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Check this page often for updates on how my project is progressing along with other interesting information.
#1: What led me to this topic? I was interested in the MBTI topic not only as it pertains to us today but also because I am a naturally curious person and fall victim to countless random personality quizzes. I may be an INTP but I bet you didn't know my spirit animal is a beagle. Or that my soul colour is magenta. Unlike than those unscientific pointless quizzes the MBTI has real world impacts and labels that now more than ever, play a bigger role in our lives. #2: Personality..... I recently got a job! Go Jonah! Go Jonah! Anyways, I deal with a lot of people daily, many of them nice, some mean and some make me want to push them off the roof. I've been paying extra attention to how my personalty fluctuates depending on the people I'm around. As the "new guy" I have been being trained by a few different staff members all about the same age as me. Some even go to GHS. One thing I noticed is that my personal bias kicks in whenever I met a new staff member. I saw myself sub-consciously labeling these kids and placing them in their own cliques based on their own personality, tonality and clothing style. Although I don't know any of them enough to be making such illogical decisions about them, it seems as if I interact "better" around like-minded people or the kids who share more of my personality, habits, hobbies etc. #3 A Table Talk: I talked with to my parents at the dinner table. Wait, what? this is 2018 who still talks to their parents? Anyways, my mother and I had an enlighteing discussion about how she was personally affected by the MBTI. She told me that her company used MBTI when interviewing potential candidates. She said they stressed that they want the applicants to fall on the extroverted and outgoing side of the spectrum rather than quiet and reserved she said those qualities describe the IT department more than HR ;) Knowing my MBTI is beneficial to me for many reasons yet I have yet to use it in a interview; who knows, maybe I'll have my own company and interview others? #4 I was thinking...... How scary is it that any word can essentially be made into a label? Scary right?! All it really takes is somebody malicious to spread a new term/label to try to hurt others. Humanity seems to have a certain tendency to separate and condemn others for the sake of making them selves feel better. Maybe humanity has an diagnosed self-esteem problem? #5 Labels Labels Labels... Organization is a key fundamental to humanity. Without it, how would we know when to catch the bus, where something is? Organization is helpful and often done with, you guessed it, labels. Now labels can be good, if you were to look in my school binder you'd find labels. Yet Humans tend not to organize but separate other Humans with labels. Think any high school movie ever, The Jock, The Geek, The Cheerleader. These labels are all applicable in every high school in existence. It's a natural Human tendency to label. In some cases it helps us feel safe, others times it lets us find the right people to interact with. But, the other times, labeling can be condemning and crude. Science shows that the Human mind has an ornate ability to subconsciously label other Human beings twenty tenths of a second after seeing them for the first time. Before you even say "hi" the mind has already decided how this person is known to you. Good luck! NEW EMC THESIS BELOW: #6 Topic Change!!!!!! From this point on, I want to focus more on how socioeconomic status can impact somebody's personality. Albeit, this still focuses on labels as labels can be applied to all aspects of somebody's life, the socioeconomic standpoint takes a more structured approach compared to the vastness of personality archetypes by looking at people's personality in relation to their socioeconomic status as well as its impact on their happiness. #7 If you read entry six, continue on! If not, what's your problem? Anyways, an underlying existing problem closely related to mine is the "does money buy happiness" problem. This dates back to the scientific date of long ago. One interesting standpoint I could focus on is does money provide the means to be completely content with one's self? Or, does money just provide temporary satisfaction? #8 Full steam ahead! With my recent topic change, along with it brought a whole new slew of challenges and opportunities. In preparation for January Day and Symposium I have started a book discussion with Mr. Bott ( thanks for the book!). So far the book Happy Money has given me a boatload of new information to work with. Along with the new information I have thought of some new creative ways to get my own information to use for January Day presentations (surveys, object comparison w respect to personal beliefs...) Of the many things that stuck out in the book and came up in our early morning EMC meet was the thought of "subjective value" As my project is only still maturing, subjective value seems like a good focal point for which I can correlate: integrate, and organize my data around. Subjective value, for me (and how I think the book did a good job of explaining it) is, the thought that an objects value regardless of it's initial price can have a different perceived value based on other factors such as personal beliefs, proximity to other items, social tendencies (perception), personal attachment... Due to the sheer complexity and stretch of information that my one topic covers Subjective Value seems like a good place to start in organizing data and developing strong ethos and logos. Besides subjective value, another interesting fact is that the book establishes from the get-go that personal happiness might not always align with common sense or traditional social viewpoints thus making chasing after happiness tougher. One example is clearly laid out in the space flight problem. The couple that wants to go to space together -albeit only for a brief time- thinks it will be the best decision they have ever made. From the outside world, a 20,000 dollar down payment on a 200,000 dollar flight to space lasting less than an hour seems absurd! Yet to the individuals experiencing the occasion first