Buy Experiences, Not Things

This article was written by James Hamblin and was published in The Atlantic journal, which is an American magazine covering different issues of the world, including psychology. The given article was published on 17th October. It includes the studies conducted by psychologist Matthew Killingsworth, Daniel Gilbert and Amit Kumar. The main idea is that buying experiences worth a lot more than purchasing physical objects. One key object is that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. They say that spending money on experiences instead of buying things is more satisfying.

The key argument is that spending money on experiences provides more enduring happiness. They argue that waiting for an experience means more happiness and excitement than waiting for a material good does. They author uses a chart as a visual aid to help us understand the process. Another argument of theirs is that experience is something that people are less likely to compare with other people’s experience. Another approach is that they say that people who are for instance waiting in line for a concert or any other event tend to be more excited, have a nice conversation with random strangers, thus the waiting itself becomes happier. Especially if it is elongated, it is always a good kind of anticipation, rather than and impatience for something to finally arrive.

The language used in the article is easily understandable, they do not use any specific terminology that would make it hard to understand. All the arguments are supported and proved, also they are all logical and the thought process is easy to follow. Every idea is properly explained and it is easy to see the connection between them and their proof.

I agree with the author’s position, because I also think spending money on experiences is much more worth than buying more and more things. When we have all we need, buying new stuff becomes a kind of luxury, and we only buy it because we like it. But it is easy to get bored by that. Experiences, on the other hand are something that I could never get bored of, it gives me more happiness than an object that I am about to possess.  

All in all, the article is well built-up and logical, it scientifically and psychologically proves their arguments right. One  could be easily convinced even if he did not agree with the main idea itself, because the proof and explanation is rather convincing. 

Evaluation of the article „XXXL – Why are we so fat?”

This article was written in 2009 by Elizabeth Kolbert, who has been on the field of journalism since the late 1980s. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1999 and this article about obesity was published in the magazine’s online platform. She covers this topic expansively supporting with ideas mainly from books dealing with obesity, but also mentioning researches and studies on being overweight. This piece of writing investigates the problems of being obese narrowed down the United States, however, comments on some European country’s status on this issue.

Although, it is an article written many years ago it is still – if not more – relevant today. This era of the 21^st century is when obesity is completely accepted and even promoted. Kolbert examines the fact that people in the United States are gaining more weight every year and she is searching for the answer of its cause. What this article also draws attention to is that with being overweight people are taking the risks of having diseases caused by the excess fat not only on their body but in their bloodstream as well.

To find the answer for the question of obesity, many aspects are need to be examined – for example, the way people lived since they are on this planet in contrast with our eating habits today. This article also points up the role of economy in the way we eat, also calls attention to the fact that today food has become a form of drug – there are people who are obsessed with eating like others are with heroin. Like in the case of prohibiting drugs, politics is also involved in regulating the consumption of “fat-foods”. These are just a few key issues that Kolbert writes about but there are a couple more throughout the article which are all supported with scientific researches by people who are in the field of health and nutrition. The only weak point of reasoning here is the example of animal testing – humans, even though there are similarities in our body system with certain animals’, cannot be compared to them.

The language of the article is easily understandable, there are mostly direct and short sentences, still it is effective. It is absolutely clear that the author did her research in this topic extensively and carefully paying attention to the details. Also, as in many other articles the facts about the eating habits of our ancestors are only roughly mentioned, here it is also elaborated deliberatively, which is a very good point as our ancestors in Palaeolithic period only lived for 30 or less years. Considering all the information this article offers, it is a quite descripting and more importantly, enlightening piece of writing.

source: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/07/20/xxxl

LGBT Parenting

LGBT parenting

There are millions of children in the world without parents and waiting for someone to adopt and secure them by creating a loving atmosphere. However, there are also many people who are waiting for this moment, yet, they are not allowed to do it because of their sexual orientation. There is no reason that a gay couple should not be allowed to adopt a child, considering the number of children without families and the fact that they are as caring and loving as any other two human beings are.

To begin with, UNICEF differentiates two types of orphans; the ones that have lost both parents and the others that have lost a father but have a surviving mother or have lost their mother but have a surviving father. The two types altogether count up to 132 million. Among them 13 million have lost both parents (UNICEF, 2015). As the statistics show, there are millions of children in the world in need of a caring and loving parent, family.

