Emotions are our responses to internal or external events. A woman having a headache demonstrates it by either touching her hands to her head or saying it out that she has a headache. When we see a crime being committed on the street, our faces register signs of dismay and shock. On my face, your face, by body movements, by choice of words, by a silent whisper, a nod of the head, a smile of approval, a loving kiss, a hateful glance, emotions are expressed in countless ways that the senses can perceive and receive a message.
Some emotions are spontaneous. In my middle high school classes, it amazes me how the children sometimes begin drumming on the desks or exclaiming in alarm in reaction to some information in the lecture or to an answer to a question. Some are also premeditated.
Whatever the case may be, emotions are message bearers in that they convey to the observer the feelings, goals, needs, desires and social intentions of the creator of the emotion. Whether love at first sight exists or not, the reaction expressed by an observer to sex or other visual stimuli, was as a result of a emotion produced.
If happiness is appraised as a favorable and benign emotion that we all are attracted to, then what is anger? An expressive emotion that translates into a frustrated goal and taking the blame out on others.
Emotions surely convey messages and not just few, but lots of messages. Emotions then are worth studying and understanding if we want to build healthy social relationships.
The next blog article, Series 2: Why emotions can drive a second emotional response, describes the influential role of emotions in social life.
The rest of the series:
MJ captivated thousands with his emotional music.Source:Wikimedia Commons.
If you watch any video of Michael Jackson, you’d be amazed at how he creatively uses his emotions – his voice, face, hands and body movements – to convey messages that are meant to influence you. Emotions are not only meant to influence others in social relations, it also determines our reactions and personal feelings. Take for example a man who sees a snake on his path. He feels the emotion of fear and decides either to run or look for a stick to kill it. Emotions regulate and coordinate humans and their relationship with others. Emotions could trigger a fight or a flight response.
A nation could go to war riding on the wave of emotions.
Understanding how our emotions determine our existence and using them to human advantage both at an intrapersonal and interpersonal level is then important. This end-of-year special series of blog articles will describe a model developed by Van Kleef that was developed towards this end, but on the interpersonal level. The model is named Emotions As Social Information (EASI) model.
The EASI describes human emotions as signals from one’s face, voice, bodily posture, choice of words etc that were expressed to influence the observer and trigger either an emotional response or trigger his brain to make deductions on what message(s) the emotion was meant to convey based on his information processing ability and social context.
The six series of blog articles that are focused on this theme are:
What is X?
Hint: You can change the angle of view - 90, 180 degrees, turn it upside down, whatever, to make out a different series.
I can't wait for the first correct answer!
It is not always possible to suppress emotions like anger or sadness during a crisis. When corporate image is at stake, it is rather that conventional wisdom be rethought. For the sake of the public image, to motivate the workforce, and for so many other seemingly positive reasons, demonstrating negative emotions was perceived as against the corporate good. Does it mean that all negative emotions are bad? When angry employees voice their opinions are they rebels who should be shoved out the door? Positive management leads to positive leadership.
Sometimes, the prevailing attitudes do not reflect desired positive outcomes (pdf). Sometimes, the status quo could be wrong although there are exceptions to every rule.
Bereavement could build social connections. Source: Wikimedia Commons
When, could expressions of negative emotions at the corporate arena be a force for positive results or positive changes? Management should evaluate these facts when making a decision.
Every situation is unique:
Sometimes, workers should be encouraged to express negative emotions. Managers should ensure that such negative demonstrations are constructive and for the “common good. Even positive emotions like compassion, a positive emotion, when taken to extremes, can lead to what is termed “compassion fatigue,” which has been shown to induce stress in perfectionists and overly conscientious individuals. No two situations can be the same.
Political nature of the situation:
When workers perceive injustice or unfairness, they usually have channels for lodging complaints. When these channels become unfair or inefficient, employees organize themselves. The consequences for doing so could be grave or positive; the outcomes depend on the individuals involved, their corporate political ambitions, the genesis of the negative emotion as well as other factors.
Organizational leadership style:
When management is ineffective, would it be wrong for workers to voice their complaints with a view of eliciting change? A company whose personnel department is inefficient could be recruiting workers who are unfit for the roles employed. It has been found that when followers in the organization highly agree with the top management leadership style, staff response to negative emotions turn out most times to be more positive than negative.
How the emotion is directed:
Some emotions like sadness motivates the positive behavior of building social connections when motivated by social loss rather than status loss. Corporate workers want to appear in control of their emotions so they’d rather do away with negative emotions. Yet, when a loss is shared with others, whether positive or negative, it offers an opportunity for openness and intimacy, for expanding personal corporate social circles.
Status associated with the job function:
Some workers like teachers and helpline workers are looked down upon in the society. These are negative emotions directed maybe to them as individuals and/or to their job functions. People do not want to be associated with those “kinds of jobs”. Helpline workers who deal with isolated, upset, abusive or suicidal individuals are perceived as carrying social “dirt” and they’d rather not be tainted with it.
