts.
- Unemployment Blues: Reframing The Pain
[Business:Careers-Employment] In addition to the anger and fear generated by job loss, there is the total emotional devastation of being figuratively thrown on a pile of human debris.
- Job Seeking Secrets: Recycle Your Job Search
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] If you have been out of work for quite a while, you have undoubtedly pursued a standard job search campaign: the unemployment office, newspaper classifieds, job fairs, online resources, agencies, networking, and cold calling.
- Job Search Secrets: Living Outside Your Comfort Zone
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] While it is worthwhile to try new techniques before dismissing them out of hand, the best job search strategies in the world only work if they fit your individual style.
- Unemployment Blues: Jobs and Immigration
[Business:Careers-Employment] What are those positions we keep hearing about that Americans refuse to take such that they must be filled by illegal immigrants?
- Job Search Secrets: Chronological vs. Functional Resumes
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] While employers are obviously interested in what you have done in your working life, they also want to know where and when you did it.
- Job Layoff: Defusing The Anger
[Business:Careers-Employment] Job loss packs an emotional wallop. It is only when the fires of anger have died down that you can start to think rationally about your future.
- Employment Interviewing: Ask For The Job
[Business:Careers-Employment] At an interview, ne sure to display unabashed enthusiasm for this position, with this company, at this time.
- Internet Marketing: Are You Feeding These Customer Demands?
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] I wrote this report after thinking about what I, as a typical Internet customer, really want. I hope that it strikes a chord with you also and that much of what I demand overlaps with your own needs.
- Internet Marketing: Give Me Follow Up
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] I need follow up that answers my unasked questions and helps me make up my mind about whether I really want what you're offering and if your product will really meet my needs.
- Internet Marketing: Give Me Quality
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] Correct your errors before you intrude on my valuable time. I'm not interested in flawed material tossed at me by a self-satisfied but disrespectful guru.
- Internet Marketing: Give Me Immediate Gratification
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] As soon as I've paid, or taken you up on a free offer, I want to right click, download, and read. I don't want to have to go into my inbox and click to activate something.
- Internet Marketing: Give Me Something I Can Use
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] Two pages of specific, focused tips are a lot more helpful than endless ramblings about your own success record. Give me tools, not trite homilies.
- Internet Marketing: Give Me Something New
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] Give me freshness, variety, and a taste of greatness. I am totally frustrated by the lack of vitality found in the majority of websites.
- Internet Marketing: Give Me Good Content
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] Have you ever considered how much boring, poorly written, superficial, and totally uninteresting stuff there is in those billions of web pages floating in the ether?
- Internet Marketing: Give Me Clear Directions
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] Three hours later, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I yearn for someone to give me clear navigation, letting me know where I've been and where I'm going.
- Internet Marketing: Are You Killing Off Your Customers?
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] So what will this article tell you? It will tell the slick sales reps and the marketing mavens and the irrepressible admen what the rest of us are looking for, what we want, what we like, and what we are going to demand.
- Turbo Charge Your Love Life: Appreciation
[Relationships:Love] A warm, satisfying, continually stimulating intimate relationship requires attention to our entire relationship, both in and out of bed. Appreciation of each other, expressed often and loudly, can reconnect intimacy with the rest of our lives.
- Turbo Charge Your Love Life: The Value of Change
[Relationships:Love] Even highly affectionate and loving couples need to occasionally inject novel experiences into their partnership in order to maintain that element of excitement that can be so much more gratifying within the deep trust of a mutually respectful relationship.
- Turbo Charge Your Love Life: Communication
[Relationships:Communication] Open and frank communication about physical preferences and needs can lead to adaptations in your love life that makes it more gratifying for both you and your partner.
- Turbo Charge Your Love Life: Exploration
[Relationships:Love] The differences in our male and female anatomies and our disparate personal relationships with our physical attributes can be fruitfully explored to increase intimacy between partners and improve communication and satisfaction.
- Turbo Charge Your Love Life: Fantasy
[Relationships:Love] Sharing our inner fantasies with a trusted partner can inject a new vitality into our relationship and take our intimacy to a higher level.
- Turbo Charge Your Love Life: Innovation
[Relationships:Love] To inject some creativity and novelty into our love lives recreates the original excitement between us and rekindles old sparks into a new and brighter flame.
- Turbo Charge Your Love Life: Use All Your Senses
[Relationships:Love] After long periods of time in a relationship, we often forget the importance of using all of our senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste to keep the original magnetism fresh and vital.
- Unemployment Blues: Maintaining Emotional Balance
[Business:Careers-Employment] Some kind of emotional balance is necessary if we are to stay healthy, maintain our relationships, and be able to effectively function in job search. Reaching such a balance is difficult and made more so by our own inner turmoil. How do we re-establish that balance that will make us feel like our old selves, whole, optimistic, and complete?