Families in the 21^st century come in all shapes and sizes. Anyone who is able to meet the requirements of being a loving parent deserves to become a parent, despite their sexual preferences. Considering the child, being adopted by a caring family is a better alternative than entering an orphanage. Children living in institutions without parents are reported to perform poorly on intelligence tests and to be slow learners with specific difficulties in language and social development, in comparison to children with foster parents (Browne, 2009).

There is no evidence to suggest that lesbian women or gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of lesbian women or gay men is compromised relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents (Amato, 2012). Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents (Patterson, 2005). Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children's psychosocial growth (APA, 2005). Researches and studies make an important contribution to our understanding of how a variety of childhood family environments are related to outcomes among young adult offspring. But these findings – and for that matter, any social research findings – should not be used to restrict the civil rights of any group of individuals (Amato, 2012).

In conclusion, everyone deserves a complete and happy life to live. It is necessary to treat gay people the same as heterosexual people are treated. There should be absolutely no discrimination against them and they should have the same rights that also include the ability to adopt children.

References

Amato, Paul R. (2012), The well-being of children with gay and lesbian parents. Social Science Research, http://www.baylorisr.org/wp-content/uploads/Amato.pdf

American Psychological Association (2005), Lesbian & Gay Parenting.             http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/parenting-full.pdf

Browne, Kevin (2009), The Risk of Harm to Young Children in Institutional Care.             http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/The_Risk_of_Harm_1.pdf

UNICEF (2015), Orphans.

            https://www.unicef.org/media/media_45279.html

The benefit of tattoos on the human soul

            Applying ink underneath people’s skin has always been a quite controversial topic. Many are strongly against this form of art, while others consider it to be their way of expressing themselves. This following essay is going to discuss the possible benefits tattoos might have on the human soul.

            Based on Susie McBeth’s article written exclusively for Metro.co.uk and published in April 2015, there are numerous reasons why getting a tattoo should be a more socially accepted way of self-expression. It is quite convincing, her reasons are at some point thought-provoking.

Firstly, Susie states that our body is our temple, thus we should be allowed to decorate it in a way we would want to. That means that as individuals it is our constitutional right to express ourselves in unique, previously unknown forms. It is also very important to be certain of quotes or images we would like to have inked on our skin. In fact, because in Hungary you have to reach the age of 18 in order to be able to get a tattoo legally, it is rightfully assumed that people would think such a responsible decision through before making an appointment at a nearby tattoo parlor.

Secondly, many consider tattoos to be a form of art. Those who create tattoos are called „tattoo artists” for a reason: it is very difficult to thrust dozens of needles into a person’s skin in either horizontal or vertical lines at the same time. As Susie McBeth claims, allowing an artist to tattoo one of their drawings on you is a way of paying homage to that person; it is a piece of art that you will keep all to yourself, for ever.

Thirdly, McBeth comes up with another great point in her article, being the idea that tattoos’ sole purpose on the human soul – besides soothing their rebellious spirit – is their ability to hide skin discolorations or scars. That way, it is much easier to fit into new communities, to not have to make unwanted scars visible. Tattoos are a very helpful way to make self-conscious people feel great about themselves again.

All in all, tattoos are a certain form of art, adored by many all over the world. It is, however, very important to make responsible decisions regarding images of ink we will have to spend the rest of our lives looking at.

Connection Between Time and the Importance of Home Culture

Connection Between Time and the Importance of Home Culture

Migration has always existed; basically it is a constant process going on in the world, stretching through thousands of years. It is a topical issue, because of the mass migration coming from the East. My point is that as time passes by, the culture of origin, the home culture becomes more and more important to the individual, which is good, as long as it concerns the individual and it is not forced onto others.

A migration from the East can be observed throughout history, many European nations are descendants of Eastern nomad tribes. After the Second World War to strengthen the weakened economy, West-Germany invited many Turkish guest-workers (Detsch). More Middle-East nations followed, and went not only to Germany, but to other Western European countries. In the 1999 movie East is East, directed by Damien O’Donnell, the audience is presented with the story of the Khan family. The father is a Pakistani migrant, who arrived in Great Britain in the 1970s. He married a British woman, and they had six children (Khan-Din). This proves that when he arrived to Britain it was not important to him to marry a woman of his own culture. The father wants his sons to contribute to Pakistani values and tradition, and to marry Pakistani girls he had chosen (Khan-Din). This represents that as time passed by home culture became more important to the father. What is wrong about this is that he oppresses others and their free will.

