понеділок, 29 березня 2021 р.

Is money the most important thing in the world?

 

Yaryna 


Nowadays we are living in a world where everything turns around money and luxury. People think they can buy everything they want and it will make them happy, successful and satisfied. However,while concentrating on money too much they often forget about other important things such as spending time with family and friends, talking to each other and discussing global topics to be informed about what is happening in the modern world.Today almost everybody is willing to increase his or her earnings to live more comfortably.Money means a lot to such people and what is more it has become the most important thing for them. Money has become everything.  

It is obvious that money can be used to do lots of good things as it gives us an opportunity to live more comfortable, more healthy and safer.. I mean, if we have enough money we can entertain ourselves by going to the cinemas, theaters or restaurants. We feel satisfied when we are able to buy the latest model of multi functional smartphone or to travel around the world.If we have money we can improve our living conditions and maintain our houses in a proper state which is vital to live a good life. To put it shortly, it seems to us that money gives us everything what we need to survive.  

Moreover, money can be also used to save people’s lives which is even more important than basic things.There are a lot of people in the world who have food to eat, apartments to live in, but they still are in an acute need for money. We may read that thousands or even millions of people,whose lives depend on whether or not they will be able to pay for expensive surgeries. As there are not so many people,who are ready to give money for treatment expecting nothing in return, lots of humanitarians organize different marathons or establish charitable foundations to raise funds for vulnerable people.London to Brighton Cycle,Red Nose day,BBC Children In Need,London Marathon these are the events that have a great success in fundraising for various charities. A majority of those marathons take place in London and they support families,who are short of money or where there is a child with disability or other serious illness.Others help vulnerable people abroad or donate money to heart foundations by selling cakes at schools, hosting quizzes or film nights or holding auctions. It means money saves people’s lives and that is a strong reason why money can be important.  

However, is it also possible that money can ruin lives?I think it is. It can. Let us have a deeper look into it. When we were children, our parents were always emphasizing on how money was vital to survive.In this way they subconsciously might have instilled into us not just a conscious necessity for having money but a real thirst, which with time can result in psychological disorders such as addiction and obsession. In most cases children from deprived families tend to be well-off and when they earn their first hundred pounds they want to go further,to make more and more.In other words, they become addicted to money and feel lost.The real problem is that the addicted people have no idea what they have to do to change their attitudes towards money to fully recover. As Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the book “Rich dad ,Poor dad” has said:”The reason why rich people are becoming richer and poor people are becoming poorer is that financial literacy is taught at home ,not at school”.Most of us get the information about money from our families and if parents are constantly on tight budget, they will pass such an attitude on to next generations, who will treat money as the most important thing in the world.And, on the contrary if parents run their own businesses successfully and they are rolling in money but they do not teach their children financial literacy ,there is a high probability that all the achievements will be lost. The reason is that the next generations will not know how business works and what they have to do to earn enough for comfortable life.  

What is more, sometimes it happens that a constant thought of how to earn more money may lead to negative consequences.In reality money can be a reason of quarrels in families when members cannot find a common ground and reach the agreement. Both husbands and wives are becoming angry with each other and they feel exhausted as they can’t make ends meet.It might result in divorce and that is really a negative thing which may have a negative impact on other relatives .I mean it can ruin their lives...  

Besides, money also gives us an opportunity to experience some particular feelings: pride ,when you worked a lot and you earned a particular amount of money, passion when you bought a new shirt; happiness, when you wear it; or shame, when you start to treat other people as someone who is better. But there are things which cannot be bought and money has no impact on them.These are values, which are something that you think is more important than anything else, more important than money, more important than love, even more important than happiness.Moreover, values are what you consider to be more important than feelings.Some people believe this is not so, but here is a great example of the conflict between a value and a feeling, which shows the true power of a value. Almost everybody likes eating junk food, but if we eat whatever we want,we will end up with obesity and poor health..So guess what stops such people from eating all the food they feel like eating ?Absolutely right, it is a value: not to be overweight, stay healthy and look good.This is a necessary battle between a feeling and a value, which goes on inside of most people.And if you have ever questioned yourself why some people are still making “dirty money” which are based on corruption, my answer is they have NO value.  

So, money is something that keeps us alive. Having it we can buy food to function at our usual level, money also gives us an opportunity to feel happy by having fun at clubs or dinners with friends at cafes.Due to it we can help other people experience the feeling of necessity, integrity by paying for their treatments or giving them means for survival.Money is something ,without what we cannot exist while, on the other hand it can also damage everything ,what we have already built:great relationships with our families, friends and colleagues. Money is great till the moment it becomes a sense of our lives and nothing else matters.Money is great till the moment it becomes a reason why people die for. Money is an important thing till the moment it becomes so-called game, which has no last level, which never ends. And the problem is you still desire it…

 

неділя, 21 березня 2021 р.

