Month: May 2017

 

 

  Introduction

As life after high school approaches, there are many aspects of that point that need to be evaluated. The first, foremost, and essential aspect to be examined is what a person is going to do after high school. Having a plan or at least some semblance of a plan can put a person onto a track toward achieving what they want in life.

Through help from my mentors, teachers, and family members I have been able to come to a decision about what I want my life after high school approaches. I have decided to join the military and get an education in the field of Chinese language. The first step has already been completed. What lies ahead is how I plan to successfully get to the end of the road and remain well while doing it.

The eight wellnesses are systems that I will employ to get closer to my goals. They will make sure my body, person, and mind are all in peak conditions. Their other function is to help keep myself in a disciplined mindset and lower the potential levels of stress that I will be subjected to. I will make sure to be well as I move through the military and education as well as heighten the value of my life.

Physical Wellness

As we grow, our bodies need different things at different stages in life. Entering adulthood brings about a new set of guidelines that should be followed in order to be physically well. Sleep, diet and physical activity are the key components of achieving wellness in this sense. I learned a lot of interesting and valuable information while researching how I can be well in this sense as I move forward with my life.

I love sleep. That feeling of being well rested after waking up, the lazy feeling I get when I can stay in bed after waking up to adjust to consciousness in a natural way and the feeling of relaxation when I get to lay down in my bed cause me great satisfaction. Learning that sleep helps my brain and body function better is just another piece that I can add to my reasons for loving sleep (kidshealth). With such a demanding job as the military service member I will be, having my brain and body in top notch conditions is important.

Another facet of physical wellness is physical exercise and condition. Now, everyone always talks about how exercise is so important for you. It’s one thing to hear it from someone, however it is another thing to actually do research on your own regarding it. I learned that I don’t actually need to do crazy, overly exerting exercises to get into shape. Isotonic exercise, which is large muscle groups being worked in a repetitive and rhythmic motion without working heavy resistances, is the best kind of exercise to do (Health Harvard). This kind of exercise is something that I will get on a regular through PT (physical training) that the military requires. In addition, the diet that I will be able to afford will allow for a better physical condition. The pay I will receive for my service will allow me to buy healthier foods like fish, fresh veggies and fruits, and eat the things that will boost my potassium (Berkley Wellness). My physical condition will be close to excellent. I am glad that being physically well, have good health, and age well.

Environmental Wellness

I want to be surrounded by an environment that will help and encourage me instead of hindering me. I will make my personal environment someplace where I can destress and take care of myself. Having a positive personal environment is so important because it affects your moods, motivation, and influence stress levels (takingcharge.com). I will create a personal environment that is positive and caters to me.

In the military, I will have my own room and own space, unlike how I am living now due to sharing my room with my little sister. I will be able to take care of my space without interference and extra impact from other people. My

stress levels will be reduced and my moods will become more happy and positive.  This means that having positive environmental wellness will also influence my emotional and physical wellness.

I never noticed how much impact an environment had on a person. As of now, while I am still in high school I have a very high-strung personality and my moods flip at the drop of a hat. In the military, I will have the power to change and stabilize myself within the new environment. Regarding being well in this area of life, I have big plans after I leave high school.

Intellectual Wellness

The knowledge and skills I currently have are like tools for my future. What I know now are things that aid me in being successful. However, I do not know everything. Becoming well in an intellectual sense requires me to expand that knowledge and skill as well as identify my own creative capacities.

Now, everyone has areas of something where they believe that they perform at high levels. I believe that I perform to a higher degree regarding this wellness. I have many skills that I keep as sharp as possible.What I lack in the creative department helps me to recognize the little creative things that I actually do. I am not perfect, but I do believe that intellectual wellness is not a problem for me.

In doing research, I learned about some ways to build up one’s intellectual wellness. Reading and doing crossword puzzles or learning a foreign language will help to improve your mind and in turn your wellness (Ali Geary). These activities would be done in order to help expand the mind and its capabilities. I can help heighten my intellectual wellness and give back to my community by starting up a book club. I have always wanted to be in a book club, and by starting my own I can satisfy myself and help others. It is a plausible idea in that people can read the books between assignments or in their down time in order to relax from the stresses of being in the military.

In the military, I will be pushed to limits many can not imagine of as they train my mind into something far more expansive than the average person’s. In addition, since I will be learning a foreign language as my job in the military, my intellectual wellness will continue to  be built up on a constant basis. I have no worries maintaining my intellectual wellness as I enter my life after high school.

Emotional Wellness

Emotions are instinctive, unplanned, hard to control states of mind or feelings. These different emotions that we feel leave lasting impressions on ourselves. Sometimes, they can be so severe or intense that there are physical, mental, or personal effects that can potentially be prolonged for surprising amounts of time. Life and relationships are, in my opinion, the two largest factors that affect emotions. These elements of existence can have either negative or positive influence on our emotions. Learning to cope, deal with, and confront these feelings to result in effectively living life and having satisfying relationships are the goals of emotional wellness that I am aiming to obtain.

