The Pyschology of Everday Life . 2000 word portfolio consisting of the Essay

The Pyschology of Everday Life . 2000 word portfolio consisting of the following Assesment 1 - Applying psychology to ever - Essay Example In today’s material and media driven society, it has become important to have a fit and shapely body if one is to enjoy a healthy self image. Hence, currently the goal of my life is to reduce weight and to achieve a desired shape with the help of exercise and healthy diet. However, it is not as easy as it seems. After referring to different studies in the field of psychology, ayurveda and spirituality, I realized that being overweight is not just a physical problem. The tendency of overeating and accumulating fats lies in the psychological and emotional make up of a person. This means that if one has to achieve a perfect weight and a shapely body, then one has to change not only the eating habits but also the psychological aspects of the personality. Hence, to become a happier person in life, what is more important than reducing weight is to gain a healthy self image, emotional clarity and peaceful relationship with ‘self’, because one can achieve happiness only w hen one is at peace with the ‘self.’ The Root Of Problem Happiness is the most important aspect of a fulfilling life. People feel worthy and content only when they are happy with themselves. Sadly, instead of attaching happiness with the internal feelings and personality, it is related to appreciation, social success and social acceptance. Hence, people become happy only when they get appreciated and accepted by people around them. However, this leads to a major problem as it makes people depend on others for their happiness. Instead of doing things that make them happy, people start following the goals and ‘living standards’ that are set by others for them. This leads to misery and self destructive behavior pattern (Chopra, 1994, p. 42). Genuine physical beauty and emotional happiness can be achieved only when a person practices self-acceptance (Chopra, 1994, p. 42). However, self-acceptance does not come easily. The idea of ‘perfect life’ and ‘perfect body’ is shaped by the television and print media and not on the basis of self knowledge. However, it is necessary to understand that every human being is unique and hence, has a unique body and mind system (Chopra, 1994, p. 18). If a person tries to copy other people’s weight pattern or food habits, then he becomes vulnerable to losing his individuality and health. Hence, the healthier way to reduce weight is to understand the root cause of the problem and try to treat it rather than trying to reduce the weight only through exercise and diet. However, to analyze and understand the root of the problem, it is necessary to look at the problem through the psychological perspective. The problem of me being overweight is not a recent one. I have observed that this is an intermittent problem since my childhood. I have never been an obese child. However, I do have a tendency to gain weight when I go through stressful situations in life. This might be because I also tend to eat when I am tense or feel emotionally closed. This shows that it is my emotional pattern that makes me to eat unhealthy food and become overweight as I am not able to control binging on fast food. Hence, my problem is emotional based and not body based (Chopra, 2004, p.103). It has been found that for people who are emotionally dissatisfied and unhappy, ‘food’ becomes a source of satisfaction and happiness (Chopra, 2004, p.103). The habit of binging and overeating comes from the feeling of emptiness in the

Paris in 1792 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Paris in 1792 - Essay Example The events of this year thus, also heralded a new form of governance, complete democracy as the major form of governance. Even though democracy was followed in varying degrees in many parts of Europe, it was the French Revolution that gave the impetus for its establishment as the sole form of government acceptable to the people of a nation. As is the case with any historic event, the actual event is preceded by a build up consisting of mounting tensions, resentment and dissatisfaction on the part of certain communities. The involvement of the French government in the American Revolution and the huge expenditure that this interference had cost had created widespread dissatisfaction among the middle classes of France, who felt that this expenditure was needless and could have been avoided, had the government been more astute in the evaluation of the situation. The refusal of the nobility to have helped out the government had meant that an unfair share of the taxes required for the expe nses were extorted out of the bourgeoisie. This bred a lot of resentment amongst them, not only against the monarch, Louis XVI, but also against the nobility of France. France’s unsuccessful attempts to defeat England in war had also placed a heavy burden upon the exchequer that fell largely upon the French bourgeoisie whose standards of living dipped drastically. The constitution of the National assembly, a body of people who were picked out of the middle classes was an important development during the year of 1792. This led to an understanding on the part of both the king and the bourgeoisie of the power of a collective. Michael David Sibalis remarks upon this understanding of the power of the collective as an outcome of the class-consciousness that had seeped into the minds of the middle classes of France, as is seen in the emergence of â€Å"mutual aid societies† in Paris before 1789. These societies enabled the mobilization of the masses during the constitution of middle class citizens during the creation of the National Assembly that was created for the purpose of the creation of a national constitution for France that would invest the bourgeoisie with more powers that it had till then. This constitution of the National Assembly represents, for Sibalis, an attempt on the part of the Parisian middle classes to â€Å"provide themselves with some minimal economic security through their own efforts† (http://fh.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/1/1.extract). Many of these efforts were frustrated by later events of the Revolution but the events of 1789 displayed a passion and fervor on the part of the Parisian middle classes to rise above their petty divisions and fight for the causes of equality that the French Revolution stands for, even today. The fight was also against what Barry M. Shapiro refers to as an â€Å"irrational and inhumane judicial system† (Barry M. Shapiro, Revolutionary Justice in Paris, 1789-1790, ix) that refused to treat every subject of the state equally. The embodiment of this passion and fervor and one of the turning points of the revolution, according to historians like Eric Hobsbawm, was the storming of the Bastille on the morning of the fourteenth of July in 1789 (Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of