- Job Search Secrets: Schedule Employer Callbacks
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] Laying the groundwork for calling back employers after interviews can save much of the anxiety and soul-searching that occurs in the vacuum following an interview.
- Unemployment Blues: Loss of Power, Loss of Meaning
[Business:Careers-Employment] Layoff continue in the United States due to record trade deficits with Asia and outsourcing as well as corporate restructuring to increase the bottom line. Who will empower the victims?
- Construction vs Destruction, The Battle Continues
[News-and-Society:Politics] The reactions to European cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed reflect the not-unexpected negative response of the have-nots who, marginalized and excluded from the world stage, have responded with the childish tantrums and irresponsible destruction their environment has nurtured.
- Is Losing Weight Worth The Trouble?
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Reframing weight goals and redefining our expectations and definitions of diet success leads to higher self-esteem and makes the probability of continued weight control far more likely.
- Unemployment Blues: The Value of Temporary Work
[Business:Careers-Employment] Although the job market has improved over the past year, many employers are still reluctant to make a long term commitment to growing their employee rolls until it is clear that a solid economic expansion is underway.
Their solution is often to rely on temporary agencies to provide needed manpower without any precipitous long term commitment. It is estimated, by a well-regarded labor research group, that fully 25% of the jobs created during the past year have been temporary positions!
- Tax Pitfalls For An Internet Newbie
[Finance:Taxes] For those of us new to the Internet, here are some pointers on IRS audits and how vulnerable we are in our naivete.Culled from recent field audit experience!
- What Al Qaeda Will Never Understand About The Katrina Disaster
[News-and-Society] The terrorists believe that America is powerful because of its military, its technology, and its wealth. They will never understand that the West’s power is in its people. They see a politically divided nation but are blind to its unity and cohesiveness as a community. They fail to appreciate that in the face of catastrophe, all Britons are Londoners, and all Americans call New Orleans home.
- Maybe We Need An Occasional Disaster!
[News-and-Society] Disasters provide us with unique opportunities. It is not that we wish anyone pain but suffering is part of life. When it happens, it brings darkness to its victims but also the chance for fellow men to kindle a new and brighter light that enriches our species, our spirits, and our future.
- Katrina: Victims For Life?
[News-and-Society] Most of Katrina's victims lived their lives without a single tattered safety net in place, Poor, unskilled, and underemployed, many of these Gulf Coast residents barely stayed afloat even before the flood waters raged in. Now what little they had is gone. They cannot bury their dead and get on with life as the 911 families managed to do - because there is no life left.
- Is The End Near?
[News-and-Society] During the past year, hundreds of thousands have perished at the hands of a mother nature run amok. Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and torrential rains have served us notice that for all our brilliant achievements, we are not masters of the earth.
- Diamonds In The Spam
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] There are those who turn apoplectic at the receipt of unsolicited commercial email, commonly dubbed spam. These are the same people who receive hundreds of bulk letters addressed to "Occupant" without batting an eye.
- Unheard and Unseen: The Plight of America's Homeless Poor
[News-and-Society:Economics] It is only when disaster strikes a poor area that the country sees the face of poverty. After Andrew in southern Florida and Katrina on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, the omnipresent television cameras caught a glimpse of what it is like to be poor in America. We saw the faces of the forgotten lined up in the Superdome and had to admit that the national dream of success and a comfortable lifestyle does not extend to everyone.
- 42 Years Later: Remembering JFK
[News-and-Society:Politics] As the old saw states, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." We lost a great and important part of ourselves on that grassy knoll in Dallas. But we are better people for the elation he gave us, the dreams he inspired, and the deep commitment to our fellow man that he generated within us.
- Politics: The Corruption Curve
[News-and-Society:Politics] In a world where hereditary monarchies are an anachronism, the most absolute power lies in the political sphere whether wielded by a military-backed dictator or by those who have been so repeatedly elected to office that they no longer see themselves as public representatives but as entitled oligarchs of a system they control.
- Unemployment Blues: Talk To Yourself
[Business:Careers-Employment] One of the most effective ways to improve your mood and self-esteem is to create your own positive scripts for regular re-reading and study. On those days when you're really down on yourself and think that you're a failure, immersing yourself in a book crammed with notes about your qualities and accomplishments can restore your balance, brighten your spirits, and re-energize you for the rigors of the job hunt.
- Job Interviews: Prepare Questions In Advance
[Business:Careers-Employment] An interview almost invariably closes with the potential employer asking if you have any questions. Often an applicant will ask for clarification on benefits -insurance, vacation time, etc. While these are obviously important for you to know, they plant a seed in the interviewer's mind that maybe you are more interested in what the job can do for you than in how you can help the employer.
