Counterintuitive Spring 2023

Doctors are not accountable for their murders and mistakes

Doctors go through a lot of schooling and train to become who they are today. They are experts in medicine and health practices. We would think they mistakes are very rare or cannot be made by these professionals, however, we are wrong. Mistakes happen all the time  whether it is small or big. The big problem about these mistakes is that Doctor’s are not accountable for them.

It is said that Doctor mistakes are one of the causes of death in the world today. We would think that doctors learn from their mistakes but they do not. Doctors should be accountable for their mistakes and kept under the supervision of the higher ups. According to the article Medical Staff Accountability will Improve Performance,  accountability is described as “the procedures and processes by which one party justifies and takes responsibility for its activities such as for achieving various organization goals”. Accountability will improve the quality and outcome of healthcare and give patients good healthcare.

If the doctors are not monitored and they do not have a specific goal they need to meet, then mistakes will happen more often. Unlike other professions, they are not monitored and not disciplined. This gives room for more mistakes. Treating the whole entire medical staff equally is important too. This creates a good environment for the employees and there is no jealously among who gets treated better than another person.

The whole entire medical team should be accountable and should abide by the same rules. This will create a system where everyone has equal responsibility and would serve the best quality health service . Accountability should also be tied to behavior of the health professional and the expectations they need to fulfill.

In the article To Err is Human: Building a safer health system, it says ” medical errors can be defined as the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim”. This can be viewed as a doctor giving the wrong diagnosis to a patient. We think that doctors are giving us the best care, however, they just gave us the wrong treatment. The doctors are not punished for their mistake so this misdiagnosis can happen to someone else. Medical errors are also costly in the doctors pay check and hospital bills. Most importantly, if the medical field is accountable for their actions, they will have a patients loyalty and trust.

If these health professionals are accountable for their medical mistakes, medical error will be less and patients will be satisfied with their health care. Doctors will regain the trust of patients and create a smooth and nice environment in the hospital.

Work cited

SeaWorld Is Putting Trainers In Danger

SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment claims to have been providing personal, interactive and education experiences with wildlife sea creatures for more than 50 years. The park creates orca shows year-round featuring “specialized” whale trainers. They take the claim to have held the first birth of a killer whale in captivity. What SeaWorld visitors do not know is that Sea World is harming ocean life. The employees of SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment need to take responsibility for their horrible actions and be shut down. Research shows that SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment’s captive lifestyles for orcas whales shorten their life expectancy, and the employees blame their animals for injuring the trainers.

Orca whales are wild animals. When trainers swim in a tank with a whale, they are entering whale territory. Whale trainers are not marine biologists; they are simply performers and are only taught basic skills for working with whales. Most SeaWorld visitors have the same common knowledge as some of the “professional” trainers. The whales’ relationship with the trainers is not built on unconditional love like a parent and child, but rather built on what the trainers give the whales. Sometimes harsh behavior given off from the orca is not because of lack of food. Veterinarian Eric Hoyt says, “In a few cases, we can attribute this behavior to disease or to the presence of frustrating or confusing situations” such as a small tank and nowhere to escape to and bullying from other whales. There have been zero reported deaths or injuries of humans by orca whales in the wild, but according to http://www.Orcahome.de, there have been about 130 reported deaths and injuries of humans by orcas in captivity. SeaWorld will always put the blame on their whales for injuring their trainers, rather than putting the blame on themselves for causing the whales to go insane and ultimately injure the trainers.

We trust professional, special animal doctors to treat and take care of our sick house pets. These special doctors are called veterinarians. We should not expect any less professional skills being used at SeaWorld on the animals. In order to become an animal trainer at SeaWorld, not too much extensive training takes place. Anyone who is willing, even if not qualified, can be hired as a trainer. We would think SeaWorld would bring in marine biologists to train and swim with the wild animals, but they do not. Being taught how to train an animal does not teach a person how to properly care for a creature or teach them how their body works, inside and out.  SeaWorld should bring in animal physiologists once a month to check up on the animals and make sure the animals are experiencing mental abuse. Marine biologists go through many years of schooling to learn about sea creatures. Their skills and knowledge are not brought to SeaWorld.

Work Cited

Hoyt, Erich. “Dangers to Trainers.” PBS. PBS, 1992. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.

