Life: The Manual

Run Further, Faster- Kristen Stewart

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 22:29:03 -0500

http://www.frankly.net/health_and_fitness/run_further_faster
Who doesn't feel the need for speed? Whether it's a kick-ass roller coaster or a sports car with the top down, there's something exhilarating about the rush of wind and the jolt of adrenaline that comes with going fast. And the feeling isn't limited to motorized vehicles.
While walking has always been a highly recommended form of exercise, running can also be a viable option for many people with mild and possibly even moderate hemophilia—with the proper preparation.
Start with a Tune Up
In its "Playing It Safe: Bleeding Disorders, Sports and Exercise" booklet, the U.S. National Hemophilia Foundation ranks jogging/running as a 2 (or "moderate risk") on a scale of 1 to 3, so don't start running on a whim.
"Outside of any trauma from a fall, the biggest worry is bleeding in the joints and muscles," says Joe Meschi, M.D., a doctor in the Department of Hematology and Oncology at the Rush-Copley Cancer Care Center in Aurora, Illinois. "Ankles, especially in younger people, are one of the joints most affected."
Therefore, prior to beginning any exercise program, always check in with your treatment team. With knowledge of your factor levels, possible treatment regimens and health history, they are in the best position to help decide if running is right for you.
Yellow Means Slow
Once you receive the green light, don't put the pedal to the metal right away. Instead, play it smart and do your homework. Specifically:
• Consider starting with a conditioning program to help prevent injuries.
• Include stretching for improved flexibility.
• Don't forget to use resistance equipment or weight training to increase strength, which will help support your joints and can give you more power and speed. Leg muscles to focus on include hamstrings, calves, quadriceps and glutes, while a strong core (abdominals and back) can help with proper form.
Green Means Go
Now that your body is in shape, make sure everything else is too.
• Choose your gear carefully. Sure you want stylish clothes and cool kicks but make them practical as well. Clothes should be comfortable, loose fitting and weather-appropriate. "The whole issue is we want to avoid stress on the joints and muscles, so running shoes with more padding and cushion support are key," says Dr. Meschi. Also, remember to replace them at regular intervals.
• Consider where you will run. As with shoes, the softer the surface, the easier on the joints. For example, an indoor cushioned track—or a treadmill—would be preferable to hard concrete outside. If you want to catch some rays while you run, grass is probably still better than pavement though be sure to watch out for obstacles and hidden holes that can cause a twisted ankle.
• Plan your workout in advance. If you're new to running, start slow to increase your endurance. Alternate a minute of jogging with two minutes of walking for about 30 minutes if your body can tolerate it (if it feels like too much, do more walking and less jogging). As this becomes easier, increase the jogging time while decreasing the walking time. Always stop if you feel any pain.
• Warming up is key. Do some walking and/or very light running to increase your heart rate gradually. As you start to feel your muscles loosening up, do stretching exercises as well. Stretch slowly for at least 30 seconds and do not bounce, because this can increase the risk of hurting your muscles. You should feel a pulling sensation but no pain.
• Practice proper posture. "Look up at the horizon with your shoulders pulled back, abs engaged and a short stride to start," suggests Stephanie Ramones, a personal trainer and group exercise instructor at the Boston University Fitness and Recreation Center. "When your foot lands it should lead with the heel and mid sole. And don't allow your arms and torso to swing too dramatically."
• Track your heart rate. To get the most benefit to your heart and lungs, exercising in your target heart rate range is key. To determine your maximum heart rate, take the number 220 and then subtract your age from it. Next figure 60 percent of the number after subtraction and that's the low end of your target zone. Take the same number and get 85 percent of it and that's the high end. For example, if you are 20 years old your maximum heart rate would be 200 (220 minus 20) with the low end of the target zone being 120 (200 x .6) and the high end 170 (200 x .85).
• Don't forget to cool down. As with the warm up, you should allow approximately 10 minutes for cooling down after your workout. The idea is to bring your heart rate down slowly so don't go from a full on run to standing still. Instead, slow your pace and exertion level gradually.
• Be safe. Always stop if anything hurts and begin appropriate treatment if you experience a bleed. Remember RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevation) to help reduce swelling and increase your comfort level.
• Enjoy yourself. There's no doubt running is a workout but with the proper preparation, training and supervision, many people with hemophilia can attack the track with great success.