How the emotion is perceived:
Just as every situation is unique, the individuals to which the emotion is directed to are also unique. Everybody reacts differently to anger and happiness. Some show a strong sense of affection for emotions that are directed towards them while others tend to interpret extreme and moderate meanings to emotional situations, depending on their ilk.
Positive corporate leadership desires outcomes to positive and negative emotions that reflect the expected bottom line: motivated employees, agreeable follower-ship, emotionally healthy workforce and profits. It would be conventionally wise then for management to recognize the existence of negative emotions and their place in corporate life.
These images look archived but I liked them that was why I'm having them on my blog. For sake of the memories.
Actually, I was tinkering with R software after a little lull in the Probability and Statistics book I am presently reading: Probability and Statistics for Engineering and The Sciences by Jay L. Devore.
Then I chanced on a Venn Diagram Package made for R Software.
Looks like four atoms juxtaposed. 4 sets intersecting actually.Venn Diagram Package, R Software
As the caption says, it looks like atoms falling on themselves like noodles. I just loved it. Hmmm! It is actually four sets intersecting. Very good work!
Then the second one, like a spacecraft. Funny, right?
5 sets intersecting, a quintuple, but looks like a spacecraft. Venn Diagram Package, R Software
The graphics might not be state-of-the-art, but I love them.
If you simultaneously browse the Web, listen to music, play video games, use e-mail or talk on the phone while watching TV, then you are a victim to media multitasking. By engaging in this practice, you leave yourself open to losing control of cognitive and emotional abilities that are essential for resolving anxieties and depression. This is because media multitasking decreases grey matter in the brain controlling these functions.
MRI. Side of the head. Ranveg
It’s true. A negative relation has been found between media multitasking and grey matter density. To refresh your science, grey matter is in the brain and includes regions involved in muscle control and sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision making and self-control. By engaging in activities that can decrease your grey matter density, you could lose control of important functions such as enduring stress, ability to maintain your sense of balance under distraction and also make yourself open to much emotional problems.
In a first of its kind study, two researchers have found only a link, and not a causality chain, between grey matter density and media multitasking. A decision on causality has not been reached for two reasons:
Low grey matter density is linked to lose of cognitive and emotional control
Persons with low grey matter are more attracted to media multitasking.
Exposure to multitasking can result in reduced grey matter density.
It’s been found that a high and regular use of several medias do reduce grey matter density by altering the structure of the brain.
So, it’s like the chicken and the egg problem. Which caused which?
This question is particularly pertinent since the use of social media through various channels is on the rise and this is believed to be likely addictive.
If you often media multitask and you cannot help it, take back control of your life. You could be losing your grey matter. You can reclaim it though through various activities that can change the plastic structure of the brain like learning to play music and studying to be a mathematician. In fact, studying mathematics increases grey matter density in the frontal part of the brain if studied for a long time, improving your ability to handle complex problems. Learning to juggle and understanding the maps of a city are also of help in increasing grey matter density.
This calls for discretion in the use of media. Activities like media multitasking that can cause brain structure alterations should be approached with care, otherwise you’d be faced with permanent brain damage.
The list is growing of the number of measurable characteristics for which labeling and description could be applied to you and I – fingerprint, vein scanning, DNA, face recognition, retina, body scent etc. In a unique way, a Swedish engineering student has made biometrics currency.
The innovation, scanning your palm to pay for items in a supermarket, scans the vein pattern on your palms for a payment to go through. Faster, easier and cheaper than a credit card.
Thumbs up to Fredrik Leifland. Your palm can now rest in your purse.
Are cellphones addictive? If cellphones are addictive, would you take your kids off one? Both questions are controversial and pose serious challenges for parents because teenagers are presently using cellphones more often in school that they seem to be dependent on those devices.
What is addiction? www.psychologytoday.com, defines it thus:
Addiction is a condition that results when a person ingests a substance (e.g., alcohol, cocaine, nicotine) or engages in an activity (e.g., gambling, sex, shopping) that can be pleasurable but the continued use/act of which becomes compulsive and interferes with ordinary life responsibilities, such as work, relationships, or health. Users may not be aware that their behavior is out of control and causing problems for themselves and others.
Parents, you can do more! Source: Wikimedia Commons
So, do cellphones fall into this category? Parents should be on the lookout for telltale signs that cellphone use by their kids are causing problems. Some students have been ingenious in using cellphones to cheat in class. College students have been reported to be agitated when their cellphone is not with them which behavior could result in internal and external conflict in the classroom. Your kids could find themselves unable to face the vagaries of life if they dodge behind a cellphone when challenging and awkward situations arise in school. Parents should be on the lookout for telltale signs.
