What is love?

Love.  Everyone wants its.  In media that's all they seem to talk about about, so why is it that no one can ever come to an exact definition of what it really is.

There are four types of love.  Romantic, fatous, companionate, and consummate love.  Romantic love is when there is intimacy, the feeling of being connected or bonded to another, and passion, the intense longing for someone.  Fatous love is when there is passion and commitment but there is a lack of that intamacy.  Companionate love is intimacy and commitment which is the love more common with friends.  However the best and most rounded love there is, is consummate love which includes all three.  

So why does it seem that it can at times be so hard for us to find that love that we are longing for.  One reason is the unrealistic expectations of a fairy tale love.  You can't just expect your Prince Charming to come knocking on your door and for it to work happily ever after.  It's something that you have to work for and you need to put yourself in situation where you can be asked out on dates.  

There a few factors that come into play when choosing someone who could possibly be the next person you date.  The first is propinquity.  This includes all those who live near or close to you.  When there is that closeness there are more things in common such as culture, shared interest, friends and so forth.  Another factor that is a major factor is physical appearance, whether that be how someone dresses, to their actual physique.  Next would personal traits, this is someone's personality, if they have the same sense of humor, or have the same value and beliefs as you.  

So what?  What's the importance of knowing all of this.  In this way you can better analyze where you are right now and determine what must be done in order to make that step forward.  So where you right now?  What do you need to do?    

Gender's Role

 GENDER

There possibly couldn't be a touchier subject now a days than the subject of gender.  If you look it up, sex is defined as referring to your biological identification as a male or female where as gender refers to males and females as social creatures or gender being based off your environment and the conception you have of yourself.  If you look on Facebook you can choose from at least 58 genders.  I don't know about you, but that seems to be pretty confusing.  Why and how did there grow to be so many?

If you look at it biologically there are distinct differences between men and women.  For example men have more grey matter in the brain where women have more white matter.  Statistically, women tend to have better communicative skills, are more relationship oriented, ask more questions, and are more sensitive to nonverbal cues.  Men tend to have better spatial and quantitative abilities, tend to be more violent, and more likely to try to solve problems on their own.  A caution to these statements though.  This not to say that men cannot communicate well or that women cannot make good architects.  This merely means that MORE women than men seem to have these qualities and visa versa.  In reality we are much more alike than we are different.  

And that's where stereotyping comes into play.  How many of you have heard something along the lines as this:  "Oh that guy is super sensitive, and dresses really nice.  He must be gay!"  Now riddle me this, when did the way a guy dresses, or the career he chooses to peruse determine his sex orientation or who he is attracted to???  For some reason we have conjured up this idea that just because someone has certain "male" or "female" characteristics, they must identify themselves with that one particular attribute.  It is not uncommon now for parents to allow their small children to choose their gender and to start them on hormonal medication, based on just these few characteristics.  The American College of Pediatricians has come out and said that, "Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse." 

Could our distorted ways of thinking and treating others be negatively affecting those we love more than we thought?          

We are all humans.  It's about time that we treat each other as such.  Love is the answer to everything.  But remember that "real love does not support self destructive behavior." 

For further information on same sex attraction I invite you to visit mormonsandgays.org

Culture in the Family

In a study entitled "The Costs of Getting Ahead" by Smith it addresses what family life is like for illegal immigrants in the United States and how the culture of the family has to adjust to life during the process of sending all the family over.  In the study they asked these two questions, "What does it mean to be Mexican?" and "What does it mean to be American?"  This got me really thinking.  When I was younger, I don't know why, but I had this phase where I was really concerned about what ethnicity I was.  I am of Hispanic descent, specifically Mexico, however growing up Spanish was never really spoken in the home.  That being said I never felt that I was different from my peers but there was always that one thing, race, and as I child I just did not understand that.  I would repeatedly ask my mom about it and she would always explain it the same way.  She would say, "You are Mexican American.  Mexican, because you have Mexican blood, meaning your family came from Mexico, but American because that's where you live and what you live."  Little did I know, but my mom was trying to explain to me, a little 6 year old girl, about culture.