Clothes of today: to express or to impress?That is the question....

Yaryna 
(
a pupil of the secondary school


Have you ever wanted to dye your hair green? Do you remember that feeling? Do you remember what your feelings were when you decided to buy oversized printed hoodie or ripped jeans?Why would you ever consider buying these clothes? You might have thought it is a great way to express yourself but is it absolutely true? Or maybe your goal was  to impress others....

 

In modern society people feel more free to choose what they like to wear in  comparison with last generations. Although it has already  become a new trend and a norm to wear unisex clothes people, teenagers in particular, who prefer gender-neutral things may face different  challenges such as  quarrels and arguments with parents and bullying at school. Such things are definitely very negative because they can often lead to different psychological disorders: people may feel lonely, depressed or even lost. The youngsters who suffer from such problems need support so it is extremely important to discuss everything properly with your opponents in order to find a common ground and to prevent yourself from getting sick or even getting crazy. 

It is quite common that many teenagers treat their weird appearances first of all as the way to express their true feelings and to some extent their identities, while psychologists claim that the problem may be more  serious than we could even imagine.They believe that weird outfits are an explicit manifestation of “calling for help”, because in most cases people with strange or eccentric clothes style may be suffering from the lack of attention in relationships with their friends or even families. They all try to compensate it somehow and they become desperate to draw attention by dying their hair, making tattoos and getting their bodies pierced. They do it not only to exress themselves but first of all to impress people to experience the feeling of necessity and importance or to hide their pain. The greatest example of such a person, who experienced such psychological problems is a famous singer Billie Eilish. Once she said that the reason she dyed  her hair green and wore oversized clothes was that she had difficult times studying at school, her constant depressions, her stereotypes about the figure and the death of her close friend. In this way she wanted to make her fans discuss her clothes rather than different complexes and psychological problems she had, because such negative things made her feel uncomfortable and awkward. What is more, she wanted all her followers to find  more sense in the messages she put in her songs. 

However,  can some particular style of clothes really help us solve our mental health problems? It cannot obviously. Sometimes such approach may even result in more frequent depressions and feelings of loneliness and abandonment. But if teenagers do want to get rid of some  psychological problems, the first thing they should do is to try to talk to their parents and relatives. Though many youngsters believe that their parents are unfashionable and a bit out of date”, they can give us a valuable piece of advice which will help us avoid being  aggressive and depressed. If it doesn’t work in this way or you don’t have any people to have an open-hearted conversation  with, there are a lot of youth centres of help in Ukraine where children can get support from other people who have similar promlems. 

Additionally, think about what happens when you grow up. Sometimes  it happens that the choice of clothes is connected with the lifestyle and may have some particular consequences in the future. For example women, who prefer manly outfits are said to be more independent and self-confident than others. They had better  earn money rather than raise kids  or do household chores such as cooking, doing the tiding up or ironing in the future. While men who are fond of more female clothing and enjoy wearing  make up or polish their nails might feel less muscular and courageous.   

To summarize, I would like to emphasize that it is vital to spend as much time as possible together with those people, who are lost and “call for help” by wearing weird clothes. Both parents and friends should be attentive and supportive. Talking and being sincere is the only right way to find a common ground, reach a compromise when problems occur and avoid misunderstanding. Parents should not criticize their children, instead of that they should try to find out the proper ways to help them to go through difficult times. As for kids it is very important to stop being afraid of everything and everyone. Both adolescents and youngsters will feel happy and satisfied. Isn't it what we all so desperately need? I am sure it is. 

неділя, 14 березня 2021 р.

Мамо, я в блогери піду....