Personally, I have an extremely low level of emotional wellness. My feelings are so intense and sometimes unplanned that I have a very hard time coping with life. When faced with too many options, I become frazzled and unmoored

that it’s difficult to make decisions. When encountering situations that require high levels of emotion, I can sometimes become too passionate or heated and lose sight of the purpose or meaning of things. Other times, I can get so into my own head that my emotions start to consume me and I drown. As I move on to life after high school, I need to be able to better manage my emotional wellness.

Shifting into my adult life causes me to search for ways to improve my life. I have found 5 methods of maintaining and raising my emotional wellness. I plan to form habits of distracting myself from brooding thoughts, protecting my self-esteem, taking control after a failure, finding meaning after a loss, and recover self-worth after a rejection (Winch). I have many problems that need to be addressed by these habits because I do crumble after rejection and have trouble finding even the tiniest fragment of self-esteem among other things. When I’m in the military, I will not be able to be so fragile in this sense. The environment provided by the military will enable me to cultivate these habits and get better. The effort to have better emotional wellness will be made.

Social Wellness

A social life can consist of many different groups of people at many different times in your life. The version of a social life we are looking for today is one that can impact my new adult life and beyond that time. I need to make sure that I have built a well structured support system that I feel connected to and a part of that is separate from my family. Having a good group of friends may seem like a superficial thing to want, however being well in any and all aspects is more important that perceived superficiality.

Being socially well is so vital because “feeling connected to others reduces stress and is good for the heart” (Kelsey). Having that sense of belonging can go such a long way into taking some pressure off of your shoulders and giving you somebody to lean on when times get rough.

I would say that I am socially well at the moment. I have a good support group of close friends that stick by my side. In the event that we have to be separated from each other, I know that I can make friends with others, especially long lasting ones with my brothers and sisters in arms while I am in the military. Deep bonds will be formed as I pursue my occupation. There are also different methods I can implement to maintain my social wellness such as volunteering, learning the art of small talk, and joining a book club (Kelsey). I have faith that I will remain socially well from now and into the future.

Spiritual Wellness

The spirit is something that is within all people at varying degrees. The definition of the spirit is “the non-physical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul” (Oxforddictionaries). This non-physical part of our body is not always acknowledged by the owner of the soul. However, this part of our body needs to be taken care of just like all the rest.

Expanding a sense of meaning and purpose in life is the goal of spiritual wellness. There happen to be many ways of interpreting this goal and many more ways to execute it. Spiritual wellness refers to “understanding your true self” and figuring out the who, what, when, where, how, and most importantly the why of our personal humanity and existence (Loveorabove). Lacking in spiritual wellness and understanding of said wellness leads to unhappiness and unfulfillment. This comprehension and resulting happiness can be found in various ways, whether it be through nature, service to others, religion, and more (Loveorabove).

On a personal note, I have always believed in bettering my spiritual wellness. I find my understanding through

religion and music. There are times when I contemplate too deeply the meaning of life, my existence, and the fact that I will eventually die. I frequently wonder what will happen afterward. It drives me to tears, crippling fear, and confusion. This is the indicator that I am spiritually unwell and consequently unhappy. When I am in the military I will make sure to keep up my spiritual wellness. When I am in need of good music and no company, my housing will provide the means toward my spiritual wellness. Such a debilitating lack of spiritual wellness must be remedied. I will do all in my power to make that happen.

Occupational Wellness

In my opinion, careers are one of the hardest things to choose and cultivate in life. It’s harder than growing plants, creating relationships, and finding happiness. The only more difficult than finding a career is raising children. Dealing with little, yet to be developed lives requires an entirely separate bag of tricks, motivation, and skills. Deciding a career comes in as a close second place of life difficulties.

The career path I want to follow consists of military service. It is a career of service to my country and, regarding my specific occupation choice it, a career of foreign intelligence where I decipher messages in a foreign language then translate it to English which can be more easily understood by us. It will take training and education to heighten myself to the levels needed for this career. I will need to go through 7.5 weeks of basic training, Airmen’s week, have received my high school diploma, score 110 on a test called the DLAB, be able to type 25 words per minute in the foreign language, and pass more training courses among other things. This training and education will be provided for me in return for my service and is of no cost to me, but to the military. This is good for me because the amount and value of the training and education I can receive is nothing to sneeze at. I can also specialize in this career field through choosing a certain language to develop an expertise in. Even though there are many languages to choose from such as Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, Russian, Korean, and more, I want to specialize in Mandarin because it is something I enjoy and something I am familiar with. I have big hopes and dreams for my career in the military and will put in the effort to make this want a reality.

