Age Of Happiness - Self-development

2023 Author: Oswald Adamson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 11:55

You will need: a sheet of paper, a pen, a family photo album.

Our age - what is it? On the one hand, this is the difference between today and the date of birth. On the other hand, it is a million impressions, losses and gains, joys and sorrows, travels, relocations, winters and springs. Seeing a great value or a burden of years at your age is the question.

To begin with, we found out the attitude of the participants to their age. Is it good for them at their age, or are they, as a fantasy, ready to change it to some other, more suitable for them?

It turned out that age can be a serious barrier to employment (“women under 40 are required”), and from this point of view, being younger means having more opportunities to achieve success.

It turned out that age leaves its mark (mainly on well-being) and dictates its own rules (at the age of 17 it was so good and comfortable under the parental wing, but at 24 you need to be independent and achieve everything with your own efforts).

And also age is the need to comply with the accepted order in society - for example, if all your peers are already married, then you begin to feel awkward and uncomfortable, even if your life suits you.

Discussing the age of their dreams, the participants were divided: one camp is convinced that the best age is the one in which they are right now, and the other - with nostalgia recalls how good it was at twenty …

In the end, we agreed that every age has its own characteristics, but none of us would be ourselves without every day of every month of every year of our unique life - and it was she who made us who we are.

THE TASK

Draw a long arrow on a piece of paper - it will symbolize your life from birth to the present moment. On this line, make notches - decades - and sign them. Your task is to remember at least five important events in your life that brought you positive experiences that help you enjoy life now. Fix each of them as a point on your life line and sign what specific positive experience you have gained from this event. Formulate it precisely - this is very important!

In order to make it easier to “walk” through different years of your life, leaf through your family album, look at your childhood, school and youth photos. Immerse yourself in the world of memories - as a fisherman, you have to fish out valuable episodes and happy days from the pool of your memory.

Events can be of any scale: for someone, parental divorce is the moment in which he reveals his great love for them; for another person, independent admission to an institute can become a starting point for a new life, in which he receives important knowledge that he can achieve his goals; an event - a meeting with a future spouse - can be a moment of finding great love and joy …

After completing the tasks and telling their stories, the participants were amazed that each next valuable acquisition in their life logically follows from the previous one - if they had not received some important positive experience at the previous stage, they would not have been able to realize the next acquisition! Yes, this is exactly so - as long as we see good in every event, we are ready for valuable gifts from fate.

As long as we see our life as a series of losses and partings, we are only ready for a bad end. But when we see a good story in the past, we are open to interesting sequels!

PROFESSIONAL SECRETS

This task combines the techniques of several schools of psychotherapy, but the main block is related to the narrative approach. It is based on the statement that we relate to our life as we tell others and ourselves about it. One and the same life can be told from different points of view - their change entails a change in the perception, assessment of the story and further actions of the narrator.

In our culture, it is not very common to talk about how happy we are with our lives, but the story of valuable positive experiences can change the angle from which you are used to looking at your story.

Svetlana (41)

For me, one of the most serious milestones in my life was the birth of my second child, after which something changed in me and I decided to go to work. The fact that everything worked out for me became a discovery for me - it turns out that I can! I can achieve my goals, I can be confident. This event turned my life upside down, as it added a new interest to it - work. I am happy to join the work bustle, I really like it! After starting work, I gained experience in setting goals, new interests …

Alexey (22 years old)

I had two attempts to move to Moscow. I spent a long time preparing for the first one, earned money, but it was all in vain. But I understood what and how to do so that the next time everything works out. My experience at this point: "Even failure can teach a lot and be useful." The next time I achieved my goal and successfully transferred from the branch of the Moscow Institute in my hometown to the main building. This event gave me an important experience: "I have achieved my goal, I have succeeded thanks to hard work and perseverance."

Lyudmila (49 years old)

At the age of 3, I ran away from kindergarten - I was very independent, but then I realized that there was no need to rush. At the age of 19, when I entered the technical school, I discovered how important it is to hear someone else - the examiner and I talked with interest, and I entered - and he gave the previous applicants a bad grade … At 24, I was assigned to the job of my dreams: I was very happy, I'm just happy - and most importantly, I've been trying to achieve this for so long! This event taught me that persistence opens doors. At the age of 29, the Bible fell into my hands, and a meaningful coming to Orthodoxy took place. It was a new stage in life, and I realized that everything in life flows and changes: one period ends, another begins. My main acquisition was freedom of spirit and the realization that all changes are for the better. At 49, I started living with my mother and discovered the value of patience.

Natalia (46 years old)

When I was 7 years old, we moved from a communal apartment to our own apartment, I got a separate room and a feeling of the enormous value of my home. At the age of 14, I moved to another school and felt completely grown up and responsible, because I had to take my younger sister to school. When I was 15, I entered the technical school - my acquisition was the confidence: "I can!" At the age of 19, I left for the Far East and discovered the joy of traveling. At 25, she got married and moved to Moscow - here she learned to defend her interests and patience. Later I discovered an independent job search and realized that I could achieve my goal in this field and be confident in myself!

Elena (24 years old)

At the age of 16 I started working: although my salary was enough only for various little things like cosmetics, I was very proud of myself. Then I moved to the capital - the beginning of a new life in which I rely only on myself and live completely independently. It's very difficult, but I can handle it. It's so amazing, because I really miss life with my parents in my own home …