©2010 Bayer Schering Pharma AG. All rights reserved.
BAYER and Bayer Cross are trademarks of Bayer.

Great Videos

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:20:24 -0500

Some of Stephanie’s Favorite Videos.

Rise, Shine, and Get Some Exercise by Kristen Stewart

Fri, 8 May 2009 23:43:47 -0400

Learn the benefits of morning exercise. Find ways to stay motivated and avoid hitting that snooze button. By. Kristen Steward Medically Reviewed by Pat F. Bass III, MD, MPH
http://www.everydayhealth.com/weight/exercise-in-the-morning.aspx

We all know that exercise is good for us, but when faced with the choice of a little extra shut-eye or breaking a sweat first thing in the morning, who wouldn't choose the snooze button?
Not so fast, say experts. Before turning over and pulling up the covers, consider the fact that exercise — and morning exercise in particular — has special benefits that can last all day.

Morning Exercise: The Benefits
The advantages of exercise are obvious. It can do everything from decreasing the risk of certain types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity to improving sleep and lessening feelings of depression and anxiety. And yet, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 45 percent of adults fulfill the surgeon general's physical activity recommendation of 30 minutes of intense aerobic activity three times per week.
Exercise at any time of the day is better than no exercise at all, but the benefits of a morning fitness routine are plenty.
"Morning exercise revs the metabolism and jump-starts energy levels, actually accelerating your ability to burn calories," says Amy Burleson Sullivan, PsyD, clinical health psychologist in the primary care section at the Dayton VA Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio. "It gets the endorphins flowing so that when you're finished you have greater acuity, less anxiety, improved mood, and increased ability to concentrate, all of which contribute to a better day," explains Sullivan.
Practically speaking, people who exercise in the morning are more likely to keep up with their routine, as there is less chance for other responsibilities to get in the way as the day gets busier. Exercising in the evening can make it more difficult to go to sleep, whereas morning exercisers are free to relax with their workouts complete.

Morning Exercise: Tips to Stay Motivated
There are easy steps to help you stay on track.
* Get in the right mindset. Realize that exercise is hard work. Don't get discouraged if you don't see immediate results. Set small goals and remember, slow and steady wins the race.
* Get organized. Lay out shoes, socks, and workout clothes the night before to make the morning as easy as possible.
* Make a playlist. Don't forget an iPod, and make sure it has a variety of songs to prevent boredom.
* Rise and shine. Plug in your alarm clock across the room so that it can't be turned off without getting out of bed.
* Exercise with a friend. It's tempting to skip a workout when it's just you, but if someone is waiting for you, you tend to feel guiltier about letting them down.
* Have fun. "Make your workout enjoyable so you don't dread it," says David M. Williams, PhD, assistant professor at the Miriam Hospital and Alpert Medical School at Brown University in Providence, R.I.
* Adapt when necessary. "Set yourself up for success and schedule your workouts, but if something comes up, be willing to be flexible," says Stephanie Ramones, personal trainer and group exercise instructor at the Boston University Fitness and Recreation Center.
Morning workouts may be great for jump-starting the day, but if a conflict arises, try working out at night instead or adding time to the routine the next session. Remember, the most important thing isn't the time of day, but that you are finding time to exercise.

This section created and produced exclusively by the editorial staff of EverydayHealth.com. © 2009 EverydayHealth.com; all rights reserved.
04/06/09

Life:The Manual- Why Do We Write?

Mon, 8 Dec 2008 22:09:16 -0500

Why do we write? The “right” answer would be to point out the obvious and explain how we yearn to leave behind a mark, something that remains when our bodies move on, something to be remembered by.