This conclusion and more were arrived at in an extensive study of the cellphone use of college students in 24 cellphone activities of which 11 were found to be close to being termed addictive. The activities include calling, texting, emailing, banking, taking photos, using apps like iPod, Bible, Google Maps and Pinterest. Texting, sending emails and checking on Facebook took much of the students’ time than necessary.
Parents should help their kids map out a boundary for cellphone use. A useful tool like the cellphone should not turn out to be a device that should disrupt their lives because they lacked self-control. I think this is a call for action.
When it concerns remembering conceptual information, taking long notes with your pen or biro triumphs over taking notes using your laptop.
As for recalling common knowledge or facts, both methods of transcription were found equally adequate.
Your mind tends to process the information it receives while taking long notes; when using a laptop for taking notes, most persons just write out what they hear verbatim without processing them. One more reason why when you’re involved in an important meeting or session, you’d better go for taking long notes with a pen and paper.
Lastly, long note takers tend to recall facts jotted down a week or more after the original notes were taken better than persons who typed them out originally using a laptop.
Overall, even where taking notes on a laptop will be the norm, the good old pen and paper still triumphs, especially when that note will be important weeks later.
When you were in high school what was more important to you: passing your exams so you can qualify for University education, or understanding in-depth the subjects being taught so you can use them later in life?
To be honest, the latter was more important to me, but on the day of my matriculation at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to study Zoology, I decided University teaching and learning was a whole new ball game. I had to change my orientation in learning from cramming facts to understanding reasons.
I believe I’m not the only guilty party. A recent report from the University of East Anglia’s leading researchers in education and sciences reveals that many university freshers struggle to remember basic concepts from their A-levels.
Is the problem at the doorstep of teachers at the high school levels or the fact that they students have to adjust to a different approach to learning at the university level, or on the motivation of the students themselves, the report doesn’t tell. Yet, the report involved students from the leading UK universities committed to research and outstanding teaching and learning experience, or the Russell Group. These highly motivated students could only remember forty (40%) percent of what they learned at the A-levels.
That calls for concern for all parties involved. Maybe A-level curricula has to be redesigned to reflect our age of iPhones and smart phones, where a considerable number of high school students even use these devices in class, or at the undergraduate level.
Wherever the solution lies, it is instructive to know that the longer it takes you to enter the university after you’re A-levels, the lesser of your A-level knowledge that will be retained. It calls for sober reflections, right?
Prior to a sporting event detecting persons who could develop cardiovascular diseases or suddenly fall dead from a cardiac arrest is a challenge. Sudden death during sporting events, especially endurance races of 10 to 20km, is likely in a high number of both professional and amateur athletes. Cardiac arrhythmia, often termed irregular heartbeat, has been reported more often than heat stroke as a cause of sudden death during sporting events.
On the other hand, Lior Yankelson, MD, and Pinchas Halpern, MD, are of a different opinion; life-threatening events during endurance races are more likely to be caused by heat stroke than by cardiac arrhythmia, especially in warm climates. The high incidence reported is not limited to sporting or endurance races but is also found in college football players, high school athletes and experienced runners who were thought to be immune.
What then are some ways to prevent heat stroke during sporting events, and other causes of cardiovascular collapse?
Acclimatization to warm climates
It is recommended that athletes give themselves a 10 to 14 days period of environmental acclimatization before engaging in endurance races. Event planners should also acknowledge the need for athlete proper adjustment to the racing environment. Of 10.9 million runners assessed in the United States during a 10 years period, 59 (incidence rate: 0.54 per 100,000 participants) had cardiac arrest.
Recently ill or persons recuperating from a febrile illness should be discouraged from participating in endurance races.
Exercising imposes heat stress on the body and elimination of body heat is necessary for proper adjustment. Fever impairs the ability of the body to do this.
Prompt diagnosis.
When heat stroke is promptly diagnosed, health care providers can immediately initiate cooling therapy. Athlete’s temperatures are usually monitored using rectal or core probes and where necessary, cooling procedures are instantly instituted. It is a challenge though to record core body temperatures during physical activity. A potential solution is an ingestible telemetric body core temperature sensor.
Routine screening.
Mandatory screening of all athletes prior to participation in competitive sports has been recommended where cardiac death is a possibility. For screening to work, the benefits should be higher than the costs, effective tests should be available, and it can be proved that avoidance will prevent the risk. Some events carry out a pre-participation electrocardiogram (ECG) screening. Exercise or cardiac stress testing have also been used. Some events require participants sign a declaration of “good health” which might not be adequate enough.
Don’t forget water.
Ingest adequate amount of water during sporting activities, including endurance races. Also, take electrolyte drinks and have frequent rest breaks.
My beloved grandma died last month. It was a deeply felt pain for me and other members of our family. I and tens of her grandsons attended the burial which took place at our family compound in Otulu village. From the day I stepped my foot in the village at Otulu, on Wednesday, the 27th of August, to the night of the burial, I have been learning lots of things about customs, traditions and the legacy of grayheadedness.
