Altameroy Blog

The idea that time is on your side may not always be true,
according to a recent study by the HREF="http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/xge134123.pdf" rel="nofollow">
American Psychological Association.

Research by two business-school professors reveals that people
over-commit and overspend because they expect to have more time
and resources in the future than they have at the present. “All
of us are busy, all of the time, but people continually think
they will have more of a resource in the future and are willing
to overbook and take on more future tasks, as long as it is not
now,” says Gal Zauberman, PhD, of the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, who conducted the study with John Lynch
Jr., PhD, of Duke University.

He explained that if you asked someone if they would rather work
an hour today or three hours, three weeks from now, they are
more likely to say the latter.

“But if you asked them three weeks from now, they would say,
gee, if it happened today they would never have said yes,
because they are busy again,” Zauberman said.

They suspect that because every day is a little different: “The
nature of time fools us and we “forget” about how things fill
our days.”

New York University graduate student, Sarah Kaufman, 25, at the
School of Public Policy agrees with the study. “I make really
long to-do lists that are usually not attainable for the week
ahead,” she admitted.

Rebecca Weissman, 22, a psychology senior, also at NYU, plans
during her Spring Break to read the eight articles that she put
off reading during the semester.

“Ideally, I’ll get more done because I won’t have classes,” she
said. Like the study’s participants, she believes the future is
nearly “limitless.” But on reflection, she conceded “That’s
probably the problem.”

Zauberman says that although surveyed participants believed that
both time and money would be more available to them in “a month”
than “today,” they believed it more strongly for time than for
money. He believes people are less optimistic when it comes to
their finances and are more aware of their expenses because of
planned payments like reoccurring monthly bills.

“Money is more planned, but time is less predictable” he says.
“You deal with expenditures of money more regularly but things
come up that you never plan.”

Kaufman says she can plan her finances well, but admits that she
tends to overbook social events not realizing that she will most
likely be equally busy in the future too.

“You never really know how long something is going to take, and
it usually takes longer than you expected,” she observed.

Ghada Khalil, 27, an NYU graduate student of media studies has a
different take. She feels that at the current moment, the things
you are doing seem dull. She thinks the future offers the
promise of excitement.

“The idea of the future gives me hope, sometimes being in the
now is not exciting,” she said while sitting in a student lounge
and coincidently writing a to-do list for her class work.

The actual study appears in the Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, Vol. 134, No. 1

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It’s important to know that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Intelligence, as measured by I.Q., are two different things.

Some parents are convinced that if their child has ADD it means that they are retarded. On the other hand, other parents say, “I’ve heard that ADD kids are really very, very bright. I think my child must have ADD,” as if they wanted to wear a button that said, “My child is smarter than your child because he has ADD.” Both of these points of view are unfortunate, and are based on bad information.

Intelligence falls into a Bell Curve, even for those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Some Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder kids are below average I.Q., and some are even retarded. Other ADD ADHD kids are above average I.Q., and some are even quite brilliant. But the awful truth for a parent to hear is that MOST children (about 2 out of 3) are AVERAGE I.Q. That’s why they call it “average.” And most Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder kids have average I.Q. as well.

Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder just have a very tough time in the classroom setting. We tend to see lower academic achievement than we would predict based on the child’s I.Q. If they are really smart and they ought to be A students, we are disappointed when they’re getting C’s instead. If they ought to be B students, they’re getting D’s instead. Their school performance is disappointing, but it may not be due to a lack of intelligence.

The ADHD Information Library has six web sites with information to help children and teens with Attention Deficit Disorder be more successful in school, at home, and in life. At our site dedicated to helping children and teens succeed in the classroom you will find over 500 classroominterventions for teachers and parents to use.Visit ADDinSchool.comand look around for four or five suggestions to help your child succeed.

Douglas Cowan, Psy.D., is a family therapist who has been working with ADHD children and their families since 1986. He is the clinical director of the ADHD Information Library’s family of seven web sites, including http://www.newideas.net, helping over 350,000 parents and teachers learn more about ADHD each year. Dr. Cowan also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of VAXA International of Tampa, FL., is President of the Board of Directors for KAXL 88.3 FM in central California, and is President of NewIdeas.net Incorporated.

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There are Many Resources for Online Suicide Help

First of all, if you are currently having suicidal ideations please immediately call:

1-800-SUICIDE (800-748-2433)

This is the National Hopeline and you will be connected to a trained counselor in your local area that can help you.

There are many sources of online suicide help and information. The newest source for online suicide help is www.preventsuicide.net The Preventing Suicide National Journal was started three years ago, and was the nation’s first suicide prevention journal aimed at advocates, and other concerned people who wanted to take action to prevent suicide in their own communities. Since the summer of 2002, over 15 issues have been published with the latest in best practices, technology applications for crisis intervention, legislative initiatives, grant opportunities, and the latest findings in the research field.