PETA. “10 Things You Didn’t Know About SeaWorld – SeaWorld of Hurt.” SeaWorld of Hurt. N.p., 2015. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.

Shooting and Strategic Games Are Good For Us

If it’s true that an idle mind is the Devil’s playground, then video games are God’s amusement park. Studies done by the American Psychological Association on gamers are revealing the cognitive benefits inherent in playing shooting and strategic games. The next time we pick up a Playstation controller, we no longer have to feel guilty. We are enhancing our cognitive abilities.

Compared to puzzle or roleplaying games, the action-packed and oft-maligned shooter games yield the most benefits. The APA recruited in-experienced gamers to play a shooting game, then tested several abilities upon completion. Compared to subjects who hadn’t blown away virtual enemies, the shooter players displayed quicker and more accurate attention allocation, enhanced mental rotation abilities, and higher spatial resolution in visual processing. This is due to the high frames-per-second that shooter games require players to absorb and respond to. Placing blocks in Tetris takes time and allows for some consideration, while dodging enemy fire, finding the culprit, and quickly reacting requires higher functioning.

Medical imaging gives us a clear picture of the effect these fast-paced games have on the brain. Recent fMRI studies revealed that the fronto-parietal network (involved in attention allocation) was less active in shooter gamers than in non-gamers, meaning that the former are able to pay attention more efficiently and filter out irrelevant information more effectively.

Our attention spans and spatial abilities are not the only beneficiaries of gaming. Problem solving skills improve upon playing strategic games, which may not come as a surprise to anyone who has experienced the mental work and subsequent joy of completing a challenging puzzle or level. Aside from brief tutorials that detail which buttons do what, current video games generally give the player a blank canvas and free world to explore and figure out on their own. No step-by-step instruction manuals are provided, and players must learn through trial and error how to navigate the landscape. One study found that adolescents who played strategic games for an extended period of time went on to report increased problem solving abilities.

Strategic video games have led to progress in the fight against AIDS. This stark example highlights the real-world transferability of the skills employed while gaming. Researchers at the University of Washington created an online, cooperative game called Foldit. The public was tasked with modeling the genetic makeup of proteins in a three-week competition. The game proved a success, as the researchers managed to identify a solution of the crystal structure for an AIDs related monkey virus. The nonlinear and cooperative aspects of Foldit inspired gamers to use creative problem-solving techniques.

Decades ago, when gamers of the 70’s bounced a ball off a virtual wall in Pong, the possibilities of video games were not yet evident. In our digital age, shooter games are helping our attention spans and visual processing, while strategy games are leading to medical breakthroughs and inspiring new, trial-and-error focused methods of problem solving.

Works Cited

Granic, Isabela, Adam Lobel, and Rutger Engels. “Playing Video Games.”The Benefits of Playing Videogames (2006): n. pag. 2006. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

Coren, Michael. “Foldit Gamers Solve Riddle of HIV Enzyme within 3 Weeks.”Scientific American Global RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.

A Solution That Gives Addicts Their Fix, but Doesn’t Fix Their Addiction

Illegal drugs have proven themselves as issues in cities large and small for centuries, and there is seemingly no way to rid the streets of their presence.  Numerous issues have arisen on their behalf, from gang violence to black market trading. For a city, this is never a good thing, considering tourism and property value alike. Vancouver has sought many solutions to their drug problem, heroin specifically, and has come up with a rather unorthodox plan. Instead of setting up traditional rehabilitation centers with goals of curing heroin addicts of their addiction, they are installing heroin clinics, where addicts can sign up and go to get a supply of their fix. The hope of this program is to eliminate a significant amount of drug-related crime and violence by providing the drugs to the addicts directly. With this in place, it is also hopeful that addicts will then be able to divert their focus to other things, possibly leading to a better standard of life for them and those around them. However, this remains to be seen actually working, and will require a good deal of time before it can be determined whether or not it was ultimately successful or not. As of now, the program remains questionable; it does not fulfill all of the promises it initially made.