1. A family is composed of different individuals with different point of views.
A family cannot be controlled by one single person, no matter how rich or influential. A family moves towards a singular direction as if controlled by a single head, as if with a singular purpose but is ready to derail from that direction at every moment – even a second’s notice. If you fail to recognize the rights and responsibilities of even one member in the family, the direction, no matter how noble, how grandiose, can be scuttled and scuttled without interference from any quarter in the world.
2. Your home can be a warzone or a refuge of peace.
Your home can be a bed of roses. A place that is filled with love; peace its lifeblood. Also, your home can be a warzone with historical wounds and fighting. It depends on how you turn the screws. The father, mother, children and extended family members each have their rights and responsibilities which each one of them is jealous of; neglect any and you’ll be creating a home of rancor and bitterness.
3. Customs and traditions are fallible.
True, we cherish our African customs and traditions, but they are fallible. It will be against my conscience to sacrifice cows or goats to bury my grandma. We cannot throw all of them overboard without scrutinizing each and every one of them. These customs were what preserved our Africanhood before the dawn of civilization; they helped our people to survive before education came. I believe we can cherish the joyfulness of understanding these customs and rejecting the ones that are against our humanity; those that were created in the age of ignorance. But the ones that make us unique and great, that bring out the best in us, should never be trampled with.
4. Advanced preparation is a key to safety.
Preparing for an event weeks or months before they come is cheaper and can save lives. Making ad hoc arrangements because you are trying to cut corners or because you are harboring sentiments against other members in the family could be costly and unwise.
5. Marriage is a sacred institution that ensures human survival.
Have you been to an event and realized that singleness is a disadvantage? I discovered this during the burial of my grandma. Singleness is not only a curse, it is the greatest disadvantage a man can give to himself.
6. Money makes things happen.
Money can make things happen but left on its own, money is a useless commodity. With people driven with purpose who are ready to make things possible, money becomes a vehicle that has unprecedented reach. If you have people who are behind you and no money, you’ll all be sitting ducks. If you have money without people behind you, your money is just useless commodity. Join both together, and you can move mountains.
Are there any realities you have discovered from a burial, wedding etcetera that is related to our African customs? Share them on the comment box below.
The tendency of the home team to win more often than the visiting team is termed home advantage. It is widely believed that home advantage is a significant factor in football matches, but the factors at play are not yet conclusive. Three factors, though, have been well acknowledged: a sizable crowd support for the home team, familiarity of the home team to the stadium environment and thirdly, travel fatigue and disruptions in travel arrangements of the visiting team.
Better adjustment to the turf and lower levels of stress are some of the reasons Niels van de Ven suggests gives home teams better advantage than the visiting team. Jet lag and traveling long distances are also significant. In a recent discussion paper, Michela Ponzo and Vincenzo Scoppa believe that crowd support matters more, providing about 60 percentage points while the other two factors contribute 40 percentage points to home advantage.
Ponzo and Scoppa evaluated data from the Italian “Serie A” both for same-stadium derbies and normal matches. You should recall that same-stadium derbies are matches that involve teams that share the same stadium. A good example is Milan and Inter Milan in the “Serie A”. Using data from same-stadium derbies would make travel fatigue and familiarity with the stadium environment neutral factors.
They discovered that home advantage contributes significantly to team performance. Playing at home both for same-stadium derbies and normal matches increases a team’s probability of winning by 23 percentage points (23%). The points earned in the league by the two teams before the match along with their ranking in the league table are also contributory. Taking into consideration points earned by the two teams, the probability of the home team’s winning was found to be twenty-six percentage points (26%) higher than when playing at away.
Also, playing at home and enjoying crowd support tends to make the home team score more goals. This result could probably be traced to either the fact that the players are more encouraged when playing before their home crowd or the crowd support at home tends to influence the referees’ decisions.
Home teams seem to be receiving more favorable treatment in referees’ decisions. Granted, referees try their best to be impartial, but they can be subconsciously influenced by a large crowd in the stadium and they might then react by favoring the home team, thereby awarding more penalties and less disciplinary sanctions to the home team. It was found that referees tend to give more red cards to visiting teams.
When they tried to neutralize the subjective influence of the referees’ decisions on the home team, it could be observed that home crowd support plays a large role in encouraging and motivating the players.
So, when next your favorite team is playing at the local stadium, your support could contribute about 60 percentage points (60%) to its securing a win.
I wrote this poem after watching a documentary on prisoners-of-war (POW)s and genocide. It was some years ago. I found the slip of paper somewhere in my room last week and decided to post it on the Net because I’ve stopped writing poems.
The POW is in anguish, mentally and physically, over the fact that today is the day he has been decreed to die. To be shot at the back of the neck with a pistol. He shares a cell with other POWs which is a dark room but the nails are not in the room, only on his body and his psyche. He knows he’s surely going to die today and there is nothing anybody can do about that. Very sad!
