Argumentative Essay: First and Final Submission Topic: Resilience Resilience, a Blessing in Disguise Sometimes, stopping on one’s tracks and pondering upon the things that one has done do not seem like a bad idea in general. The world has seemingly engrossed itself in its goal of globalizing every piece of island that some have found it too fast to follow while some have found it too slow to achieve progress. In every angle a person may view it, the world has and will always have problems shaking their hands and greeting them with grinning wide faces. Globalization, the heatedly debated topic of this world, the double-sided card that is a blessing yet a bane at the same time has gotten people thinking over and over again whether it should be further pursued not. Some believe that the further pursuit of this project causes the rapid disappearance of small cultures, dissolving these small solutes in a mixture dominated by large solvents of American and other western cultures while some believe that putting a stop to globalization, puts us in a stand still much like a body of water waiting to be stagnant with nothing new to keep the busy market constantly flowing. The consequences on both sides have always posed problems upon each step that we make and will further continue as long as our society threads this path. Also, it cannot be denied that as the world enters whole new stages of Globalization, the problems brought about by neo-colonialism seemingly becomes more evident especially in today’s generation of youth. Children no longer shuffle towards the great outdoors to enjoy the sun and play native games with their friends instead they stay at home, confined within the world Apple has created which is easily accessible with just the easy click of a button. With the rapid entrance of foreign music, movies, clothing, and products, teenagers no longer have a strong sense of cultural identity. Because of this, Identity confusion has seemingly been widespread as they find themselves foreigners even in their own land. And now, though how humorous it may seem to be, one of the most terrifying endeavours that the world faces and finds it hard to put a stop to is McDonaldization, as sociologist George Ritzer discussed in his book “The McDonaldization of Society” published on 1993, the domination of McDonald’s food chains in the market that local businesses become victims as they are swallowed in the harsh environment our food industry has. Though how numerous people’s problems may be, it can be observed that everyone seemingly finds a way to come up with a solution to each of these. It is during these times that people’s capability to be resilient creatures becomes truly evident. Before one proceeds further, there is the need to differentiate the concepts of Resilience and Recovery. Recovery is being able to get back and retrieve former positive functioning after a set period of time from when bereavement happened (Frese, Knight & Saks, 2009) while Resilience is being able to maintain same positive functioning before, during and after bereavement (Bonanno, 2004). Many tend to mix the definitions of Resilience and Recovery whenever dealing with people who have recently experienced aversive situations for grief has always been believed to be an immediate result of such circumstances most often associated with Sigmund Freud’s mourning theory, which states that people mourn and experience grief whenever one is bereaved which was later criticized as modern psychologists have further developed the concept of resilience (Stroebe & Stroebe, 1991). In an article written by American psychologist George Bonanno titled “Loss, Trauma and Human Resilience: have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive situations” published on 2004, it was shown that humans are innately resilient creatures no matter how different they may be from one another. Through this, he presents a series of explanations and proofs that Resilience is a common feature of every person thus giving people the capability to thrive and be productive individuals even when faced with extreme challenges, that even though one is caught in between multiple problems, it is not rare for him or her to be able to maintain a positive disposition which helps in thinking of ways on how he or she will be able to address the challenges at hand. It is important that one bears knowledge of the specific situations wherein resilience is most often seen and evident within the behaviour of people. Such are what psychologists often call as “Aversive Situations” and there are three classifications upon which these occur. The first one occurs on a global basis thus is referred to as Economic Recessions. Economic Recessions are those that happen worldwide usually involving countries and the international connections that each one has with one another since the global economic web is constructed in such a way that the economies of developing and less powerful countries are dependent upon those of a supreme group consisting of several powerful countries that dominate the world market such as the United States and the European Union. When one of these countries belonging to the supreme group experience abrupt economic problems, a domino effect occurs and the less powerful are more often than not hit the hardest. The second one pertains to Adverse Childhood Experiences specifically those happening inside the family usually characterized by the abandonment of a parental figure to a child or the sudden loss of a person who is most dear to an individual. These ones most often have psychological as well as emotional impacts upon people who experience such circumstances as there are memories and bonds that one creates with those people whom he or she treats as important in his or her life. As psychologist J. William Worden described in his study of people’s coping characteristics in his book “Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy”, it is the memories bereaved people have with the ones lost that make it hard for them to accept the fact that they are no longer with them. These memories create ties that are hard to break and sometimes only time can put a solution to therefore causing long periods of time that their functioning becomes negatively affected. The third one refers to Self-Adversities and this one is usually treated with less attention compared to the other two but most often incur a very negative effect upon the way people act and think. The human mind controls how people function in the society, how they view the world as well as how they view themselves. People with self-problems find it hard to interact with their environment because first of all, they experience conflicting thoughts and ideas within themselves. Problems are natural phenomena that have always been an integral part of every living creature’s lives. Without