Every family is unique thus every family has their own culture.  However diversity in families can be tracked statistically as well.  You have your "traditional family." You have your single parent family. You have your homosexual family.  You have your African American, Hispanic, Asian American, and Native American families and that's only to name a few.  Depending on what kind of family you are apart of, you are more susceptible to different outcomes such as graduation rate, alcohol abuse, or poverty.  This all stems from the culture of your home and what roles everybody plays and what things are emphasized in each home.

So what kind of culture is in your home?  Do you know what the consequences are of living that certain life style and are all cultures valid?  Remember that "Decisions determine destiny."  The culture you live is dependent upon you.  True many things may influence your culture but overall you are who says what kind of life style you and your family lives.        

  

    

Walking on eggshells

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's ever had problems figuring out what someone is really trying to say or who's ever been overly cautious about what they do or say so that someone wouldn't misinterpret what we're saying.  There's even a popular song that talks all about that!  (halla to my boy Justin!)  

There are many theories that address this concept.  The Symbolic Interaction Theory views humans primarily as cognitive creatures who are influenced and shaped by their interaction experiences.  These symbols can either be through objects, gestures, words, or actions.  What does a hand shake mean, a hug, a touch on the arm?  Wouldn't it just be easier if anyone just came out and said how they truly felt?  None of this beating around the bush.

There's a concept in the Systems theory that describes when people have this problem, when they try to deny reality by either saying that nothing is wrong or just try to beat around the bush called mystification.  If you have this problem or know someone that does, the best thing is to not point fingers, and to try to not say that the problem is the person.  That will get you absolutely no where.

However at times, we fall into these roles whether it be in our family, or our group of friends, or with our coworkers and it can be hard to break out of these habits.  There are a set of rules within each system whether they be spoken or unstated and which can make it even harder.

There is hope.  You can break through.  You are not destined to be the same person that you were yesterday.  Change exists.  If you are determined all is possible.          

Does how many kids you have, if any, really matter?

Trends are always changing.  If you were to talk to any of your grandparents they all would most likely tell you that the world where we live in today is very different from when they grew up, especially in regards to the family.  These days there is more premarital sex, an increase of non-marital births, an increase of those living alone, a longer delay of those who are getting married thus delaying when people have children, and an increase of employed mothers.  Some would say, what's the big deal, all of those factors are very personal decisions, so why should I care?

Now a days its all about the individualism.  How does this benefit ME?  But would it be too crazy to think that your decisions may impact not only you, but those around you as well?  During the baby boom there was the idea that if we continued to have a lot of kids we would end up overpopulating the world, making it so that there weren't enough resources, thus having the human race starve to death.  Through this initial impact people started to have less children.  Along with that, after the industrial, women, sexual, and divorce revolutions, the family was becoming less and less relevant.  

However, children are a very important part of society.  With a lower fertility rate, we are not producing enough children to replace those who are dying and so there are less young people, and more older people.  But who are these older people?  Most of them are those baby boomers, but the time will eventually come when they all start to retire, and because the fertility rate is lower than that replacement rate, there won't be enough workers in the work field, or human capital, to support those who aren't working.  You can put two and two together.  Children are a necessary part of our growing economy and if we have a major population drop we are looking at a world wide economic crisis by 2060.  

So that decision of of having kids, that you thought was so personal, might not be after all.           

How Gullible Are You?

When I was younger my dad used to drop statistics like it was nobody's business.  The funny thing was that I never actually saw my dad read which always made me curious to where he was getting his information.  Many times when we hear statistics we take it as the the absolute truth.  But what makes something true and what makes something only as something we PERCEIVE to be true? 

In a study by the American Psychological Association they concluded that "not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect to children of heterosexual parents."  This study played a major role in courts redefining marriage since they believed that one of the major factors would be how this could effect children.  This one study has majorly influenced so many people and their thoughts on same sex marriage, and even what marriage is in general.  However in a brief written by Dr. Loren Marks entitled "Same-sex parenting and children’s outcomes: A closer examination of the American Psychological Association’s brief on lesbian and gay parenting" shows that there were some major errors in the interpretation of the data used, yet someone who would have only heard this study and taken it as the absolute truth would have never been able to know that.  In reality there wasn't any significant conclusion to come to a decision either way.  

So before you just go believing just anything somebody tells you, make sure you really study it out.  You are your own agent, not to be acted upon but to act.