John Berry’s model (1994; 2001) of acculturation separates four strategies as follows: integration, when the individual adjusts to the host culture and at the same time maintains his or her own culture; assimilation, when the individual gives up his or her own culture; separation, which means that the individual maintains his or her own culture and rejects interaction with the host culture; and marginalization, which is when the individual feels part neither of the home culture, nor of the host culture. (Berry). An interesting aspect connecting to the topic is that where religion is stronger there is a stronger need of sticking to home culture traditions, just like it was important in the movie for the Muslim father.

A personal aspect on the topic is that my parents moved to Belgium as young adults, and I was born there. According to them they never spoke French to me, only Hungarian, because they wanted their child to speak their mother tongue. Despite their efforts my brother, who was born in Belgium, and I speak French, because except for our parents, the environment we were brought up in was French. Later we moved back to Hungary, because my parents did not want to raise their children in a foreign culture, yet they acknowledged the benefits of growing up bilingual, so they always encouraged us to learn French, and see the world or move abroad. This exemplifies that they never forced us to contribute to their decisions.

What is common between both stories is that with time passing by the home culture became increasingly important. First the father in the movie enjoyed the new culture, just like my parents did, but later they started to trace back their roots and adapt more and more of their home culture. In the movie it is the father wanting to choose who his sons to marry, and in my parents case it is the fact that they decided to move back to Hungary.  The difference is that while the father forced his family to contribute to his culture regardless of their will, my parents have always left the decision to us.

Works Cited

Berry, J.W. (1994) Acculuturative Stress. In W.J. Lonner & R.S. Malpas (Eds), Psychology and Culture (pp. 211-215). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Berry, J.W. (2001) A psychology of immigration, Journal of Social Issues, 57 pp. 615-631

Detsch, Roland. “The 50th Anniversary of the Agreement on the Recruitment of Turkish Migrant Workers”, Translation: Paul McCarthy, Goethe-Institut e. V., Internet-Redaktion 
September 2011 http://www.goethe.de/lhr/prj/daz/mag/mig/en8124134.htm

 

Khan-Din, Ayub. East is East. Movie. Directed by Damien O’Donnell. 1999.

Separation of siblings causes more damages

In the US there are almost five hundred thousand children who are placed in the foster care system. There are plenty of reasons why these institutions and host families have this huge amount of people on their hands. Either the parents of those children died or simply they just lost their parental authority due to various reasons like domestic – physical or psychical, or both – abuse or negligence, for example. Sadly, this list goes on and the children who suffer these consequences tend to become emotionally unstable later on in their lives. Siblings who are being separated from each other after a trauma should not be disunited.

There is a two-part short story titled ‘ReMoved’ which was made for the “168 Film Festival” in California to raise awareness of foster care in the United States. The main character is a young girl, Zoe, whose mother is constantly being abused by her partner who is an aggressive and disrespectful man addicted to alcohol. Some days go by peacefully but dark days are showing up more often and the children are eventually being taken away on one of those days by foster care officials.

It is important to know that these foster care institutions where the children are being placed at first are most of the times worse than the environment they came from as they may have had a place to live where they had everything essential. According to a Huffington Post article “Where Do The Children Go When They Are Taken Away?” which deals in-depth with this issue, these foster homes are not very well equipped at all; in many places there is not even proper electricity or warm water. Another important factor that there is a huge need to establish more foster care institutions as the ones the US has now, are already overcrowded. This increases the risks of being harassed since there are other abandoned children who could be abusive to the newcomers as they have already spent a rough time there.

Thinking about the conditions mentioned above, it would certainly be a better choice to let brothers and sisters stay together for the sake of emotional support at least. They have this natural bond between each other which can make it easier for them to go through hard times. In this short film it is shown how much Zoe loves her baby brother through the way she cares about him. Even though she is supposedly around the age of 10 she has to act like an adult because there is no one else who could be good enough for that role in their family anymore. Questionable identity is also a negative effect caused by separation - it becomes harder for them to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong since they do not have anyone left in their lives to look up.