I titled the poem: “What to do.” There is nothing you can do if you are a prisoner awaiting your death. Nothing at all.
What to do.
Ghouls assail me left and right
Moaning I beg the heavens to open
To accept me after my sudden death
For I can bear this burden no longer.
Like a walking old man with a sac
Defeated by time, war weary, hungry.
His legs hairy, forlorn thoughts aplenty.
I ask them, comrades avoiding my gaze
Smiling like yesterday’s green lawn:
“Do you know what it is, this assailing
Clubbing my every being with nails?”
With long sighs, speaking to the wind
Surely earless though with much to say
Words that only the gods can hear.
The pain, the pain – the scale is rising
On the weight where depression sleeps
Waiting in vain for an answer that
Will never come – this anguish, my secret.
The chamber of nails and bars, darkness!
With roaches running about like slaves, to
A scroll written by two vermin who decreed
That I die by a shot of the pistol.
Do I break the laws of transport
Fight a battle only the heavens can plot?
The roaches will know nothing but the chant:
“What to do – What to do?”
By 12, midnight, the pistol will come silently
The roaches before; the scroll read to my death.
---- Nnaemeka David
Old soldiers never die, they just fade away. - Gen. Douglas MacArthur
The above quote is attributed to Gen. MacArthur. I want to apply it to this blog.
For several months, there has been no activity here. It doesn’t translate to the death of this blog, rather to a state of hiatus of the author. I’m slowly fading away, from blogging and writing. My other blog, make the market your income, is also in the same state as this.
Yet, I believe I’ll fade back to activity soon. I’m reorganizing my schedules and times.
Please, wish me all the best as I continue to feed you relevant and entertaining information in business, living and other trivial I find interesting in solving problems to the ups and downs of this problematic world.
Last week Thursday, I lost my grandmother. She had lived a life well spent; died at 91.
I have been pensive, reflecting on what it means to die after seeing even your great-grandchildren? I think it is a tribute to a life well lived.
I believe we’ll see again after the resurrection; in paradise.
Road gutters are supposed to drain away the waters from rainfall. When you find them keeping waters instead of draining them, you wonder if they’d rather be called “roadside storage containers?”
Indeed, some look like a child’s scrawling on the road with dirty fingers - a guttersnipe. Others seem to suggest that a crater from outer space made a landing on satellite town. I took these pictures to humor myself but decided to share them later on Facebook.
The uses of sperm banking are immense. It is useful where a woman’s partner is infertile or has been diagnosed with a genetic disease. Also, it can be used to make pregnancy possible through artificial insemination even when a woman has no partner. When a man is diagnosed with cancer, sperm banking is usually recommended. This is because the risk of long-term infertility from treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy is highly possible. This infertility could be permanent or temporary depending on the individual’s circumstances, that is why it is essential that men who have banked their sperms prior to undergoing cancer treatment need to undertake continuous follow-up checkups in order to assess their fertility status and maybe make sure their sperm at the bank is not disposed of. On the other hand, most men fail to do so, and this due to several factors which include lack of adequate information and pessimism.
New strategies for sperm banking education and information necessary.
The problem, according to Dr Allan Pacey and Professor Christine Eiser at the University of Sheffield, is that a large proportion of male cancer patients are Sperm cells that are banked prior to cancer therapy give assurance of future fertility. Flickr.com/Futurowoman
missing out on appropriate fertility advice. The reasons they store their sperm at sperm banks and fail to make necessary follow-ups might be because they had suffered fewer side-effects post therapy, had a more negative experience of sperm banking or were negative towards sperm disposal and storage.
When a man is diagnosed with cancer, it is often recommended that he banks his sperm. The possibility exists that the sperm could be donated to other women in the future and hence the need for proper diagnosis. The case of a Danish sperm donor who passed severe genetic disorder to five children after tests did not detect it is striking. The clinic was even lax to act on evidence after a baby was diagnosed with the disorder. Hence, cryobanks carry out extensive tests on donated sperm. It is believed that most men are overwhelmed by the amount of information on diagnosis. Because the tests focus on cancer, they could be confused about the implications of treatment for their future fertility. If a man is pessimistic about recovery from cancer, it would be to his advantage to bank his sperm as an assurance that he could be able to father a child in the future.
Being told that you might lose your fertility could cause anxiety. If asked to go for constant fertility monitoring, many could see this as an intrusion into their daily lives. That is why providing them with adequate information is important. They want the reassurance that they can recover their fertility after cancer treatment, to restore their “male pride.” So, there is a kind of psychological advantage to a man when he is told that even if he loses his fertility post-cancer treatment, he could fall back on stored sperm. Some men are also reluctant to follow-up on checkup after banking their sperms because they do not know the fate of those banked samples. It could even take several years before any woman would need their donated sperms.