these, life will seem like a monotonous cycle filled with happiness that never ceases and doesn’t bring anything new to each and every one person in this world. Yet even though problems have always been an omnipresent entity, Resilience has given people the ability to meet these in such a way that one is able to treat problems as normal features of everyday living. But have we trusted our ability to be naturally resilient that it has slowly been planting seeds of problems created from our mentality that second chances will always be at our dispense? Everyone loves second chances. All throughout our lives, one can say that every one of us has relied upon the mercy of second chances at least once. A blessing that gives us the opportunity to get back up and change what we have unfavourably done in the past. Though second chances have been widely viewed as a blessing, the mere thought of having second chances easily accessible has given birth to people’s banes as well. It may be that because of resilience, people tend to develop leniency. Resilient people often become confident of their capabilities that they tend to think that any form of challenges can easily be surpassed as long as one bears in mind that it is within one’s ability to do so. Because of this confidence, it becomes an unconscious act that they give less attention to things that are of utmost priority. Also, their work ethics become affected and mediocrity seemingly becomes evident among those who have a strong sense of confidence upon themselves. They bear in mind that it is acceptable to fail once as one can always do his or her best once another door for opportunity opens once again. Because of these, there is the possibility that people view resilient people as indifferent and lazy since most often than not, people believe that they settle with what others deem as simply acceptable and not exceptional as long as the task was finished and ready to be presented. Although Resilience causes people to be lenient, bearing in mind that second chances will always be available, it still proves to be beneficial in most cases especially in Asia as developing countries are easily affected by abrupt economic changes all over the world. First of all, it has provided people the ability to easily cope when faced with aversive situations. March 11, 2011 marked an unforgettable day for the Japanese people when a 9.0 magnitude undersea mega-thrust earthquake hit the country and caused a deadly 23-foot tsunami to hit certain areas 230 miles northeast of Tokyo. It was the most powerful earthquake that had hit Japan and was recorder as the fifth most powerful earthquake to be recorded in world history. In a video footage by National Geographic shown in their episode last June 9, 2011, one can clearly see how devastating the calamity was for Japan. Powerful waves of water quickly rushed all over the surfaces of Tohoku’s Iwate Prefecture, Sendai as well as Japan’s main island Honshu. According to accounts reported by the Japanese National Police Agency, a total of 15, 883 deaths, 6, 145 injured, and 2, 667 people were left missing, 129, 225 building completely collapsed while a total of 945, 970 infrastructures were severely damaged. Seemingly as though these unfortunate circumstances weren’t enough, due to the strength of the earthquake causing a massive tsunami to sweep over the lands of Japan, six reactors located at the Fukushima Dai-ichi powerplant (No.1) were damaged as reported by Tokyo Electric Power, the agency in charge of operating the power plants, which caused fear for most citizens as it was said that radioactivity levels were four times the limit that the government considers safe before any risk to one’s health occurs. During those times, it may have appeared as though Japan could not have been able to get back on their feet and regain their once flourishing economy as it was estimated by the risk modelling company AIR Worldwide that the total damages were tantamount to 53 billion US Dollars but it didn’t turn out as predicted since according to the CIA World Fact book, there were several improvements that Japan was able to incur even amidst the situation that they were in. During 2011, the exchange rate was at 79.81 Yen per Dollar, unemployment rate was at 4.6% and the GDP Real Growth Rate was at -0.8%. But when they entered 2012, several improvements can be seen. The exchange rate was at 79.42 Yen per Dollar, unemployment rate was at 4.4% and the GDP Real Growth Rate was at 2.2%. Infrastructures and roads were rebuilt, citizens were given proper health care and affected towns were properly recovered in such a way that people were able to continue normal everyday living. It is inevitable for us to face aversive situations when they come for these are unexpected and no one can predict when they will happen. That is why when these happen, Resilience serves as an asset for it lessens the impact that these sudden occurrences of unfortunate events bring. A possibly good situation that reflects this was the occurrence of the Great Recession that lasted for almost a year starting from December of 2007 and greatly declined until September of 2008. The Great Recession also known as the Global Recession of 2009 was a devastating sudden drop of economic health all over the world which was believed to be primarily caused by the sudden bursting of what economists of BNP Paribas, one of the world’s largest global banking groups located in Paris, referred to as the “Real Estate Bubble” in the United States. The Real Estate Bubble was originally the Real Estate business in the United States and was referred to as a bubble as it was believed by most economists as an unstable business that when further enlarged will immediately burst and cause a major decline in economic activity. During the period from 2000-2007, the global pool of fixed-income securities increased from approximately 36 trillion dollars to 80 trillion dollars and this was due to the entering of high-growth developing nations in the global capital markets. Because of this sudden increase in global savings, investors who were searching for higher yields sought global alternatives to those offered by the U.S. Treasury Bonds where they can put their stocks and allow it to grow beneficially. This was the trend that global investors followed and their investments did marginally grow but what they failed to predict was the sudden decline of the Real Estate business’ health. Lesser people bought houses and housing units therefore causing a sudden drop in estate prices consequently causing less profit and more deficits for global investors. Due to this phenomenon, investors who pooled in their money got scared of the further deficits that this decline will cause them therefore forcing them to withdraw their investments from banks that funded the numerous housing projects that were originally spearheaded through the funds provided by these investors. With the sudden lack of funds and numerous unfinished projects that remain to be finished, the U.S. government was forced to push their funds into finishing these projects. With less funds and unliquidated housing units, numerous banks greatly went down therefore causing inflation and the sudden outburst of fiscal prices in the United Sates. Being the super power country that the United States of America is, their decline in economic activity caused a domino effect all over the world as almost all countries in the world were somehow dependent upon its economy. