Entertaining Psychology

They’re these little seeds in the back of your mind, waiting for a chance to grow and show themselves. Whenever you think about them you have no idea why they popped into your head in the first place. Some are simple, sometimes overly-optimistic thoughts while others are the exact definition of pure evil and sadism. I’m of course talking about intrusive thoughts.

Intrusive thoughts are basically involuntary thoughts people have that seem weird to them when they think about them and are hard to get rid of/manage since they constantly recur. Sort of like when a person goes into a room and forgets why they’re there in the first place, there has to be a reason they’re in there but they can’t think of it. Such is the same with intrusive thoughts, they just sort of happen ,and keep happening, without any reason the person having them can think of, for them to exist.

Intrusive thought in general is usually attributed to things like guilty consciences or evil dark sides. However, this isn’t always the case. Intrusive thought could also be caused by traumatic events involving a certain one of the five senses or by the environment one is exposed to. The majority of the intrusive thoughts people have are, unfortunately, unpleasant and have even lead some to complete and total insanity. When someone thinks “intrusive thoughts” they usually picture this nice little child who is very timid and bashful suddenly thinking about everything totally opposite of their character (such as  turning into a dreamed Texas Chainsaw Massacre with them being the main serial killer). However, not all intrusive thoughts are necessarily as bloody, gorey ,or evil as real-life Jason Voorhees next to you at the bus stop. Some intrusive thoughts can actually be somewhat of a good thing. As stated earlier, intrusive thoughts have the ability to change people usually because of their recurring nature. So, if a nice kid can be turned into an insane monster with intrusive thought, what’s preventing a relatively mean kid from being turned into a kind fellow of the community? Nothing, that’s what! Intrusive thoughts are not necessarily things deemed unpleasant by society, they are things deemed unpleasant by the person having them. If someone thinks being mean is good and they start having intrusive thoughts about being good to others, that can have a major psychological effect on them. Certainly this isn’t always the case that people are changed by intrusive thought (I manage it quite well ;)) but it just goes to show that intrusive thoughts are not necessarily a bad thing. I personally think intrusive thoughts are what can lead us to our fullest potential in life and can give us a better understanding of how the human psyche works and functions.    

Careers and Salary

Money, one of the most limiting and most talked about factor of our daily lives.Money is what buys food, water, shelter, and luxury. Money can also lead to crippling debt and personal economic depression as well.Money is what makes people work and provide for others, but money is also what makes people steal and scam. So, with money being this important, how is it earned the moral way? Traditionally, the answer to that question has been education from elementary school through college.

Is it a surprise ,then, that some people would rather do what they love to get their degree instead of getting a degree in a job field that’s renowned for having high wages? Maybe or maybe not, but it just shows that salary usually has little or no effect on what area a person decides to major in. For instance, I want to get my degree in aerospace engineering. I’ve been fascinated with flight all my life: how it works, what it does, and what it can do for us as humans. So, when I heard there was a job to literally study the workings of air and spacecraft while also adding my own innovative ideas to the mix (I can’t quite remember if I shouted or said it to myself, more than likely I burst out in joy since I was 7 at the time) I said, immediately, “That’s what I’m going to be when I grow up!” Ever since then I’ve been focusing my education path on that road, while also dabbling in other subjects a little less related as well, unflinchingly. It was only until the 8th grade when I realised why my grandparents and parents were saying I was taking on a great ambition with that last statement. When we did the Future Fair (or whatever it was called) they had us calculate our future wages as entry-class workers in our projected majors so we could have a base starting amount for our yearly payments on life’s necessities and luxuries. When I entered “Aerospace Engineer” in the search results, I was surprised. At entry-level, the program said I would be making $94,000 a year! I then looked around and found that everyone was looking at my screen, absolutely dumbfounded (since the highest salary out of all of them was around $60,000 a year). The people around me then began of accusing me of “picking the job with the most money” and “not following my passion in life”, to which I simply assured them that this was what I wanted to do ever since I was a 7-year old and that I, in fact, had no idea what aerospace engineers made until now. They then apologetically retracted their comments and even congratulated me, but I never, at the time, really understood why. I’m being congratulated for following my dreams? Wasn’t everyone doing the same thing I was doing? Then I realized, they weren’t congratulating me for following my dreams, they were congratulating me for doing that AND having a high salary to go with it.

So, in short, salary had no effect on me choosing a career. The only thing that ever affected my choice of a career was just my childhood fascinations and my ambitious nature to pursue those fascinations into something greater and much larger than I was (at the time).

College Application Article

There was an article I read over the weekend about how Harvard, America’s equivalent to Oxford University, has recently proposed changes to the college application process in America. The list of proposed changes includes making the SAT and ACT optional (to de-emphasize standardized testing), taking into account a person’s performance in their extracurricular activities (instead of just looking at how many they took), and a better way of showing sustained community service for  community (instead of just seeing a couple discrete projects here and there). Overall, I can say I agree with each of these huge changes for various reasons. With the de-emphasis on standardized testing, students won’t feel nearly as much pressure to do well in high school that could lead to the crippling stress and/or (in extreme cases) depression that some students face in high school today just because it seems like their every move is being watched and that, if they don’t do well enough, all of their hopes and dreams will come crashing down.This isn’t good for anyone’s mental health, much less a developing teenager, and seems like a good change to be making solely because of this fact. In terms of extracurricular activities many students who take them really don’t show enough effort for them and drag everyone else who is there for a learning experience down. If colleges began evaluating a student’s performance in these activities the people in them who actually do what is asked of them will receive the credit they deserve for their hard work and won’t be considered equal to a person in the same activity who did nothing in it. Lastly, community service is essential to a community’s survival. I’ve heard of multiple people who say all they did was a couple hour projects here and there and got through the application process who then tell me “so, in other words, don’t worry about community service. They won’t care how much you do anyway” (or something of that nature). An emphasis on the continuousness of community service would be a great emphasis for students to focus and improve on in their lives.

In short, I agree with every single one of these changes and hope to see them implemented as soon as humanly possible.