- Job Interviews: Make Yourself An Application Cheat Sheet
[Business:Careers-Employment] It is so easy to sit down to complete an application and suddenly your mind blanks. You can't remember dates or names or telephone numbers. If you have a varied work history, you can't recall which job came first. If you have worked for the same employer for years, you forget when your duties changed or when you received a promotion.
- Unemployment Blues: Life Changing Events
[Business:Careers-Employment] If we are unlucky enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, we experience a personal tsunami - a misfortune of devastating proportions that sweeps away our routine lifestyle and forever changes the world we know.
- Interviewing Skills: Presentation of Your Work History
[Business:Careers-Employment] It may take you some time and self-exploration to identify it, but there are always some aspects of your work history that carry a positive spin. Don’t be afraid to dwell on your strong points no matter how unimpressive you fear your prior jobs may seem.
- Genuine Help Vs. Exploitation
[Business:Ethics] A correspondent raises a very interesting question. Is there something inherently exploitative about selling a product or a service to individuals who are in a place of great need and few resources?
- Unemployment Blues: Are We Pre-Programmed To Be Productive?
[Business:Careers-Employment] To feel productive seems to be an inherent human need. We feel good about ourselves when we are contributing -- to our own independence, to our family, to our community. Many of the great discoveries, inventions, and explorations of history were made by individuals born to family wealth who had no need to ever lift a finger to ensure adequate self-support. Yet these individuals wanted to contribute to the world in some way and left their homes, worked through the night, and even died trying to be part of some enterprise.
- Job Layoffs: Are We The Problem?
[News-and-Society:Economics] You know, we all talk a good game about keeping job positions in America and stemming the tide of illegal immigrants who pour through our borders at an alarming rate. But are we really willing to change our lifestyle, to put our money where our mouth is?
- Dieting: I Can't Afford To Lose Weight!
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] When it comes to our weight, our emotions reign supreme. We so desperately want to be more attractive, more respected, and more desirable. We will even subject ourselves to painful and sometimes dangerous surgery to bring our reality closer to our ideal. And we will rob our piggy banks, deplete our bank accounts, and run up our credit cards for anything that promises us a slender future.
- Diet: Facing Lousy Choices
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] If you truly want to control your weight, you can do it anywhere. The key is never to eat until you've had a lengthy internal dialog with yourself that forces you into a full awareness of your food intake and then select the lesser of all evils and consume it as slowly as you can manage. Even trapped in the office with nothing more than a killer vending machine, you can turn bleak choices into a self-esteem building triumph.
- Life Is One Damn Diet After Another
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Allowing ourselves to think of a diet as a delineated, restricted period within our total life span is a sure avenue back to tent city (that refers to what we wear, not where we live). To have any hope of attaining permanent weight control, we must approach it as a lifelong effort, watching our intake day after day, week after week, year after year.
- Losing Weight At Work: Non-Food Rewards
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Food seems to be the perennial favorite for any kind of work reward because it is universally accepted. Some of us (we hard core dieters) may pass on the sweet stuff but usually find something allowable. In a world where two thirds of us are overweight or obese, is there nothing else available as a gift that cuts across all individual interests? Five specific non-food rewards are suggested.
- The Psychology Of Diet Preparation
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] We decide to lose weight because of any number of reasons: we don’t like the way we look, our clothes don’t fit, our health is in danger, our significant other is wandering, our job is at risk, or our kids are embarrassed. We tend to think of weight loss as something that involves only our body; surely no one ever decided to lose weight because of a fat brain or a bloated mind. Yet “we decide” is a mental function. The actual size of the body does not trigger the decision to lose weight, such a choice in made in the brain.
- The Diet Bore
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] You probably know a diet bore: there's at least one in every office, every group, and at every get-together. It's almost always female - men lose weight too but don't seem to feel the same compulsion to convert the entire world. Blame it on our innate female need to change everyone else.
- Weight Loss: Tweaking Your Lifestyle
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Despite our national propensity to overeat, under-exercise, and grow steadily heavier and more out of shape, we all yearn to be slender, fit, and attractive. Our culture rewards the thin and the beautiful; look at how we devour celebrity gossip, mesmerized by the looks and energy of our current favorites.
Why the discrepancy between our aspirations and our reality? There are a plethora of reasons, most of which can be traced to the simple fact that life gets in the way.
- Weight: Give Us Something To Shoot For
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] We have all seen the new Dove commercials that feature “real” women rather than the impossibly “ideal” models that are usually selected. While the Dove girls are universally attractive and fit, they also reflect different sizes and shapes, designed to represent the average American woman. Is that what we want?