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research in America, some of the greatest and most devastating effects of the Great Recession during those times were that 39% of households were unemployed, numerous people who previously had stable jobs were left jobless because of companies’ rigorous efforts to cut off on employees in order to maximize work force and even multinational companies such as Intel almost filed bankruptcy. To summarize everything, people were left with almost nothing as the harsh economic dip weakened the buying power of people all over the world. But the economic recession faired oppositely in the Philippines. According to an article written by Bob Martin, editor-in-chief of the magazine Live in the Philippines, the Philippines despite being dramatically hit by the domino effect caused by the economic recession in the U.S. was even able to achieve positive growth rate compared to other Asian countries. Yes, it may be said that growth rate did observably slow down but nonetheless, did not reach the point that it became negative and incurred deficits. This shows that even though people are faced with grave situations, it is most likely for Filipinos to show determination and a positive outlook even amidst being hit with grave problems as we know that Filipinos are known for their characteristic of being greatly resilient. As said by Hara Estroff Marano, Editor-at-Large for the website Psychology Today, in her article “The Art of Resilience”, the heart of resilience is a belief in oneself yet they also believe in something larger than oneself. Resilient people do not let adversities define them instead they these as obstacles that they need to overcome in order to reach an ultimate goal. Resilience is a good trait that should be harboured by people for through this, one is able to develop good characteristics that helps in addressing problems. Resilient people tend to have a positive disposition in life, they do not see challenges as factors that will hinder their progress instead they view them as factors that will help in the development of one’s skills in solving problems. They know how to create boundaries between their work environment and themselves therefore allowing them to develop a strong sense of self identity which is not easily wavered by stress or traumatic experiences. Also, resilient people tend to become reliable workers as most consider the many possibilities that circumstances bring in one’s life. There are instances that when problems become numerous that sometimes one stops and thinks that the better way out of it is to give up and let them pass but in the perception of resilient ones, the possible ways on how to deal with these problems are diverse as long as one has the determination to do so and that giving up is the last option in their list. They are quick thinkers, easily able to come up with ways upon how unexpected challenges can be solved and most of all, resilient people are optimists. They view life positively and think that there are none that cannot be done if exerted with enough and united efforts. It may seem as though that people view resilient people as lenient ones who tend to settle with mediocrity for one cannot deny that they seem to often rely on the mercy of second chances. Resilient people tend to believe in the power of second chances that sometimes, they end up prioritizing things during the least amount of time. But instead of viewing Resilience as a bane among people, it will be better if people develop this characteristic among them and at the same time, educate people about the values of discipline and prioritization. It is when we know how to prioritize our duties that we are able to give our best efforts in everyday situations especially now that we live in a very fast-paced world where unfortunate circumstances has seemingly become a part of everyday living. References: 1. Bonanno, G.A. (2004), Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience. Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events? American Psychologist, 59 (1), 20-28. 2. (2013). Japan Economy Profile 2013. Retrieved from: indexmundi/japan/economy_profile.html. 3. (2013). 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. Retrieved from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami. 4. McNiff, C., & Rowen, B. (2007). Tsunami in Japan 2011: Waves Stirred Up by Earthquake Cause Wide Destruction. Retrieved from: infoplease/science/weather/japan-tsunami-2011.html. 5. Connor, K.M., Davidson, J.R.T. (2003), Development of a new resilience scale: The ConnorDavidson resilience scale (CD-RISC). Depression and Anxiety, 18, 76-82. 6. Connor (2006), Assessment of resilience in the aftermath of trauma. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 67 (2), 46-9. 7. Kersting, K. (2004). A New Approach to Complicated Grief: Better assessments and treatments lead to a brighter outlook for people with severe grief, according to a report from an APA group. Volume 35, No. 10. Retrieved from: apa.org/monitor/nov04/grief.aspx. 8. Sta. Ana, O. (2011). Title of Work: Failure attribution and academic resilience: the Filipino students’ experience. 9. Thi Nu, T. (2009). The concept of family resilience from the perspective of Vietnamese Parents. 10. Bautista, V. (2001). Title of Work: Working with abused children from the lenses of resilience and contextualization. [S.I.]: Save the Children Sweden. 11. Risk, resilience and prevention: promoting the well-being of all children. (1994). Baltimore: P.H. Brooks. 12. Elischer, L. Examine the division between rich and poor countries and comment on causes and trends over recent decades. Retrieved from: academia.edu/1119783/Examine_the_division_between_rich_and_poor_c ountries_and_comment_on_causes_and_trends_over_recent_decades. 13. Hidalgo, S. & Laurel. (1989). Title of Work: Resilience and Realism. 14. Ritzer, G. (2004). Title of Work: The McDonaldization of Society. Maryland: Sage Publications. 15. Worden, J. (2001). Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Professional. Springer Publishing Company.
Posted on: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 14:17:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015