hand, who are we to say how that experience will impact them? { interesting book studies} - the pen experiment (subjective value) - the restaurant experiment (exclusivity drives fondness of moment) - the gift card experiment (constant availability of an object -money in this case- decreases it's desirability and need) - money provides the means for new experiences, memorable experiences = :) -the circle experiment (sense of self and happiness) #9 Experiment Time! In preparation for January Day I have begun to test experiments with a small group of people firstly in HD. Once I gather enough data I will compare it against my thesis and see how and or what is similar and needs to be changed. On our brief meeting on Friday we talked about revamping my thesis as my project is changing in some aspects. Original Thesis: " To what extent does the amount of money a person makes effect their physical and mental well being?" Revised Thesis: "To what extent do experiential purchases sustain happiness compared to material purchases?" As this is the first round of experiments I ran into a critical issue with the circle experiment. Students taking the experiment often had difficulty defining their sense of self for the centre circle, let alone figuring out what influences it. Therefore, it should be noted that the centre circle portion of the experiment will be re-labeled as happiness. This should hopefully alleviate the difficulty of defining ones self and make it easier to identify objects that more or less illicit sustained happiness. Another interesting thing I noticed in the circle experiment is that the same item or items ended up in very different spots for different people. This leads me back to subjective value and its importance and correlation to personal happiness. For instance, Amy and her plushies. She put them very close to the centre circle which theoretically means that those make up a good deal of her personal happiness. Yet applying the theory of subjective value, we can deduct that it's not necessarily the physical plushie that is providing Amy with the happiness yet it is the emotions, memories, and personal emphasis tied to the plushies. As noted earlier in the book and post #8 a more memorable object or event carries with it more sustained happiness. {random blurb} tying into sustained happiness. Lets talk about nostalgia. Nostalgia is an intense longing for a past event. WHY? Why would we long for the past so hard? Probably because something about that memory made us happy! This further backs up my revised thesis in respect to experiential happiness. # 10 Moving forward with my project After my conversation with Bott (3-14-19) we have decided to focus more on where we invest our money more than what we spend it on. I had brought up an interesting concept of wants vs needs and how it feels when I want something compared to when I own it and then after I own it. Besides that we had also talked about working for your happiness the same way you work for your money. You cannot just expect money and happiness to come out of nowhere. You need a plan to get both of those things. That being said, brings me to my next point, we should be investing not only our money but time into other people. When I look for a product, I won't buy the cheapest one available if it means it will break in a weeks time. I will spend the extra X amount of dollars if the quality of the product is superior and I will get a better value/return on my money. The same logic can be applied to people. I'd rather -and hopefully you do to- have a couple really close friends than a whole posse of people who act like they like me. While people can become happy for short bursts of time, my project focuses more on long-term, sustained happiness. And in that case, I say put your money where you'll see it come back to improve your life in positive ways. As the project progresses I think I should focus more on how people can bring about a bigger return on your happiness based on how you invest in them. Short blurb: Sometimes it helps to know the right people. That applies to this project in the sense that knowing and investing your time in the right kinds of people can help you benefit your own life. P.S. Hasbro, is not pleased with the hominopoly idea. Should we agree to sign the cease and desist or no? 11) The Effect of Investing in Others: " Money comes and goes, but people stick around." -Randy Hartman- As my project inches closer to the end, it's important to sift through the details and pull out what actually matters. Over the past few weeks I have shifted away from the mentality that money and where you put it is what matters most. Moving forward I am beginning to see that money isn't the only contributing factor towards happiness. If we really want to see a return in our happiness we need not only invest our money, but time in other people/peers/ While reading an interesting take on this topic by Doctor Hartman, he said a quote that particularly spoke to me. He said that investing in others is something they will remember once you are gone. Hartman then talks about what I consider to be the most important aspect of investing in others, your exponential return. Besides hopefully being common sense, taking time out of your day to help someone to do anything can prove to be extremely beneficial to not only your mental health, but your happiness and sense of self. By helping others AKA investing time in them you will see the biggest return in your time and happiness. You may be asking, how can I see a return in time? after all, time travel doesn't exist (not yet anyway). As it turns out humans tend to remember how they spent their time and if it was well spent or not. While you won't be getting time put back into your life span per se, you will most likely remember investing in others as a good use of your time. Therefore making it seem like you are not losing time. The benefits don't stop there either. As it also seems, the long term benefits of investing your time in others is immense. Doctor Hartman touched on the fact that in lieu of helping others by investing in them you will be creating your own positive legacy in which you will be fondly remembered. So if you are on the hunt for money because you want to boost your happiness, you may