Violence over drugs is a result of the drugs being hard to obtain; they are illegal so smuggling and hiding the substances is common practice for those who wish to use them in some way. If centers are installed that hand out heroin like candy, surely violence then becomes a non-issue. No longer are addicts forced to find third party vendors for their fix. The problem here is, the centers do not hand out heroin like candy. There is a long, tedious process to sign up for them to make sure you are appropriately receiving the drug. This is a necessity to preventing unwanted hands on the heroin, but it also means that the addicts that should be getting it have a lot of red tape to cut through. Statistics show this, with only a few hundred heroin addicts currently enrolled in the program while thousands exist in the city. Surely these are not odds in favor of the program, hinting that the success predicted is not pulling through.

An addict’s life is ruled by his addiction. Focus is always on when they can get their next fix, or if they can at all. Some will go through horrific measures just to get their high, despite it costing them. That is, if it’s difficult to get it in the first place. With heroin centers distributing the drug, it is proposed that this will no longer be an issue for the addict. They can then, because they no longer have to worry about their heroin, focus on other aspects of life, such as holding down a job or spending more time with family. On the contrary, however, events unfolding like this might not be as surefire as they are laid out to be. It is hard to believe that addicts will suddenly experience a shift in life goals after getting free smack. What evidence is there to support that they won’t get even more involved in drug-related activities after they enroll? This program does not automatically spell future success, it can also spell future failure.

It is always a possibility that everything will work out the way it is desired and that a happy ending will always be the final result. However, the likelihood of that happening is slim and a lot of obstacles stand in the way. Vancouver’s heroin program fits in that model, being very hopeful but also setting itself up for a probably failure. While it is indeed a new and innovative practice for solving a citywide drug problem, it is far from a solution.

Work Cited

• NEW SOURCE: Woo, Andrea. “Vancouver Addicts Soon to Receive Prescription Heroin.”The Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail, 22 Nov. 2014. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.
• Campbell, Bradley. “Vancouver Combats Heroin by Giving Its Addicts the Best Smack in the World.” Public Radio International. PRI’s The World, 9 Feb. 2015. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.

Culture is something that is not seen, but yet understood. Culture is the set of beliefs and the food, way of life, etc. These things differ from each geographic area, well at least they used to. Now cultures in regions all over the world are being diminished because one culture wants to stand dominate when compared to the rest. That culture is the fast food of America. According to the website, Plosin.com, In 1955, only seven years after they opened their doors, McDonald’s had seven stores in the United States. As of 2015, McDonald’s alone, has over 35,000 in 118 countries. Since the dawn of Fast Food the american culture is demolishing other cultures. With the uprising of all of these fast food chain restaurants, the culture of the people in the corresponding area are at high risk for losing their way of life that has been around for years. Not only with the introduction of these fast food restaurants are causing people to gain weight from the food, but with the added weight it’s introducing a whole new world of health problems that were not there before.  

The citizens of the United States have always centered their culture around these fast food chains, but what about the people of Mexico? Have they always had fast food chains presence? According to the website, Cnn, the average dish in Mexico was colorful, healthy, and rich in culture. Ibid, also states that “A lot of the ingredients that we use in our dishes are delicacies”. How did a culture go from producing dishes such as cabrito ( baby goat), fresh salsa, and handmade corn and flour tortillas, to adipose, fatty foods such as McDonald’s and other comparable fast food chains? How did the people go from a healthy figure to obese people? The answer is the overpowering culture of the United States in Mexico. The United States has created this shadow over the culture of Mexico and has destroyed it and ruined the health of the nation. Once the passage of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) passed, it allowed fast food and carbonated beverages to be sold. As of 2015, according to Rt.com, Mexico currently has an obesity rate of 32.8 percent. This is mainly from the introduction of fast food restaurants, but also from the amount of soda that is now being drank in Mexico. When a persons weight sky rockets, they are at risk for copious amounts of diseases or other medical issues. Not only has the obesity rate gone through the roof, the cost of the medication is also getting expensive, medicine that is needed in order to cope with the obesity. According to the website, Helpguide, a study was done by Harvard University that involved 50,000 men and more than 120,000 women. The study relieved that Obesity makes the person open to increased chance to 20 times for diabetes. It also boosted their chance of developing high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and gallstones. In order to cope with these health issues the person is going to need medication to help them get rid of the health problem. According to Who.int, the amount total for the government on these medications for diabetes alone is 2 billion dollars. This then is passed onto the user through health insurance charges. In 2013, a person that has a good health insurance, would have to pay about 500 pesos in order to see a doctor, but what about someone that doesn’t have insurance, or insurance that isn’t comparable to other insurances, it could cost them even more to see a doctor and affect the pill price. These fast food chains are dictatorial in areas like this and destroying the local culture of Mexico and making it a worse place.