- The Holidays: An Emotional Feast
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] Why are November and December so toxic to our weight control efforts? Certainly there is abundant food available during the month long celebration from Thanksgiving to New Year. It is the season for non-stop parties and gifts of food from colleagues, friends, family, and customers. But more than just the food, there is a special atmosphere that descends on the Western World at the end of November.
- Weight: The Thanksgiving Hangover
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] We all need brief periods of self-indulgence - it's part of the human condition. Expect a setback on your weight loss goals and let that knowledge mitigate your disappointment. Then continue on your diet with the assurance that a special occasion blip doesn't define your future. Enjoy the memories of a family gathering while carefully planning your next week's intake.
- Happy Relationships: Share Your Day's Activities
[Relationships] A regular sharing of the day's activities can help partners feel that they are truly participating in each other's lives during the large portion of the time we spend away from our significant others.
- Happy Relationships: Set Regular Dates
[Relationships] A return to occasional dating can invigorate a mature relationship ny enhancing anticipation of the special event and allowing partners to interact at the intense level that prevailed during their courtship.
- Super Relationship Tips: Work Together On Your Family Tree
[Relationships] Take a night off from the television sports and the sitcom reruns. Buy a simple family tree chart at the drug store and start to work on filling in the blanks. The first two or three tiers, the most recent generations, are usually pretty easy because they are filled with people you have known all of your life.
Chances are that your partner has never met many of your relatives and vice versa. Take time to describe your family characters to each other. Every family has their oddballs and their black sheep. Enjoy their exploits, knowing that each of us is, at least partially, formed by our own personal histories.
- Super Relationship Tips: Surprise Your Partner With A Secret Message
[Relationships] We are all so busy that it's hard to remember, and to find the time, to tell our lovers how much they mean to us. In the beginning it was easy; we so obviously lived just for each other. Even our friends got a little bored with our mutually exclusive focus!
Slowly, life got in the way and responsibilities pulled us in different directions. If we can no longer spend hours exploring each other's world, we can occasionally interject an unexpected message that jolts our partner into a brief moment of focus on us and the relationship between us that is at the core of our existence.
- Super Relationship Tips: Create A Memorable Non-Occasion
[Relationships] The admen and the marketing mavens have created a cultural expectation around special occasions and calendar events. We are inundated with sales pitches for Christmas, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, New Year, Halloween, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and any other day they can find that will make us feel that we absolutely have to buy a gift to express our sentiments.
Dates on the calendar are merely days like any other days. Our relationships are 365 days a year and something this good deserves a celebration at any time and at any place.
- Super Relationship Tips: Create An "Us" Scrapbook or Collage
[Relationships] The longer you spend together, the more memories you have to share. Don't let the vacation and family pictures mold away in the closet until you're gone and your offspring pore through the boxes, surprised at the treasures they find that they never knew existed.
Make your memories part of your life by collecting everything that evokes special moments together in your exciting journey as a couple.
- Super Relationship Tips: Use Your Car As A Retreat
[Relationships] Perhaps early in your relationship, one of the few places you could be alone together was in a car. The wonderful thing about a vehicle, whether car, truck, SUV, or motor home, is that it insulates its occupants from the world's intrusions. Alone with your partner in a moving or parked car allows for intimate conversation, touching, or kissing, with nothing but the radio or outside traffic to affect your focus on each other.
- Super Relationship Tips: Do Something Totally Different
[Relationships] We all have favorite things to do and places to go. After a period of time in a relationship, couples fall into the habit of a comfortable routine. Certain activities are crossed off the joint "things to do" list because one partner has no interest or enjoyment in doing it.
It can be refreshing and invigorating to occasionally explore new directions where one partner would like to go. While each of you may pursue separate pastimes such as hunting, fishing, bowling or shopping, or going to an auto race, a rodeo, a fashion show, or a play, think of the enhanced enjoyment that could be obtained if you did such activities together, even if only on an occasional basis.
- Super Relationship Tips: Put Your Disagreements Into Perspective
[Relationships] Even the most passionate and committed relationship has moments when the partners disagree. No two human beings ever see eye-to-eye on everything. Over time, we even disagree with ourselves because our outlook on the world changes as we grow and mature and age.
Ask any couple to list some things their partner does that annoy them and several items are sure to appear. Sometimes our partner does things that are so irritating that we get angry and start arguing. We are socially programmed to be competitive so to try to win the argument, we marshal all the supporting evidence we can find.