want to hunt elsewhere. Start your hunt by searching for people who you not only want to help but those who will be grateful for your investment in them. TLDR; People are a better investment than money. You will see a bigger return now and even posthumously. SOURCE: http://www.randallhartman.com/investing-others-sure-fire-investment/ #11: Here is what I PLAN on doing as EMC symposium continues to draw near. Upcoming, on April 1st I plan on doing everything in my power to annoy Bott on april fools day. Oh, yeah. My March SDA is also due. And for that I am working on a flipgrid/podcast. I will talk about new ideas for my project and new tweaks to my thesis. Along with that, I plan on shifting money out of the equation as it seems this project is becoming more about time than money. So instead of asking where can i put my money to be the most happy and see the biggest return, I would like to now ask, where can I invest my time to see the biggest return. Besides being an easier topic to delve into compared to the vast array of socioeconomic statuses, this revision to my thesis seems to be a more logical approach. Money just like time is uncertain for every human. We never know how much we truly have. We can put a price tag on material goods but we cannot price our time. It simply is there for us to use. But it's how we use this time, that is the key to sustaining happiness. bullet jots: think hobbies, past times, community service etc..... Outline: Tue, March 26: Journal 11 W sense of progressing project Thurs March 28: Journal 12, finalize and explain March SDA Sun: March 31: Journal 13: Prepare for March SDA. Look for more data to back revised thesis. April Fools Day: Nervously hand in March SDA Thereon: annoy bott until he grades SDA. Good Evening, This is my March SDA. And for that I have prepared for you, nothing at all. APRIL FOOLS! As symposium continues to creep up, the heat is on to revise and polish my EMC project thesis. We have come a long way up until now. Starting originally with personality archetypes, I have since then moved on to looking for the answers to the age-old question, does money really equal happiness? I'm sad to say I have yet to find the answer. However, I have researched some interesting topics that can help find an answer to that question. In January I asked the question, how much money do we need to be happy? And ultimately that question was left somewhat unanswered as it can be applied differently to everybody. Following that, I asked myself how does where we spend our money impact our happiness? The answer to that question was a little more concrete. I found out that spending/investing more money into experiences yields a greater return in happiness down the road compared to spending money on material objects. Moving forward once more, I looked into how people perceive their money based on if they are given it or they worked for it. I found out that when people work for their money they tend to spend and or invest it more responsibly than if they are given it say for a gift. After that, I landed where I am now. I am now focusing on how people see a return in their happiness based on how they invest their time in other people. 13) Over the past few weeks, I have shifted away from the mentality that money and where you put it is what matters most. Moving forward I am beginning to see that money isn't the only contributing factor towards happiness. If we really want to see a return in our happiness we need not only invest our money but time in other people/peers/ While reading an interesting take on this topic by Doctor Hartman, he said a quote that particularly spoke to me. He said that investing in others is something they will remember once you are gone. Hartman then talks about what I consider to be the most important aspect of investing in others, your exponential return. Besides hopefully being common sense, taking time out of your day to help someone to do anything can prove to be extremely beneficial to not only your mental health but your happiness and sense of self. By helping others AKA investing time in them you will see the biggest return in your time and happiness. You may be asking, how can I see a return in time? after all, time travel doesn't exist (not yet anyway). As it turns out humans tend to remember how they spent their time and if it was well spent or not. While you won't be getting time put back into your life span per se, you will most likely remember investing in others as a good use of your time. Therefore making it seem like you are not losing time. #13.5 In preparation for Symposium, Mr.Bott has asked for my skeleton. I am still working out how to get my skeleton out and still remain alive.... However, for my outline for my symposium speech, I am planning on fusing together 3 main topics for my project. Money. Time. And happiness. These 3 are essential to delivering a cohesive symposium speech. Throughout the course of the year, my EMC project has evolved and has carried over important details from all three of those categories. #14 Symposium is only a couple weeks away and now the heat is on to finalize, polish and tidy up my thesis for June. What a long way we've come. From focusing on money, to focusing on socioeconomics to focusing on purchases and more. Now my thesis is comprised of three main components that make up what I like to call the Happiness Equation. This includes investment in money, people and time. While money is still prevalent throughout my project, people take the forefront of my project. Investing in people is an especially powerful way to spur happiness. Thirdly, time is now an important variable in my project. Time, is the unifying variable in my project that ties everything together and allows my project to remain coherent and relevant. I have recently submitted my first Symposium draft and revision. Up until Symposium, I plan on polishing my speech even more and allowing myself time to get a clear plan of action in my head for how I will deliver my speech. As it stands now. My 3 word hook is called "The Happiness Equation" a 3 variable equation that can be applied to anybody.
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"Investing in something is something they will remember once you are gone."
-Doctor Randy Hartman. |