Not only has Mexico’s culture been affected by the fast food shadow created by America, Other countries such as the countries that make up Asia, are also having their culture destroyed by these chains. With the introduction of these chains, Asia has only seen the negative sides of the invasion. According to NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov, Asia,alone, has 60 percent of the worldwide total of people that are diagnosed with diabetes. Asia used to be a country that their main diet was centered around white rice and the people that lived there had such fast metabolisms they could burn off the calories quickly. With the introduction of the sugary sodas, processed foods filled with fat and carbs, their metabolism has slowed down and the weight gain increased. Asia is home to over 2,000 Mcdonalds and countless other restaurants that take away from the original culture infused food that used to be eaten there. Asia already has a weak health care system and many people go without help from the government to cope with these diseases and now more and more people are going to die young or suffer from the obesity-related diseases.

These are just two examples of what happens when fast food chains are built in other areas of the world. These two examples are prime examples as to why cultures, that are different in every location in the world, are being wiped out. Mexico and Asia are just two examples of what happens when fast food chains become too powerful and damage their culture. These fast food chains are responsible for making the people of respected land to become obese. That obesity then has caused health problems that were not one of the central problems of the land. With the increase health risks it only has made the insurance cost skyrocket through the roof and many people can not afford the medication or doctor visits in order to help cope with these problems. The fast food chains are making people suffer through the entire lives. They do not care about the destruction of culture, they’re only out their in order to create more revenue.

Works Citied

“The History of McD’s.” The History of McD’s. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.

Eatocracy Editors. “5@5 – The Truth about Mexican Food.” Http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/08/24/55-the-truth-about-mexican-food/. N.p., Aug.-Sept. 2011. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

“How Excess Weight Affects Your Health.” http://www.helpguide.org/harvard/how-excess-weight-affects-your-health.htm. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.

“Diabetes: The Cost of Diabetes.” http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs236/en/. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2015.
Pan, An, Vasanti Malik, and Frank B. Hu. “Exporting Diabetes to Asia: The Impact of Western-Style Fast Food.” Circulation. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.

Police Brutality Goes Beyond Just Murder Cases

Growing up I remember all of my friends wanting to become police officers because they prevented crime and had a reputation for keeping everyone safe. They are always dressed in neat uniforms, on average make a decent salary of about $56,260 a year and are allowed to carry a Glock 22. I’m sure none of my friends were aware of how dangerous cops can be as they abuse sometimes abuse their authority. A common result of this is police brutality which is the deliberate use of excessive force that is physical, by law enforcement. In most known cases of this brutal behavior, victims normally ends up dead. However, the very few who survive the beatings end up with psychological disorders that can be treated but not cured.

The effects of brutality aren’t always immediate and obvious. It takes plenty of doctor visits before victims can be diagnosed with a psychological trauma that was a result of brutal behavior enacted by a cop. However, when victims are identified with a specific illness it is primarily Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a serious psychiatric disorder that normally occurs from life threatening situations which makes sense as to why most victims of police brutality develop it. It is not an immediate illness which means it can take years before it unfolds for some people or it can begin right after a frightening event. Also, the symptoms of PTSD is hallucinations, flashbacks, lost of interest, outburst of anger, irritability and insomnia which can sometimes be confused with other illnesses such as Bipolar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Schizophrenia that have the same effects. Unfortunately, PTSD cannot be cured but it can be treated by a variety of medications like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, etc that control the feelings of anxiety. In most cases therapy is highly recommended to help victims cope with their issues but most do not take advantage of it as a result of lost of interest.