- Super Relationship Tips: Plan A "Love" Intervention
[Relationships] The term "intervention" these days usually refers to an
arrangement in which a professional counselor organizes a
meeting of family and friends to confront an individual
about negative actions they have taken which impact everyone
present, usually a drug or alcohol habit.
Why not utilize the framework of an intervention as a
positive experience for someone we care deeply about? Too
often, we only get to publicly acknowledge our love,
respect, and deep appreciation of what knowing them has
meant to our lives in a posthumous memorial eulogy.
- Super Relationship Tips: Set Up Your Own Happy Hour
[Relationships] Bars and hotels were remarkably smart when they created the
happy hour. Reduced prices on drinks and free hors d'oevres
quickly filled up tables that formerly sat empty during the
late afternoon doldrums.But the food and drinks are only window dressing for the real pull of happy hour - the chance to unwind from the day,put work behind us, and slowly and comfortably ease back into the world outside our daily grind.
Rather than spend this time with work associates, create
your own wind-down celebration at home.
- Super Relationship Tips: Put Your Affection In Writing
[Relationships] In a good relationship, we pay compliments to each other all
the time. We love receiving positive feedback and try to go
out of our way to let our partner know how happy we are to
be with them. But verbal remarks fade so quickly. Make them
last by putting them in writing where they can be revisited
later to re-trigger their positive response.
- Refreshing Your Relationship: Give 100%
[Relationships] Reframing your commitment to your marriage as 100% rather than 50-50 changes expectations, contributions, and the level of partner satisfaction.
- Refreshing Your Relationship: Changing Your Appearance
[Relationships] An occasional change of our looks and our demeanor develops a new awareness in each partner and shakes out the cobwebs from the habits and routine of long time marriages.
- Refreshing Your Relationship: Spend Quiet Time Together
[Relationships] Finding quiet time together is often difficult for couples in our overly busy lives. The payoff of making the effort is an increased intensity in your special relationship.
- Refreshing Your Relationship: Scheduling Some Fun Time
[Relationships] Doing something totally different together, just for fun, brings a fresh breeze into our stale daily routines and gives us a much needed recess from a world filled with problems and responsibilities.
- Refreshing Your Relationship: Reviewing Pet Peeves
[Relationships] Confronting the behaviors that bug our partners, with a lot of humor and goodwill, can result in a more honest and tolerant relationship where both positives and negatives can be fully appreciated.
- Stand By Your Man: No Matter What?
[Relationships] The status of women who have not kept up with the femine liberation march are considered in light of a recent shooting of a correctional guard by a prisoner's wife.
- Overconsumption: America's Guiding Principle
[News-and-Society] The proclivity of the U. S. to overconsume the world's natural resources and products is considered along with suggestions for changing directions before it is too late.
- ADHD: Pay Attention, Now
[Health-and-Fitness] The cultural contributions to the explosion of Attention problems are considered as an alternate method of addressing the problem.
- The Ripple Effect of Fear
[Business:Careers-Employment] The fear and anxiety generated by becoming unemployed is outlined and techniques to prevent its taking over are provided.
- It's All In The Numbers
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Women's obsession with the size of their clothes is considered and how the garment industry capitalizes on that vulnerability.
- Weight Loss Superfecta
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] 4 techniques for long term weight control are offered as a means of winning the dieting races.
- The French Fry: Weapon of Mass Destruction?
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The transformation of the lowly potato into its lethal cousin, the french fry, is traced.
- Five Reasons NOT To Lose Weight
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] A tongue-in-cheek look at the advantages of staying fat.
- The Predators Among Us
[News-and-Society] The increase in violence and the rising number of sex offenders is addressed in light of a chaning society.
- The Language of Blogs
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Blogging] The drawbacks of citizen journalism is considered and the responsibility of those of us who write to communicate clearly is emphasized.
- The Black Flag Of Anarchy
[News-and-Society:Politics] The lack of positive values by those who seek to create anarchy is explored.
- Life Beyond The Internet
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online] The seduction of Web surfing is considered in view of how it affects our lives, our outlook, and our sense of balance.
- Let's Call A Spade A Spade
[News-and-Society:Politics] The emotional and political connotations of the language we use is considered in light of the war on terrorism.
- A World Without Sleep
[Health-and-Fitness:Sleep-Snoring] The capacity of human beings to adapt to a 24/7 world is questioned in view of the prehistorical nature of their brains.
- Unemployment Iraqi Style
[News-and-Society:Politics] The 5% unemployment rate of the United States is contrasted with the 70% rate in Iraq and the change in perspective required by a wartime economy is outlined.
- The Night Worker
[Business:Careers-Employment] The challenges and difficulties of shift work are explored in light of our modern 24/7 world.