The first online suicide help version of the Preventing Suicide National Journal was published in July of 2005. Once again, the National Hopeline broke ground with the very first interactive online suicide help journal. The inaugural on-line edition started off with more of the same and a complete review of the recent three year study of the National Hopeline Network and how effective crisis intervention is when the best practices we know are followed.

With the online suicide help edition, you simply click on a hyperlink and it will take you to the research, full text, or source of additional information the writer used in researching the article. The online suicide help version is even better as you do not have to wait a full month-two months for listing but can get them in real time as they are updates weekly or in the case of major news worthy items the next day.

Suicide is a serious risk for people with unipolar or bipolar disorder. By learning more about suicide, you’ll be taking an active step in understanding more about your illness. With www.preventsuicide.net, you will have immediate access to all of the online suicide help resources. The caretakers of a loved one wanting to die, also need access to online suicide help. You need to acknowledge the person’s feelings and thoughts without being judgmental. Offer reassurance and remind that person that there are many resources for treatment; online suicide help, The National Hopeline Network at 1-800-SUICIDE( 1-800-784-2433), the American Association of Suicidology, http://www.suicidology.org/

and the National Mental Health Association, http://www.nmha.org/

Remember, please don’t ever give up hope. You have not tried everything. On August 1, 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration( FDA) approved vagus nerve stimulation therapy as an adjunctive treatment for chronic depression. If you doctor thinks that you should consider vagus nerve stimulation for your condition, you should educate yourself about this remarkable therapy. It is a 90-minute out-patient procedure and is not related to ECT or brain surgery. For the immediate future, you should be aware of all the online suicide help that is readily available to you.

You can learn more about vagus nerve stimulation at www.VagusNerveStimulator.com

Charles Donovan was a patient in the FDA investigational trial of vagus nerve stimulation as a treatment for chronic or recurrent treatment-resistant depression. He was implanted with the vagus nerve stimulator in April of 2001. He chronicles his journey from the grips of depression thanks to vagus nerve stimulation therapy in his book:

Out of the Black Hole: The Patient’s Guide to Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Depression

The book was exhibited at the American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Meeting in late May. It is available on his web site, 24 hours a day/7 days a week through the toll free number 1-888-VAGUS-88, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. He is founder of the http://www.VagusNerveStimulator.com Web Site.

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Never, since man has walked upright, have people all over the globe had more educational advantages or more opportunities to practice advanced social and interpersonal skills. And yet, for the most part, we still have not learned to look past the obvious, to see beyond the exterior shell of our fellow man, and to discover the worth of the real person.

We seem consumed by the superficial. We worry incessantly (to the tune of billions of dollars every year in “cures” and “helps”) about being too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too old, too young.

Men are worried about their hairlines or their baldness, or they dwell on the size of their shoulders. They build their biceps, often at the expense of their brains. Consider athletes who are so determined to win that they will sacrifice their futures for anabolic steroids. That’s buying the “dream” but paying for it with a life.

Women wear bigger shoulder pads to offset the width of their hips, and they’re nervous about their bra sizes. They’ll sacrifice on groceries to have acrylic fingernails or a tan in the dead of winter. And everyone is fussing about their hair. It’s too long, too short, too curly, too straight, too dark, too light, too fine, too coarse. So, by the millions, we’re having everything changed to something it isn’t.

Plastic surgeons, the executives of some big cosmetic companies, and owners of spas and gyms are living opulently in mansions and on yachts, and it’s all being paid for by our national craziness about what we look like.

Sometimes we tell ourselves that our concerns are for health reasons, but I suspect if we took an honest survey, the results would be heavily in favor of vanity over verve.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of people doing the best they can with whatever they’ve got, and I’m just as guilty as the next person about a lot of the things I’ve mentioned. I just have a growing concern about our national obsession with unrealistic objectives.

Marriages and relationships are being dissolved over a few pounds of extra weight. The emotional stability of an awful lot of children is being uprooted and replanted in the soil of commercialism. We’re so hooked on “beauty,” we’re missing basics.

So what does all this have to do with grieving? Well, undue concern over the external is basic to the issue of grieving. If our society is uncomfortable with someone who is scarred, disfigured, overweight, flat-chested, bald, or otherwise “different,” how much less do they want to encounter someone who is in deep emotional pain?

We have become conditioned to wanting to live in both an emotional and physical “Disneyland.” But remember, nobody really lives at Disneyland. It’s just a fun diversion, not a substantial reality.