There is then a need for education about sperm banking, a need for making information about the uses and options that are available as well as how the sperm could be used or disposed. Laws in the United Kingdom allow for renewal of consent every ten (10) years and a maximum of fifty-five (55) years for banked sperm. Where follow-up checkups are not undertaken, or they do not return for fertility testing, these banked sperms might be destroyed in order to relieve the sperm banks of the costs associated with long-term storage of banked samples that may not be needed for conception, thereby freeing healthcare resources for other uses. Many men do not avail themselves of this knowledge, thereby, impacting on their future life choices and ability to father children. Dr. Pacey and Professor Eiser, cited earlier, believe that what is needed are new education strategies from the time of diagnosis to inform men of the importance of fertility monitoring as well as encouraging more men to attend their follow-up appointments. Clinics can do much in this regard by sending them timely letters highlighting the benefits of attendance.
Conclusions.
Central to whatever strategy that could be pursued are the oncologists. Improving the line of communication between the oncology department and the sperm banks is important. As noted earlier, because men who have cancer have to juggle between the information for their cancer treatments and sperm banking requirements, they might be inundated by so much information. The issues involved might be masked in other concerns. Hence, the need for these men to have a clinician who is ready to answer their anxious questions; they should be encouraged to come out with questions.
Granted, when a man is faced with a risk to his life and his ability to reproduce, he needs all the support he can have to make the rights decisions. His anxiety would surely affect his ability to work well and to even make meaningful contributions to society. It is imperative therefore that this segment of society be helped to go through a trying period of their life without impacting on their quality of life.
Tropical economies are usually poor and agrarian; temperate ones wealthy and industrialized. Tropical diseases are usually vector born and parasitic diseases (VBPD) like acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), tuberculosis and malaria while temperate diseases which are usually due to lifestyle changes such as smoking, sedentary living and eating foods rich in cholesterol, sugars and salts are mostly cancer, cardiovascular diseases and chronic respiratory problems. Whatever form the disease takes, they steal human resources and should be given as much importance in national planning as financial crimes and corruption in high places.
Away from the glitterati, even beauty can be found in poverty. Flickr.com/meanest indian
A new study by Dr Matthew Bonds, an economist at Harvard Medical School, believes that money spent in combating diseases is money well spent because reducing the burden of diseases stimulates economic growth, and that the burden of such diseases drops when biodiversity rises. Although the study is not new, what is novel is that the burden of diseases is somewhat skewed with the equator serving as an iron wall.
Biological processes as important as studying economics and politics of development.
When disease burden on the populace of a nation becomes high, the costs start to escalate. Some of the costs are the loss of productive work, satisfaction or utility drops thereby increasing the costs of living and there is the risk of premature death leading to the loss of important human resources at the prime of life. If you translate all this into economic terms, it translates into a big amount of human resources lost due to diseases. This data also translates into low growth rates for countries burdened by diseases. Most of these countries are in the tropics and are usually incident for infectious and parasitic diseases.
When governments begin to understand these facts, they will begin to realize that investing heavily in preventive health care systems are worth the money, as much as investing in reining financial crimes and corruption in government. It has been found that the economy will take off into sustained growth when preventive health interventions are well carried out and infectious diseases are put under control.
As cited earlier, diseases that take a heavy toll on national income are usually found in the tropics. They exert such a big burden on these nations that they have been termed “diseases of the poor.” They are mostly vector-borne and cannot always survive outside the tropics. A 2004 study by the International Policy network states that most of the disease burden in these poor or low-income countries are due to poverty, such as poor nutrition, indoor air pollution and lack of access to proper sanitation and health education. To stimulate economic growth, governments in these countries have to invest heavily in prevention and make medicines available. When authorities count the costs of not taking the necessary action to make accessibility to drugs and preventive techniques for these diseases possible, then having the political will and international support to fight poverty through monetary aid and technical assistance might not be yieldingthe desired results.
Disease burden inversely related to biodiversity.
Dr. Mathew Bonds, cited earlier, also found that as the burden of infectious diseases for poor countries rises, ecological biodiversity has been recorded to be on the decline. No matter where a country might fall from the equator, whether in the tropics or temperate countries, these is no good news, especially when there is a global fight against climate change and polluting effects of human action on the global ecosystem. Wealthy and industrialized countries who have low incidence of infectious and vector-borne diseases might have increased burden due to biodiversity concerns which are exacerbated by abnormal changes in ecological factors like temperature, rainfall and soil quality.
Biodiversity creates disease resistance, ensures that natural predators of these disease organisms exist and that they get to compete for survival against other organisms. When these factors are taken away, vector-borne and parasitic diseases might not make poor and low-income countries south of the tropics their sole targets.
This is where the study is much interesting. It is not that many nations are not fighting back. Enormous resources are poured into research and development against these diseases by industrialized countries and pharmaceutical companies. What is most poignant is that many nations might look lame and fall into the trap of low-income countries if the global problems of pollution and climate change are not addressed. Biodiversity depends on these factors. When huge species and habitats disappear, no amount of research can bring them back.