The real impact is on the emotional lives of the victims of abuse and trauma, like this commenter on Copblock who states: “…please stop victimizing people especially when they are rendered as defenseless it is not necessary. Bullying is NOT allowed in our schools and it most CERTAINLY should not be tolerated on the streets especially by authority that we are supposed to be able to depend on.” This commenter suffers from PTSD, frequent anxiety attacks and is borderline agoraphobic all because of an attack by cops. Before encountering this, she made it clear that she instilled all her trust into the law enforcement as she believed that they had a job of protecting people not hurting them. Now this victim is left with living in fear sun up to sun down which impacts her emotionally and mentally as she is unable to live a normal life because she is afraid of what others are capable of doing to her. After all the police who are supposed to protect her didn’t hesitate to beat her down. What makes her think a stranger off the street won’t attempt to do the same?

Overall police brutality is wrong and should never occur as often as it does. It leaves both innocent and guilty people dead or scarred mentally and physically from trauma if they were the slightest bit of lucky to survive it. It has a significant effect on our society as it impacts the way a person lives on a daily basis and leaves our most sensible officers with a poor reputation.

Works Cited

“Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).” WebMD. WebMD. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.

“The Long Term Effects of Police Brutality | Cop Block.” Cop Block. 15 Feb. 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Easy-to-Read).” NIMH RSS. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.

Ryan, Tom. “Police Brutality: The Impact on the Victims.” EHow. Demand Media. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.

“I hope she be ok and learn from this bad experience”

Victim blaming is the beginning of a domino effect. First, when rape victims are blamed, shamed or turned away by their peers, family, police or their rapist after confronting their tragedy, they are hesitant to file a report and go through with a trial with trying their rapist. This resistance then causes the rapist to get away with the rape, and more people think that the consequences for rape are morphed. They may face legal punishment but are still supported by their community, or they may not even be sentenced at all. Either way, the blaming and absence of justice leaves victims battered and often unable to heal emotionally.

The cause of rapists’ success is essentially rooted in victim blaming. It’s been this way since around 1670 when the English judge Sir Matthew Hale wrote that husbands cannot be guilty of rape because through their “matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract.” Therefore, the wife is at fault because her husband owns her right to want to have sex. So, a woman’s husband got away with raping her because she was the one who gave him her rights. Today, martial rape is illegal in all 50 states of America, but it still happens. Mandy Boardman, mother of two, wrote about her nightmare of being rape by her own husband. She explains that he would drug her with Ambien and/or Xanax without her knowledge or consent and would then rape her. She found video on his phone as proof. After divorcing, Boardman felt the need to report her ex-husband. In court, he was found to be guilty of six felonies, but he would not be going to prison. Instead, he would be able to go home, and live his life under house arrest. Boardman explains that the judge actually said, “that my ex may have been a crappy husband, but he was a good father and that I should ‘forgive him.’” This judge’s actions insulted Boardman, as well as shamed her. No one would tell a victim of a robbery to “forgive” the criminal who stole his or her belongings. A victim of robbery once trusted that his or her belongings were safe. Boardman had once trusted her husband not to drug and rape her. It is a tragedy that a judge, someone in extreme authority, would feel it was okay to explicitly shame a victim of rape into believing forgiveness of her assailant was due, simply because he was once her husband. The reality of Boardman’s relationship with her attacker makes it much more horrifying, and no measure of forgiveness should ever be granted.

The severity of victim blaming has indeed escalated and progressed over the years. There are different ways to blame a victim, and one of those is to slut shame. Slut shaming is criticizing someone’s sexual activity through condemnation of one’s behavior, appearance, values, culture, or life choices. For example, in Chicago in December 2012, three teenage boys raped a 12-year-old girl at gunpoint. When it was revealed that the rapists were going to be tried as adults, people felt the need to take to social media to share their opinions on the situation. People slut shamed the young girl by saying horrible things like; “just a loose drunk slut,” “Something she never should have done. A 12 year old girl shouldn’t be associating with 16 year old teenage boy. Some girls are advanced at this age and she should have known what he wanted her to do when he invited her to his home. No doubt she didn’t expect his friends to be there. I hope she be ok and learn from this bad experience,” and “SHOULD BE AWARE OF THEIR SURROUNDINGS regardless how drunk u are.” These people sincerely believe that this young girl is at fault for being raped because of her decisions and behavior. These illogical claims made to shame the young girl teach her that this tragedy is her fault. Even though she is not old enough to consent and even though she was raped at gunpoint, she is guilty. This shaming will continue. Others who read the claims will realize that the perpetrators receive the support while the victim is condemned. An idea that stems from these comments is that people who read the claims should take more precaution to keep them safe. The fact of the matter is, however, no one should have to take “more” precaution. A 12-year-old girl should be able to hang out with boys without having to worry about a gun being pulled on her. A woman should be able to put on false eyelashes and red lipstick and get a drink at a bar without being harassed by people on the street or at the bar. Women shouldn’t have to go to great lengths to keep themselves safe, contrary to what they are taught throughout our lives. The buddy system, going to the bathroom in groups, not wearing headphones while walking home at night, are a few examples of ways women are already trying to keep themselves safe. What else are we supposed to do? The answer relies on the participation of the other gender involved. Men should, simply put, respect boundaries and privacy. Unfortunately, that seems a bit too hard for many people to comprehend, thus there are numerous accounts where women are taken advantage of. Therefore, the domino effect prevails: victims are blamed, rapists are endorsed in some aspect of society, and victims are left in the dust without closure, leaving future victims hesitant to go through with legal actions of their own.