- Pre-Interview Web Research
[Business:Careers-Employment] Using the Internet to obtain information about a company prior to interviewing is detailed as a method to increase positive self-presentation to a potential employer.
- Nonverbal Interview Behavior
[Business:Careers-Employment] The ability of your nonverbal behavior to drown out your answers in an interview is reviewed.
- The Folly of Diet Recipes
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The paradox of concentrating on food while trying to lose weight is considered in view of the tendency of diets to direct us toward recipes and new tastes when we need to focus on anything other than food.
- Self-Criticism Is A Female Flaw
[Health-and-Fitness:Womens-Issues] Our tendency to criticise ourselves and use harsh judgment on other women we see as competition is compared to the acceptance and tolerance of a male view.
- Results Not Typical
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The misleading case histories of the popular diets are criticized for their use of individuals whose weight loss is not typical for the program.
- Look On Aisle 5
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The conspiracy to make us fat extends even to the layout of supermarkets which lead us to focus on the fast, less healthy food rather than the produce we all know we should concentrate on.
- Emotional Eating
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] A corporate merger provides another impetus to eat as stressed employees turn to their ultimate comfort: food.
- Bye-Bye Bread
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The author laments that the wonders of bread are forbidden if she wants to avoid weight gain.
- Food: The Proof Is In The Portion
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The escalating pace of obesity and overweight in the United States is traced to the ever-increasing food portions we consume both at home and in restaurants.
- Five Really Tough Dieting Tips
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The misleading claims of the diet gurus and their "easy" and "quick" promises are scorned in favor of an acceptance that dieting is never quick nor easy. 5 tough tips that do work are suggested.
- Were Cave Dwellers Ever Fat?
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The physiological legacy of our ancient ancestors is considered in terms of the body's constant battle against our losing weight.
- Diet: Are French Fries Really A Vegetable?
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The epidemic of obesity, especially in children, may be related to the extent of fried potato consumption which makes up 25% of our children's vegetable quota.
- Rating The Diets: A Mindless Exercise?
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The current rage to rate the top diets is considered. The importance of actually starting a diet rather than waiting for the "perfect" one is suggested.
- Fat Is A Self-Inflicted Disease
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The obese in our society are considered in view of their psychological outlook and negative mood.
- Diet Fads: Supermarket Sheep
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] How packagers use the latest diet fads and buzzwords to convince a gullible public that their products are different and up-to-date.
- The Eternal Allure of Gambling
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Casino-Gambling] The temptation of gambling is considered in light of the social and economic levels of those who wager consistently in an effort to win a life-changing jackpot.
- Hype! Has The Internet Gone Too Far?
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] The hijacking of the information highway in a hrricane of etrch-quick schemes is regretfully reviewed.
- Employment Under A Microscope
[Business:Careers-Employment] The oversight created to watch low income workers to handle large sums of money is reviewed along with a psychological analysis of what such monitoring cn mean to an individual's self-esteem.
- Unemployment Blues: Mind Over Mood
[Business:Careers-Employment] The emotional roller coaster of unemployment is considered. Then mental strategies to recover balance are reviewed and specific techniques suggested.
- Eye For Sale, By Owner
[News-and-Society] A recent newswire story of a Bangladesh women offering one of her eyes for sale to buy food for her starving daughter is considered in light of the indifference of a world that has tired of caring.
- Poor Little Rabbit: The Runaway Bride
[News-and-Society] The case of a Georgia runaway bride and a California runaway housewife are examined in terms of how they reflect our modern society and our inability to simply drop out without creating a major upheaval.
- The Jackson Trial and The Cult of Celebrity
[News-and-Society] Famous trials and media attention is considered along with the emptiness of lives who live only as a fan, basking in the reflected glory of celebrity.
- The 7 Deadly Sins: New American Icons?
[News-and-Society] The elevation of the 7 deadly sins from forbidden or infrequent moral lapses to cultural icons are considered within the culture of American business and society.
- Weight Control Tool: A Food Journal
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The frequent advice to keep track of food consumed is combined with psychological self-analysis to idetify the emotions that occur before, during and after eating, especially when overeating.
- Weight Control: One Day At A Time
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The dieter's temptations are equated with those of alcoholics who have found facing only one day at a time is more productive that envisioning a lifetime without drink. The difficulty of controlled eating is reviewed as simply quitting cold turkey is not an option.
- How To Cop An Attitude With An Overzealous Hostess
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] 10 nice ways of getting out of overeating without your hostess laying guilt on you are reviewed. 15 tougher responses, bound to get results, are then offered when niceness doesn't work.
- Mamma Said: Keep Your Fingers Out Of Your Mouth
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Techniques for keeping hands, fingers, and minds busy to avoid eating are reviewed and tips provided.