We seem to have forgotten how to appreciate the values of self-sacrifice, patience, and personal integritythe things that made this country great in the first place. Our national victories originally came out of immense suffering and sacrifice, dedication to ideals, determination against unbelievable odds, a willingness to persevere no matter how long it tooknot to mention the qualities of faith and hope. Betsy Ross didn’t need to look like Jessica Simpson and Nathan Hale didn`t have to be Rob Lowe! There were no television or movie screens to make fantasy dilute reality.

If we weren’t so afraid of confronting reality without its makeup, maybe we could produce a culture much less afraid of supporting and comforting people who are hurting. Maybe, if we could stop peddling quite so fast on the exercise bike, we’d have a chance to discover who we really are and what really matters to us.

My own realities have taught me to catch myself short whenever I’m tempted to avoid someone or something that is un-beautiful at first glance. It’s become almost a challenge to make myself take a closer look at both people and situations. It’s not really such a noble thing to do, and I’ve been rewarded beyond my wildest imagination in the treasures I’ve discovered. People are truly amazing, and they can have so much of value to share if we will just stop, really look, and really listen.
If you haven’t done so already, give yourself a gift. Watch for souls instead of bodies. Mine a nugget or two of joy and love by daring to dig below the surface. Remember, Tammy Faye might be really beautiful underneath all that “stuff.”

And you’re beautiful, too. Enhance the beauty in you that really matters, because it’s the beauty that was seen by the person, now absent, who unconditionally loved you and who may see you now from a very different vantage point.

Good Grief Resources (http://www.goodgriefresources.com) was conceived and founded by Andrea Gambill whose 17-year-old daughter died in 1976. Almost thirty years of experience in leading grief support gropus, writing, editing, and founding a national grief-support magazine has provided valuable insights into the unique needs of the bereaved and their caregivers and wide access to many excellent resources. The primary goal of Good Grief Resources is to connect the bereaved and their caregivers with as many bereavement support resources as possible in one, efficient and easy-to-use website directory.

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Sending birthday ecards to colleagues to express your friendship and care, is one of the easiest ways to show your warmth and feelings for them. Most of us operate with colleagues. Few people work from home, but even they have some business contacts. Otherwise one can expect a team of ten or more working together in a modern office. The goal of the team is to achieve common goals. To do that it is important that the atmosphere is friendly and cheerful. One most important element is care. If I feel that my colleagues care for me, I appreciate that much more than any thing else.

Most of are always busy with our work and that makes us forget important things in life. Remember urgent always takes precedence over important. That is the reason most colleagues forget birthday of their co-workers. Here is the easy way out. Make a sheet with names of all the co-workers and circulate that in the beginning of the year. Ask everyone to fill in their name and birthday. Now prepare photocopies of that sheet and pass one to everyone.

This will ensure that no one will forget the birthday of a co-worker. On his/her birthday, as soon as they start their computer and check mail, they will be delighted to find the inbox full of greeting cards. Select ecards with warm colors and

the text should appreciate their qualities. Rather than selecting a card saying only happy birthday, select the ones that also have nice words to say about them. For example a ecard that says - we all appreciate your work and friendly spirit. Here is wishing you a Happy Birthday- will make the recipient feel much better.

Every business thrives if the people working are happy. Create the much needed happiness and atmosphere of friendliness with birthday ecards. Imagine two offices - one full of highly efficient people but no spirit of friendship and another with people of medium talent but great friendship and care for each other. Which place will produce better results? Make your choice. Keeping co-workers happy with birthday ecards is the easiest way to say - I care for you and I am your friend.

C.D.Mohatta writes text content for fun quizzes, greeting cards, and desktop downloads. Send birthday ecards to colleagues. Solve fun quizzes and tests and also send your colleagues birthday wallpapers. The topics of his writings include love, inspiration, holidays, birthdays, nature, religion and spirituality, success etc.

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It can be hard to say goodbye, because you know that you will be going back to being alone. Especially when you are very close to someone, or when you are very lonely. Saying goodbye can be difficult because you are (rightly) not interested in being alone. It can cause a very hard down after a very pleasant and long-lasting high. So how do you say goodbye? How do you part when you know that parting is not “sweet sorrow”, as Shakespeare wrote, but something that will just lead to sorrow. However, staying too long can also lead to problems, if you worry about what people will say about you.

So how do you accept that it is time to part? For some it is an easier process than others. But the acceptance that while this is goodbye it is not so forever is a good first step. The knowledge that while you might be alone now, you won’t last in that state is also important to recognize. Especially when the person saying goodbye is someone who you spend a lot of time with, you should feel comfortable that they will return and you will see them again.

In the meantime, it is important to not look upon loneliness as a terminal state. Look for ways to occupy yourself. You will know when you are going to be alone, and you can find things to do with that time, so you are not as sad and lonely.

Learn to alleviate your depression at http://www.curemydepression.com

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