Though this is true, it’s incomplete. I always say that I started writing this column for the same reason that I do anything in my life: The purely selfish reason that I yearn to make just one person’s life a littel better. What I leave out is usually that one person’s life that has been affected most by the column has been mine.

If you’ve met me, you probably noticed that I’ve printed things that I have never verbalized, and if I have verbalized it has been in passing, as a joke or coded. When we write our ideas out on paper and see them in their rawest forms, even for a fleeting moment, we feel like we finally understand what’s going on in our heads.

What I’ve come to realize is that even as much as I can express in this column, no one ever has my full story. I’ve been worried about people judging me when I’m the one choosing what people are allowed to see about me. I’m up for critique and as much as I can argue with a person about what they didn’t get from my column, they’ll never get the whole story. I knew perfectly well, being a psychology major and a master practitioner of neurostrategies and hypnotherapies, that self-diagnosis is a dangerous game.

It’s just as dangerous as when you actually go to a professional who labels you, which I also did when I was 13, knowing how it was really more than just being a normal angsty teen when I was addicted to being depressed. (Thanks for being concerned, Clarence.) I even knew that I could use this column space to do my job of being the resident motivational guru to write something more inspirational, like about how you can change the meanings of past events to mean something better for you.

Honestly, too much gets too polished, edited, deleted or just changed not only by editors, but by our own minds as readers. I can’t get mad at someone for their own interpretation of my writing. I enjoy hearing what people say about my work because it lets me see a peek into their model of the world. It also teaches me how to step into their world and hopefully get better at helping people through the use of language.

When we read, see, hear or even think something, sometimes we feel a little emotional hook. We either decide to invest emotion into arguing it, or repressing it or “just not thinking about it,” because for some weird reason, even at a level in our minds we haven’t gotten in touch with yet, we think that it applies to us in someway.

Call me a relativist, but I think it’s all up to interpretation. Just like I can’t expect you to understand my whole story, without offering it up, I can’t expect to understand you completely. I can just hope that I can understand your story enough that I can step into your world and influence you to help you get what you really want from your life.

I know from some of the emails and comments I’ve received that at least one person understood and was helped. I hope that it at least it gave you something a little lighter to read, or gave you a chuckle. If anything, I know that it at least helped me.

Stephanie Ramones, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at sramones@bu.edu.
“Why We Write” Originally Published in The Daily Free Press: Boston, MA 12/8/08

Life:The Manual- Leaving Behind the Bell Jar

Mon, 1 Dec 2008 22:07:37 -0500

I started getting intense migraines this semester. When I finally couldn’t function, I gave up on my natural remedies and trekked to Student Health Services. I was prescribed an antidepressant for my pains, but I was hesitant to take it at first because one line on the warning label explained that it could inspire suicidal thoughts.

Depression, self-harming and suicide are topics I generally avoid thinking about, much less talking about, but it’s becoming harder to avoid. I realized it was a topic I couldn’t keep repressing because, whether I liked it or not, it’s a topic that’s been silently dictating my life. It’s the reason I don’t drink, do drugs or even sleep too much because subconsciously I’m afraid that I will spiral out of control. But I’m determined to tell others about what I’ve gone through with the hope that it might help just one person.

In middle school I hung out with the “Rocker Kids.” I thought they were weird like me, but now I realize that hanging out with the outsiders made me yearn to fit in even more. To them, I wasn’t messed up enough –– talk about a great peer group –– so I soon became addicted to being depressed. It’s kind of like the scene in Mean Girls in which everyone is bitching about some physical feature; except in this version Lindsay Lohan’s character would say something much darker.

It wasn’t until I was 13 and forced to attend an empowerment camp that I really saw what I was doing to myself. I came home and tried to help my friends, but I wasn’t depressed enough for them anymore and I soon found myself deserted. Where would my life have gone if I stayed with a group of people who expected everyone else to fill their emptiness and bail them out instead of doing it themselves? I realized I was holding onto depression because of what it was giving me –– a connection to someone. But as soon as I let go of those cancerous people, the void quickly filled with people who truly cared about me.