- Dump Those Negative Tapes
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Many of us have a negative view of ourselves from recurrent feedback in childhood. We perpetuate this view of ourselves by always hearing the negative tapes playing. Realizing that this can be brought under conscious control gives a new sense of freedom.
- I'm Not Fat, I'm Fluffy
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The problems posed by discrepancies between our actual image and the image we hold in our minds is explored inthe context of weight control, appearance, and self-satisfaction.
- Successful Job Search: Knocking Out The Competition
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] 7 key strategies, P-U-N-C-H-E-S, are outlined. Following these techniques can improve your chance of finding suitable employment and presenting yourself positively to the world.
- Job Search Campaign Tip: An Activity Diary
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] The value of keeping a daily diary while you are job hunting is explored. It provides a place to centralize contacts, evaluate the emotional consequences of different activities, and provides a place of respite when nothing seems to be working for you.
- The True Power of Terrorism
[News-and-Society:Politics] The threat of terrorism is not only to our physical safety but to our minds. Our attitudes about the world, and how they can be changed by terroristic threats, are explored.
- Supersizing America
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The growth and influence of fast food on our lives and our weight is traced along with an outline of using the same food intake help with weight control.
- Are Your Attitudes Making You Old?
[Self-Improvement] None of us want to get old but often we subconsciously adopt attitudes that make us far older than we feel. Some common beliefs about how we face the world are confronted.
- Hello Work World, I'm Un-Retiring
[Business:Careers-Employment] Most of us look forward to the freedom of retirement and yearn to be free of the 9 to 5 shackles we have worn so long. Often, it turns out to be so much less satisfying than we had envisioned and we decide to return to work. Some options are explored including the need for fun and personal growth as well as income.
- Job Search: The End of the Line
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] After a long job search campaign, we think that everything will be wonderful and that we'll be elated. Here are tips to deal with the inevitable "let down" feelings and regain balance in your life.
- America's Secret Addiction
[Self-Improvement:Addictions] Americans reveal their addictions without social stigma except for the secret dependency on too much food which is covered with euphenisms and the desire not to hurt the feelings of the population with the biggest (sic) growth: the obese.
- Diet: Changing Your Focus
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] Using your brain to focus on areas other than food is seen as the key to successful weight control.
- Job Hunting Tips: Staying Active
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] Seven tips for staying active in the job search and the importance of proactively controlling one's life, even at times of unemployment, are provided.
- Self-Preservation Techniques For The Unemployed
[Business:Careers-Employment] Three specific techniques are provided to help those who have suffered a job layoff to survive with intact self-esteem, a belief in their own self-worth and a positive outlook for the future.
- Job Hunting Tips: Organizing Your Attack
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] Resources for job searchers are identified along with the pros and cons of using different techniques. The importance of having multiple options as a defense against the stress of unemployment is emphasized.
- Surviving Unemployment Through Emotional Damage Control
[Business:Careers-Employment] The dangerous mood swings of unemployment caused by the stress of being jobless coupled with the ordeal of job search are identified. Techniques for emotional survival are suggested.
- Losing Your Job Without Losing Yourself
[Business:Careers-Employment] A certain sense of self evaporates when you lose your job because so much of your identity is intertwined with your profession or craft. Strategies to maintain a sense of self-worth despite temporary employment is outlined.
- The American Worker: Downward Mobility
[News-and-Society:Politics] The reality of the newly created jobs in the US Labor Market is considered, especially the downward slide of the middle and working class into lower paid employment and towards poverty. The increasing distance between the successful and the victims of economic restructuring are outlined.
- Job Hunting Tips: Containing Anxiety
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] The anxiety of layoff and looking for work is described. Techniques are provided to allow anxiety to become a positive force rather than having all negative effects.
- Job Layoff: Confronting "Why Me?"
[Business:Careers-Employment] The emotional trauma of being the victim of job layoff is identified along with strategies for preserving a sense of self-worth and personal value.
- The Big Secret of Age
[Relationships] The author reveals the big secret of age which is that we never really feel any different. Younger individuals expect that our outlook and expectations have changed but we continue to think of ourselves as we always have and continue, to the end, to believe in our own immortality.
- Recycling The Mentally Ill
[News-and-Society:Politics] The plight of the mentally ill is described in terms of their movement from the State Hospitals to homelessness and now to prisons.
- What You Need To Know Before Committing To Vocational Retraining
[Reference-and-Education:Vocational-Trade-Schools] The questions that any school must be able to answer are outlined to protect against the illegitimate retraining programs that prey on the needs and ignorance of the unskilled.
