Review of today…or was it yesterday ( here today…gone tomorrow )

posted by Justin D. Pereira

It was a great day on Monday. Firstly I got the news of me being shortlisted for the AJC scholarship and will be going for the final round of interviews on Tuesday afternoon. Hopefully, all goes well. Even if I don't get it, it does not matter, as I know I have tried. Beats not trying, right ? After this breaking news, I attended the Resilience Workshop conducted by Dr. Teo Yew Chun ( I hope I spelt his name correctly ). He was an inspiration. Not only was he a psychologist ( one of my dream professions after a teacher ), he also imparted many life skills and values to the cohort he was sharing his session with.

The one amazing thing I learned about the human mind today was, Learned helplessness, the state of mind where it does not want to accomplish the task as the bearer believes it is futile doing so. It usually follows after failure where the motivational level will sink so low until it is difficult to pick itself up again, then comes this syndrome, followed by clinical depression if negativity sets in for about 3 weeks or more. Hence, clinical depression is a very serious problem as it may lead one to feel suicidal or even attempt self-mutilation.

He also brought light to us the 8 common mistakes which we usually do and cause ourselves to be trapped in the situation.

1. Jumping to conclusions : Settling on a belief when there is no evidence
   
2. Tunnel Vision : Focusing on just the minute part of things and not the big picture
   
3. Overgeneralizing : Taking a problem beyond its context
   
4. Magnifying and Minimizing : a person minimizes his good points but magnifies his flaws making him feel depressed
   
5. Personalizing : blaming yourself
   
6. Externalizing : Blaming others
   
7. Mind reading : assumption
   
8. Emotional Reasoning : Getting a reasoning from an emotional state of mind.
   

Very inspired by his talk, and hopefully can get this motivational speaker to allow me to share his notes and session with my secondary school students and to do something for the community.