I can’t help but look back and realize how different I am now, but I’m still afraid that the old me will pop up. I think it’s because when you are so afraid of the harm you could do, you forget how incredible a person you really are. We put on this armor thinking it will keep everything out, pretending that there’s nothing in us that could possibly be the reason why we live in fear, but we realize that we actually have control of what we were afraid of, which makes us stronger than our armor.

Life is about giving thanks for both the good things that make you smile and the bad things that make you stronger. I’ve decided to give that part of my life a more empowering meaning than to just try to hide it. If it weren’t for that dark period in my life, I would have never found my passion for helping people realize the resources that they’ve always had –– and that is enough to keep me alive.

Stephanie Ramones, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at sramones@bu.edu.
“I Think I Might Have A Problem” Originally Published in The Daily Free Press: Boston, MA 12/1/08

Life:The Manual- I Think I Have a Problem

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:49:49 -0500

I think I have a problem. I steal from the dining hall to feed this problem. I buy them in huge amounts and hoard them in my room, only to find them devoured by the end of the week as I desperately try to hide the evidence.

What is this thing that weakens me? Chocolate sprinkles. I don’t even mean with ice cream, that’s just how this got started. Now I’ve progressed to just eating handfuls of them from the container.

I justify them just like someone justifies going out for one more bite of chocolate cake, one more shot of caffeine, one more chug of beer or one more puff from a cigarette.

I’ve had a stressful week; I deserve this; it’s not too bad.

I also can’t just leave a container unfinished. I have to finish whatever I have left before I can “give them up.” Then I find myself making a detour to Shaw’s after work to pick up another four containers because I only really like one brand. That’s not too bad, right?

As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, “this ‘addiction’ isn’t the problem.” It’s just my solution to mask what is really bothering me. It reminds me of when I was a kid and when my mom would bring home a container of chocolate sprinkles as a reward. Soon it became a comfort and then it became a habit. The more I let my world get out of control, the more I see myself indulging in those little brown delights. I’ve given chocolate sprinkles a meaning that makes me less powerful than confectionary sugar.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and replace an addiction with something healthier like working out, or maybe I’ll replace it with something more harmful like meth. Most addictions are more emotional than they are physical, and by only treating the “addiction” or the “symptom,” you never really treat the cause of it.

But how can my obsession with chocolate sprinkles degrade into a meth addiction? Well, when they both meet my needs, it’s easy to trade one for the other. Anthony Robbins (yes, the tall guy), explains that we have six basic human needs; certainty, variety, connection, significance, growth and contribution. If something meets more than two of those needs, it can escalate to an addiction. For me, chocolate sprinkles meet my top need for certainty; that’s why the crazier my life gets the more I eat. They also meet my need for connection, since it gives me a little time to connect to myself.

Remember that first time you tried your indulgence. . . cigarettes, alcohol, food or whatever? Did you try it to be part of the group, or to make you look cool? Was it something new or something you felt comfortable doing? Was it something you saw, heard, felt or thought? What was the very first thing that made you decide to do it? Most likely that very first reason is the same reason that keeps you doing it; claiming an identity from it isn’t necessarily going to help.

I’m not an addict; I’m more than that. That’s just one behavioral pattern, not who I am. Just like I know you’re not an addict and that if you really wanted to you could give it up right now.

Stephanie Ramones, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at sramones@bu.edu.
“I Think I Have a Problem” Originally Published in The Daily Free Press: Boston, MA 11/24/08

Life:The Manual- Letter To The Union

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:33:44 -0500

If you know me –– especially if you knew me my freshmen year –– I’m never short of ideas on how BU can improve (to say it nicely). Maybe it’s because I was a Harvard reject, was waitlisted at BU and BU was the only university that accepted me (and I’m proud of it). Maybe it’s because I resent the fact that I was offered no financial aid and I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. Or maybe it’s because I could never attach a face to my scapegoats, all I could do was complain about BU.