- Revitalizing The Power of the Baby Boomers
[Home-and-Family:Baby-Boomer] The strengths and dreams of the Baby Boomers are recalled and specific strategies given which can revitalize that power and allow for an aging generation to finally effect the changes they sought decades ago.
- Passing The Torch
[News-and-Society] The first five years of the new millenium are considered and the fact that mankind has not done well in his goal of peace and humane treatment of others. The need to stand up and be counted for the positive qualities of the human race is emphasized.
- The Ugly American Returns!
[News-and-Society:Politics] The world since 911 and the invasion of Iraq is considered in terms of the increasingly poor image of America throughout the world.
- Bush Victory: A Defeat for the Have-Nots?
[News-and-Society:Politics] The probable consequences of the recent re-election are considered including potential effects upon the poor and vulnerable in a society which favors the wealthy and the powerful.
- Whose Moral Values Are They Anyway?
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] The recent outcry against media display of "immorality" is reviewed and the dangers of legislating against human failings is considered.
- Weight Control: Operationalizing Your Plans
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] The need to break down aspirations into specific, reasonable steps is stressed. New approaches to common weight control problems and goals are provided.
- Job Hunting Tips: Taking Care of Yourself
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] A primer on self-preservation during the job hunt is provided. Tips for maintaining a sense of balance and self-worth are provided along with specific techniques for handling employer interactions.
- What Price Loyalty?
[News-and-Society:Politics] The dark side of utter loyalty is explored within the current framework of loyalty being the quality most prized by those in power.
- Legislating Morality: The Sanction of Marriage
[Relationships:Marriage] The differentiation between civil marriage and religious ceremonies are outlined and the current move to limit same-sex marriages is seen as a biased and unproductive response to the needs of covil liberties and equality.
- Job Hunting Tips: Assessing Personal Value
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] The importance of maintaining a sense of self-worth and value, even when job offers are not forthcoming, is emphasized. Simple strategies for maintaining belief in oneself are provided.
- Unemployment Blues: Staying Afloat
[Business:Careers-Employment] Five strategies are outlined to allow the long-term unemployed to stay afloat while searching for work.
- Overwhelmed and Overworked: The Myth of American Productivity
[Business:Careers-Employment] The broadening discrepancy between middle-class employment figures and productivity is analyzed. The new American worker, tethered to the office by electronic strings is given pointers on how to break the pattern.
- Job Hunting Tips: Accepting Judgment
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] The stress of looking for work is magnified by our feelings of being judged as an individual. Tips are provided to allow for a more objective approach in order to protect self-esteem and self-confidence even when no job offer is forthcoming.
- Personal Contacts: The Key to Successful Networking
[Business:Careers-Employment] The value of personal networking to secure employment is outlined in a larger sense than usually envisioned. The importance of word-of-mouth and expanding the size of a personal network is stressed.
- Job Search: Time Management
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] Effective time management can lower the stress of unemployment and job search. 6 practical tips are given to organize activities to maximize results while preserving sanity and balance.
- Unemployment Survival: Creating a Sense of Security
[Business:Careers-Employment] Job security no longer exists in the marketplace. It exists only for those who know and appreciate their values as a worker: their skills, their competence, their personal qualities. Ten tips for building that personal sense of security are provided.
- Job Search: Age-Proofing Your Resume
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] Changes in terminology in the world of work are discussed. Specific advise is given for updating a resume by using current jargon and keywords to connect with modern managers and ensuring that resumes are not screened out before there is the opportunity for an interview.
- Unemployment Survival: Taking Back Control
[Business:Careers-Employment] The sense of powerlessness of the jobless is addressed by describing multiple ways of regaining balance by exerting control over various aspects of life independent of unemployment and job search.
- Job Search Techniques: Smashing The Gray Ceiling
[Business:Job-Search-Techniques] The labor market bias against older workers is addressed by providing techniques to confront the issue in interviews and how to deomolish such negative perceptions and turn them into a positive attitude which may lead to a job offer.
- Abu Ghraib: Our Surprise is the only Surprise
[News-and-Society:Politics] The revelations of Iraqi prisoner abuse are considered in light of extensive psychological research over the past 30 years. The findings of several studies conistently suggest that the abuse which happened could have been easily predicted and that the fault lies in the military and civilian administration who failed to pay heed to the warnings of social psychology.
- Vocational Expert's 7 Proposals to Solve the Unemployment Problem
[Business:Careers-Employment] The subject is constantly in the news and may decide the
next national elections - the infamous jobless recovery.
More than 8 million Americans are out of work with another 4
million underemployed or no longer looking for work. Good
manufacturing, technical and services jobs are being shipped
to India, Asia, and other developing countries. The mood of
the middle and working class becomes more pessimistic, the
outlook for their immediate future more grim.
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