Should life throw a curveball at me as it is always wont to do, I will do as my sister before me and go to community college. There I will get a degree in Chinese studies or Business or Communications. I have a free year at the college at the moment and would be able to get started on an Associate’s degree with little issue. This is a solid backup plan that I am glad to be in possession of because life is not fair and I might need to resort to this option.

My ultimate goal of any option I take is to enter the world of foreign relations with China. I want to represent my country in a positive light and better ties between our two countries. In my endeavors, I want to also bring about better education regarding foreign countries and the importance of learning other cultures and languages. Bettering foreign relations will help the American people see that it is important to have a relevant education in other cultures so we can have that respect for other humans and peoples. Whether I do this through the military route or the college route, I know that I will have a good level of occupational wellness. Any version of this plan will have me satisfied and enriched as is the meaning of being occupationally well. My experience with school and my tangible exposure to the military will allow me to remain with a good level of occupational wellness.

     Resumé

     Interview

An interview with my mother, a retired veteran from the Army.

• How did you choose your occupation in the military?
  • I wanted to do something in the medical field because it was something I had wanted to do since I was a kid.
• What did you before you started in your career?
  • I went to college for a year.
• How prepared were you for your career? How did you get to this level of preparedness or how did you wish you had prepared?
  • School prepared me for my career. I was continuously learning and keeping up to date with all of the new information, techniques, equipment, etc.
• Do you have any regrets or really outstanding memories of your time in the military?
  • I regret that I joined as a Reservist and never transferred over to Active Duty.
• What advice do you want to give to people starting their career paths in the military?
  • Take advantage of all the opportunities you come across and take it seriously. Whether you’re in for 4 years or 40 years, utilize all the benefits that it (the Military) can give you.

 

Financial Wellness

A haiku and a recipe to explain my personal take on financial wellness.

Haiku                                                                                                                                          

Finances, Money

The rulers of your future.

Maintain the control.

Recipe

This recipe is for financial wellness. Follow the directions closely to make great financial wellness.

• 3 cups of whole chunks of common sense 
• ½ cup of gut instinct
• 1 cup of responsibility
• 3 bundles of good financial advice, grated
• 1 good bank account
• ¾ cup of will to save money

            Steps

1. Grate your 3 bundles of good advice to get all the way down to the center of the advice and understand it.
2. Boil your 1 good bank account until half way to tender.
3. Set oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit.
4. Drain the bank account and put it into a large mixing bowl.
5. Add grated advice, pour in 1 cup of responsibility, add chunks of common sense, and sprinkle in ½ cup of gut instinct.
6. Mix and put into a greased pan.
7. Crumble the ¾ cup of will to save money across the top of the mixture in the pan.
8. Place pan into the oven for 25 minutes.
9. Remove pan from oven and enjoy your financial wellness.

Our brains are a very active, devious part of our bodies. They rule our bodies and thought processes. The Prefrontal Cortex is the part of the brain that is activated when dealing with the advertisement of brands. This brain part is what causes us as consumers to want to buy certain brands or items. Advertisements draw us in like moths to a flame. They appeal to different senses of virtue and values of people. The idea of what it means to be cool, and having certain things or brands makes you cool is a strategy that advertisements have been using for years. In the 1950’s, cool meant not conforming to society and staying a rebel. Now cool means having or being affiliated with something that is held in high regard by society. When companies are competing to have the “coolest” product or service they even attack each other in order to draw us in even further. One such instance was the competition between Apple and IBM. Apple marketed IBM users as lemmings in order to make a point by standing out from the crowd creating the illusion that Apple products and users were better than the norm. Such cut-throat tactics have good results because people now view Apple as a “cool” brand.

 

Having brands as a determining factor of a person’s worth or “coolness” is something that traps teens everywhere. Advertisements and the notion of “cool” affects our brains so much and in such a subtle way that we are blind to it. There are people who believe that brands mean nothing and have no affect on them. I disagree with the people who said owning a brand doesn’t say anything about them because any choice you make says something about you. Especially if that choice is owning a brand that has images, expectation, and assumptions attached to it. The things affiliated with the brand are then connected to the person who owns it therefore saying something about them. To ignore this is to negate the impact actions have on perceptions of people and how they themselves are viewed. To this day, there are certain brands being advertised that are viewed as cool. Converse, Adidas, Jordans, Apple, Nike, etc. are some brands that are seen in this light. Our brains are still causing us to go through the same thing as we have been for years because people everywhere are still being drawn in by brands and advertising.
Another situation our brain makes us deal with is the pain of paying. People feel the most pain when paying for something with physical money (cash). They feel the least pain when they can pay with a card of some kind. Companies can take advantage of this concept by charging even more money for their products or services because it causes people to pay with card and not notice the consequences. They also take advantage by not putting meters on things to give away how much money they are actually charging.