Where the might exists, does the political will exist? Will big business allowS itself to be dictated to by nature? How much time does planet earth have before industrialized nations fall into these biodiversity and infectious diseases trap? All these are open-ended questions. What is important is for governments and policy makers to place biological processes into the same category as politics and economics before the fight can even begin.
Have you been disappointed that other people did not return your goodwill, your generosity? Do not be. If also you think that greed, procuring things to your advantage and for yourself, will make you better off than others, have you counted the costs in health bills, failed relationships and trust, of that success? You better do.
Our thoughts are powerful instruments of the imagination. To understand the world around us, our thoughts combine with the experience of others to shape viewpoints and conclusions; hence, the importance of information and education. What you think about generosity and greed, where you desire that others show you generosity, or are caring towards you, is determined by what you think, because you might be disappointed.
Ask yourself: do you desire peace or conflict?
A bed of peace and love, how so sweet?Flickr/fabi dorighello
To err on the side of the utopic, we all expect goodwill or that our acts of generosity should get repaid. After using your skills and resources to help others, whether friends or strangers, you think that when you have similar problems or needs, you will be shown similar generosity or goodwill. Although what you think might be disappointing, it is wise you do not despair and refuse to shower others with this noble quality, because generosity could reap rewards through other means. What are acts of generosity one can display? Babysitting for a single parent, doing computer repairs for others, and helping out the elderly with their meals. These acts are the grease of society and should be encouraged. Yet, if you do them because you expect or think others will repay you in return, forget it. You better look elsewhere.
Why is it like that? Because generosity and goodwill involves expenditure of skills and resources. Have you thought for a moment if other people, from whom you expect repayment for your generosity, possess the required skills and resources? Most likely they do not. Ask any philanthropist. They hardly get repaid for their charitable donations. You could be stranded on a highway for hours and no one offered to help you out. Would that make you refuse to help another stranger whom you see stranded and you have the means to do so? Have you asked yourself: if you have what it takes to be generous, do others have it? They might not have the time or skill to stop over and help, or if they do, they do not possess the risk aversion needed to stop by the highway the same way as you do. Do not let it despair you. That is the secret of philanthropists.
At the other end of generosity is greed. Greed could be demonstrated in several ways, including when you do not show concern for the feelings of others, want the first place in everything and do not pay others what was agreed. If you judge people hastily and offer them what is inappropriate, like offering a Muslim roasted pork when you know his religion forbids it, then you are exhibiting greed. When you show greed, you should expect conflict. You will get repaid but unsuccessfully. It will be a negative, destructive payment. Imagine what will happen if a country inadvertently imposes trade restrictions on the import of other countries just because it is facing economic problems? That country could be calling for repercussions, even a trade war, not so?
Furthermore, greedy people emit negative stimuli which will surely be remembered and paid back in its negative kind. Negative stimuli produces strange behavior on people. It also has a more powerful effect on others than positive stimuli. If you think greed makes you better off, trade it off against the unhappiness you could be investing in, and do make a more profitable choice.
The golden rule will always be repaid.
“Do unto others as you want them to do unto you,” so states the golden rule. In brief, you should treat others as you would like to be treated. If you want people to listen to you, be equally ready to listen to them. If you want to be accepted for what you are, be ready to do the same to other people.
The golden rule works in most situations. Where you want others to repay you for your acts of kindness, treat them as equally well as you want others to treat you. These three reasons, amongst others, are why the golden rule works.
We all possess the required skills and resources.
Unlike generosity, we all possess the inherent skills and resources for treating others as well as we want them to treat us. Listening, fairness, peacefulness – they are inherent in us. We only have to use these skills if you want to.
It makes for economy and healthiness.
The more you treat others well, they see it in you and are ready to return the same to you. Even strangers will be ready to show reciprocity. It costs nothing, rather promotes godliness and healthy social relationships. Do you wonder why greedy people are fond of clenching their tooth? They are on edge because they have been treated badly by other people who accuse them of treating them badly in the past. If they only knew the golden rule.
It is what we all prefer and desire.
Wars and conflicts should be seen as children of necessity when all recourse to diplomacy is exhausted. No sane individual wants to live in a home where fighting, backbiting, and foul-play are daily occurrence. We all want and prefer good homes, high-paying jobs, happy achieving kids, good government and adequate security. We all want what is fair. To have our desires, we should ready to play fair. Give what is fair and just, and people will be ready to repay you back without asking for an incentive. The opposite would surely be an investment in future trouble.
Note before: It is not in all cases that the golden rule will be repaid, but in most of the cases, the golden rule is generally paid more than generosity and greed much more readily repaid in its negative kind than generosity.
My mantra for this week is: hey, where is the pain in all that? Make it yours.