Якщо б серед підлітків шкільного віку чи студентів провести опитування із питаннями, наприклад: "Хто для вас є авторитетом? Кого ви любите слухати?  На кого хочете бути схожими? Кому ви довіряєте?"  - я переконана, що велика кількість відповідей була б "блогер чи блогерка". Впродовж останніх років блогерство вийшло далеко за межі  простих роздумів у Livejournal. Сьогодні блогери все більше і більше асоціюються із тими, хто навчає, вказує, орієнтує, розважає, повідомляє...Одним словом - у той чи інший спосіб впливає на думку чи вчинки інших людей. Дуже часто, спостерігаючи за цим явищем я ставлю собі питання: це добре чи погано? Або чого в цьому більше: користі чи шкоди? Однозначної відповіді, звісно, тут бути не може. Проте, є певні важливі речі, які не варто ігнорувати і про які постійно потрібно пам'ятати, коли натискаєш кнопку "стежити" за новим блогером у соціальній мережі. 
     Якщо говорити простими словами, то блогер чи блогерка - це людина, яка ділиться з іншими своїми знаннями і своїм досвідом. Що важливо, вміє не просто розказати, а й показати. Тобто їх інформація не абстрактна - вона наочна. Це легко і цікаво, тому до таких людей з'являється довіра. Другий аспект, який робить блогерів дуже популярними - це лаконічність. Зазвичай відео з якимось новим лайфгаком триває декілька хвилин, що дозволяє тримати слухача чи глядача у стані зосередженості і, відповідно, робить інформацію не нудною і затянутою, а швидкою і зрозумілою. Для людей чи дітей, які не звикли чи не хочуть довго і зосереджено працювати над обробкою інформації, такий формат видається просто ідеальним для того, щоб здобути нову інформацію чи знання. І це якби добре...Але водночас і не дуже добре. 
    Однією із найбільших проблем 21 століття є проблема концентрації уваги, особливо серед підлітків та дітей. Бажання постійно пізнавати щось нове і нове призводить до того, що наша увага постійно розсіюється, а навчики зосередженого і логічного мислення слабшають. І саме це може мати дуже негативні наслідки. Пізнавати нове - це безперечно дуже добре, але для того, щоб закріпити нові знання чи нові навички потрібна праця і час! Переглядаючи ролик, в якому хтось майстерно пече торт, чи говорить англійською - нам може видаватися, що і ми так само легко і майстерно це зробимо, бо це ж так просто один-два-три і все готово...Ми бачимо гарну картинку, ми бачимо як усе легко, швидко і просто. Усе зрозуміло....Ось тільки проблема у тому, що за цією майстерністю сховано багато спроб, іноді навіть дуже невдалих. І про це не треба забувати! 
   Плюс блогерства у тому, що воно може мотивувати, але великий мінус може бути у тому, що воно дає доволі спотворену картинку дійсності. На мою скромну думку, сучасне блогерство більш орієнтоване на те, щоб розважати, а не на те, щоб справді навчити. Воно створює ілюзію, що усе дуже просто і дуже легко. Бо в багатьох випадках так не є. Досягти майстерності у будь-якій сфері - це праця, іноді доволі важка. 
    Не так давно, я задалась питанням, чому блогери все більше і більше стають авторитетами для підлітків, витісняючи, наприклад, вчителів чи іноді навіть батьків, родичів чи друзів. Мене це питання неабияк зацікавило. Я дійшла висновку, що уся справа, мабуть що у гарній картинці. Вчитель у школі - це нудно, нецікаво, а от блогер з новим айфоном у красивих апартаментах - це набагато яскравіше і захопливіше.  
    Зрешто, це добре, що є вибір. Вибір де і як можна отримувати нову інформацію. Але є дещо незмінне: неважливо звідки ви берете інформацію. Для того, щоб оволідти нею і навчитись її використовувати на практиці - потрібна праця. Тому ті, хто просто пасивно слухають вчителів у школі чи блогерів у соцмережах - так і залишаються жити з ілюзією, що вони щось знають. Але ті, хто опрацюває отриману інформацію, тренується, вивчає і досліджує - зрештою зможе її відтворити чи використати. 
    Я це дуже чітко бачу по рекції моїх учнів коли розповідаю їм про важливіть виконання домашніх завдань. Про важливість закріплення вивченого. Про важливість не бігти за новим і новим, а зосереджено і змістовно вчитися опрацьовувати вивчений матеріал і вміти ним користуватися. Я розумію, чому більшість учнів до таких порад байдужі. Бо вони розуміють, що це нудна праця, що такий підхід - це важко і треба напрягатись. А от блогери в інстаграмі чи на тік-ток не задають домашніх завдань, розказують і показують усе миттєво і просто. Кожен раз щось нове і захопливе. Нове і захопливе. Нове, яке за пару днів зникає з пам'яті як сніг на сонці. Але для них головне те, в такий спосіб не треба напрягатися. І в тому і полягає головний самобман і ілюзія. В цьому і полягає головна небезпека і загроза. В цьому і полягає головне питання вибору. Жити у цій ілюзії. Чи ні.