Furthermore, detaching siblings from each other makes them emotionally injured more and quicker. So much negative influence has been in their life that at some point they cannot accept any change which not only causes them serious anxiety problems, but the chance to develop their self-image and self-esteem in a positive way becomes less likely. If they could stay together so that would allow to them face the hardships more easily later.

To conclude, social workers make the decision to place siblings in different homes or families, which could be explained by the fact that most of the foster care institutions are already at full capacity which creates the situation when children from the same family have to stay in different homes. This, in fact leads to that different administrators deal with their case, this way lowering the chances to get them placed at the same host family or in the same foster care home. In addition to the negative side of it, the administrations are not always in the favour of the children’s well-being as there is a lot of paperwork and not enough skilled employees to do the backup research as well. Given these points, foster care has a significant relevance among today’s problems and there is a need for solution. There is always something people can do, for instance to help the work of the administration, to be a counselor, to be a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) volunteer - this way the siblings have a higher chance to stay together.

Works cited

“ReMoved” YouTube, uploaded by Nathanael Matanick, 11 March 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOeQUwdAjE0&t=88s.

Rosenbloom, Every. “Where Do The Children Go When They Are Taken Away?” The Huffington Post, 7 Dec. 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evey-rosenbloom/where-do-the-children-go_1_b_8728758.html

1)      Apartment market in Hungary

a)      Rental fees a few years ago

b)      Rental fees nowadays

2)      People’s obstruction in progress

a)      Low salary, high costs in the apartment market

b)      Disproportion of the apartments’ size, price and condition

c)      Irrational requirements of the owner (no pets, no children, no friends invited to the apartment -> no life, what you can only do in the apartment is what is told by the owner)

d)     The owner’s irreverent attitude towards the potential tenant (arranged time for visiting the apartment à the time the person arrives, the apartment will have been rented by others

e)      Gathering information previously via telephone about the working place, salary, marital status and future plans of the potential tenant

Apartment market in Hungary

In Hungary, the prices of apartments and the conditions laid down to the tenants are quite different. These conditions are mostly defined by the place the apartment is situated. Huge differences can be observed between the inner parts of a bigger city and those of a smaller town, but even in the suburbs of the same city as well. Therefore, it would be necessary to create a system in the country affecting the prices of apartments compares to the wages.

Considering the past five years, in that time tenants got the value for their money, prices did not soar, the owners’ way of thinking was reasonable and they did not want to make money and become well-heeled by the tenant.

As for nowadays, the prices for apartments have increased a lot, in many cases owing to inflation. In contrast with the West, Hungarians are significantly behind: while there 25% of people’s salary is dedicated to renting an apartment, here in Hungary it can reach 50% of the payment. Moreover, generally here the condition and quality of apartments is far below those of the West. For instance, one can find apartments advertised which are not only very small, say 25 m2, but they are furnished obsoletely and they are in a terrible condition. For all this owners tend to ask 80 000 Fts/month or even more, or concerning single rooms, which are usually 8-10 m2, they can also cost 50 000 Fts monthly. So a reasonable solution should be introduced by the government.

Adding to this all, in many cases, owners have requirements by which they obstruct the normal way of life of the tenants, principally in the long term. Obstructive requirements are that many times owners prohibit organising parties with friends, smoking, which I think is almost the one and only reasonable one, having a pet, and what is the most important here is that in many of the apartments having children is a ground for exclusion. What happens to those who are yet unable to have a house on their own, owners do not care. They only consider their own point of view, their own interest.

Another factor that also makes people’s life difficult is when an owner wants to let his or her apartment by any means, so he or she does not hesitate to do so. Therefore, this can produce cases when the owner and the potential tenant arranged a time for visiting, and by the time the tenant arrives, the apartment will have been rented by others. This, in my opinion, is quite a disrespectful attitude towards a tenant who, in many cases, feels hopeless. Owners think that they can behave as they please. 

Last but not least, speaking of the conversations via telephone prior to visiting, owners like to ask for pieces of information about the tenant that are practically none of their business. They usually want to get to know where the potential future tenant works, how much he or she earns, whether he or she is married or has children and sometimes is curious about what his or her future plans are. This is a rather disrespectful attitude. Owners should realise that in spite of being in a good situation, it would be necessary to treat other people in a convenient way.

All in all, it can be claimed that the situation of apartment market in Hungary is rather distressing. Owners hope too much due to the position they are in, and are incapable of imagining themselves in the situation in which tenants are.