Not all the types of victim blaming are easy to identify, either. An example of this is a monologue about a man who was raped by his female teacher when he was a child. He says, “All the guys would laugh at me about it, calling me faggot for not enjoying it and I was like, ‘psych, I totally did enjoy it.’ Then they high-fived me and told me I was cool and that Ms. Tupper was hot and they were jealous.” Here, the perpetrators of the blaming are “all the guys.” They shamed him because he did not find being molested as a pleasurable experience. This caused him, as the victim, to adapt to their ideals by not taking his rape seriously. Since he did not accept this as a traumatic experience, he is unable to emotionally heal. He proves this by saying, “It was the most popular I’d been in my whole life. It was the happiest I’ve ever been. And I wasn’t happy, but sometimes as a guy, if you want to fit in you have to hide your pain and humor is a great way of doing that and that’s why I sincerely think that rape is hilarious. Because I have to.” He does not confront the candidness of what happened to him in order to prevent the weight of the tragedy from tearing him apart. Instead, he treats it like a joke because that is what he was shamed to do.

Eichelberger, Erica. “Men Defining Rape: A History.” Mother Jones. 27 August 2012. Web. 2 November 2015.

“A Guy Talks About Rape From A Man’s Perspective. (And It’s Not What You Think, Either.)” Upworthy. 14 April 2014. Web. 2 November 2015.

Turner, Natasha. “Rape-splaining: 10 Examples of Victim Blaming.” Ms. Magazine. 28 May 2013. Web. 2 November 2015.

Boardman, Mandy. “My Husband Raped Me.” Time. 29 July 2015. Web. 17 November 2015.

Human beings are superheroes. We can fly, we have X-ray vision, we can climb buildings. We also have the power to change our minds about how we view the world. There is no need to get lost in the everyday routine of life. We are strong, intelligent, capable beings, and the power to live life to the fullest is right in our hands. We only have to accept that there are no limitations to what the world can offer us. If we open our eyes to what inspires us, the world is our playground.

As Ken Robinson states in his book “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything,” figuring out what inspires and fires us and then getting out there and doing it results in what he calls “the element.” He describes the element as the “meeting point between natural aptitude and personal passion.” (page 21) When we find this element, we discover a place where our natural capabilities and the things we most love to do collide. We don’t experience superficial happiness, which is fleeting and totally based on emotion. We are connected to a deep inner sense of worth, of fulfillment, and an inherent knowledge that this, this passion we have found for ourselves, is us. 

As Os Guinness describes in his book “The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life,” we want to live for something definite. (page 2) We want to leave our legacy on the world. But getting to this point isn’t going to be easy. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. The key to finding our passion is first of all, being ok with who we are. If we constantly berate ourselves and self-loathe, there is no way we will ever be able to truly know what inspires us. We need to take the time to sit, breathe, and just be. To be at peace with ourselves is to be able to think calmly about our lives and find the inspiration to pursue our passions. Finding our passion leads to a deeper sense of fulfillment, which leads to a meaningful life.

Works Cited

Guinness, Os. “The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life.” Thomas Nelson, Inc, Oct. 7, 2003.

Robinson, Ken. “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything.” Penguin, 2009.