There comes a time in life when a milestone is crossed; when that eureka! moment arrives. At the beginning of the year, while reading past articles on this blog, I decided I was missing out on one aspect of creative problem solving: shared experiences. I thought Solvingit had too much of research and studies and few of shared experiences. So, I decided to take a step forward. There was no space on SolvingIt for what I wanted. Thus was born another blog, incomeready.blogspot.com.
Incomeready.blogspot.com is complementary to this one, emekadavid-solvingit.blogspot.com". They both share the same subject space, but one difference is that incomeready.blogspot.com was meant to connect the readers with real persons, institutions, companies and governmental agencies. Solvingit has enough of abstract concepts and terms.
Incomeready.blogspot.com has already been launched. As of my writing this piece, there are already four articles on the blog.
The first article was meant to introduce the casual reader to why I thought incomeready.blogspot.com was meant to see the light of day.
The second article was special. I chose a subject that would interest many a reader who is interested in monetary problems: barter economy. That article highlighted how Grecians are looking to the past for solutions. Because the Euro has become scarce and a privileged currency, they were resorting to barter currencies one of which is the Tem.
The third article was inspired by a blog post I found on the Internet concerning Work-At-Home Mums (WAHM) and Stay-At-Home Dads (SAHD). I decided to write a piece on how division of labor in the home is a big contributor to love, harmony and peace.
You can visit the blog, incomeready.blogspot.com for the fourth and other pieces. I promise you that incomeready.blogspot.com, the blog, will be much more exciting that even SolvingIt.
Nice reading everyone. May you find the greatest joy, love and happiness in your lives. I wish you charm.
China’s One Child Policy (OCP) might have been influenced by Confucius and other Chinese writers who believed that “excessive growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife.” The OCP requires every family to have only one child, and failing this, punishment with fines and sometimes, illegal forced abortions and forced sterilizations. The OCP was introduced in 1979 as a tool of population control, to check rapid population growth rates. Recently, there have been suggestions that the OCP might be outliving its intentions. Population growth has stagnated and an official report states that there is a dearth of 15-59 year olds in China. As of 2011, the number of births prevented by the OCP was cited at 400 million.
Many children under the OCP do not understand what siblings mean or trustworthiness. Flickr.com/blondie478On the economic front, it is touted as being responsible for the high savings rate of the Chinese. What the economy really needs is a move towards consumption so as to keep its growth going. Increasing consumption patterns would also make her enviable for foreign investment. Not only that, the children born under OCP do not understand what a sibling means. If this is foreboding, only time will tell.
Children under OCP lack characteristic for entrepreneurial prowess.
Social scientists from Australia who studied Chinese citizens born under its One Child Policy (OCP) and just before have released a report that OCP has not only dramatically re-shaped the population, but it has produced individuals lacking characteristics important for economic and social attainment[sic]. Children born under OCP were found to be significantly less trusting, less trustworthy, more risk-averse, less competitive, more pessimistic, and less conscientious individuals.
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According to one of the scientists, Professor Cameron: “Our data show that people born under the One Child Policy were less likely to be in more risky occupations like self-employment. Thus there may be implications for China in terms of a decline in entrepreneurial ability.”
If the OCP foretells social problems for China, many writers have also cited it as an impediment to China’s growth. Within some years, China might have to rely on other Asian countries for young people who will maintain its huge industrial resources, otherwise it might either have to relax its population control laws or abolish them. By about 2025, the Chinese population will be one of senior citizens. Children will have to save more to care for their elderly parents. According to an online Yahoo news report, if young men cannot find marriageable partners, if the gender ratio continues to be skewed in favor of sons and societal expectations makes it more so, social instability might be in the offing.
China’s foreign investments are increasing, especially in Africa, and one wonders what will happen if other countries finally catch up with her export surplus model?
There are signs that China might intend relaxing its strict OCP policy. Renmin University’s Gu and the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy published a study in 2008 on two-child policy programs in four regions. Conclusion: while freedom to decide on a second child would reduce the gender disparity in China, the high cost of having children is a scary prospect for the average Chinese. The next year, the National Population and Family Planning Commission decided, as a first step, to expand pilot programs to relax the policy in four to five other regions, although the proposal was dropped for lack of a leadership consensus. These are signs that a reform of the policy might be imminent.
Is China interested in leadership lessons from the West?
The question is: Is China interested in taking leadership lessons from Western countries, even renowned Western academics? There is no conclusive official data that China is going through economic strains, or that its citizens are ready to relinquish control of its massive export oriented industries to other countries. By the way, Chinese citizens who are more likely to face high fines or punishment due to the OCP cannot influence public opinion or policy.
Where reports suggest that the Government is ready to relax OCP, for how long will this last? Will those provinces return to old ways? According to Yahoo news online, in Jiuquan, though the one-child policy is relaxed, women are still subject to strict family planning rules. They are fitted with intra-uterine devices after their first child, sterilized after their second and whoever defies the two-child quota pays a 30,000 yuan fine.
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