I was actually kind of embarrassed about going to BU. It wasn’t like the name wasn’t recognized, but while sitting at scholarship luncheons, going around the table for introductions, I realized my school was number 60 on Newsweek’s list of top colleges. I started to question why I was shelling out 50 grand a year.

It wasn’t until I started speaking to Matt Seidel at Late Nite, and started seeing there were people like me working to make all of our experiences at BU better, that I realized I wasn’t really helping the situation.

It takes courage to step up and be seen as the person to go to get your problems fixed and, at most times, get blamed for what’s not happening. Especially when the students they’re representing are not taking the time to learn what their administration is up to before they start complaining about it.

I was completely surprised when Seidel talked about what the Union had been doing this semester, and I started wondering why I hadn’t known about it. Was it because it wasn’t getting publicized or because I wasn’t being active enough as a student to check out if my student government was acting on what they promised? Where else do I not hold people accountable for the actions they promised they’d take?

Granted, we’ve been conditioned from the past to think that we can’t do much to affect any type of policy, but I think this recent national election has proven that, despite our previous generation, we can not only change things, but we can start to change things from the inside.

The reason Barack Obama did as well as he did was because he empowered the voters to be the change that they wanted to see in this country. Student Union, as our representatives, you have to inspire us to do the same. It takes more than a handout on campus safety to show us that. If you can’t change anything more than that, at least give us an avenue to talk to someone that can, and tell us why we’re not seeing the progress we’ve been demanding.

Whenever you take a position of leadership, it’s less about doing everything yourself and more about finding ways to influence others to get the job done. It matters more the legacy of progress that you leave behind than your name being attached to pet projects.

Student government, I applaud you. You have shown me that it’s more my responsibility to hold you accountable and to make sure that you’re listening to my concerns, and it’s good to see your presence on campus in your hard work in moving to pass medical amnesty, promoting a greener BU and a safer campus. I hope that it will grow and inspire others to stop complaining and do something for themselves to make BU the university they want it to be. Hopefully students can take that responsibility into other areas of their lives.

Stephanie Ramones, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at sramones@bu.edu.
“Letter to the Union” Originally Published in The Daily Free Press: Boston, MA 11/17/08

Life:The Manual- Stepping out of our Moccasins

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:15:58 -0500

I can’t help but feel a little hopeful after Barack Obama became the president-elect. While most of us were celebrating this historical moment, there were, of course, those drowning their sorrows in what seemed to be doomsday.

I’m not a Republican. Far from it. I enjoyed wearing my Obama shirts three days in a row during election week. I’m as Democrat as they come, but I can understand why someone can be Republican. It may have come from my years as a high school debater, living with my conservative –– occasionally bordering on racist –– grandparents, or from my core belief that it’s more important to learn than to be right.

Sometimes it’s easy to be completely wrapped up in our beliefs, especially during times of elections and times when we seem to be the majority. We forget how it feels to be in the other person’s shoes because our shoes are glued to one side of the spectrum. I’m guilty of this prejudice as well; I was one of the first to say that if John McCain got elected I was moving to another hemisphere. But then, as I realized that some of my closest friends and people I deeply respect didn’t necessarily believe the same things I did, I took a deep breath and jumped into their model of the world.

I agree that we can never fully walk in someone else’s moccasins. But if we use that as an excuse to keep us from respecting someone else’s world view, we are no better than the extremists who terrorize other people because they decided to stop wearing a cross, decided to speak another language or decided to show a bit of cleavage.

Take a moment to see things from your polar opposite’s point of view. I mean really feel how they feel, speak how they speak and see things how they see it. Realize that not one person in this world can be completely right or completely wrong. Realize that people aren’t just their opinions or their behaviors.

See things from the outside and from a place of curiosity where you invest no emotion in it, and then you can really reach a point of compromise. At the end of the day, we all really want the same thing, and it’s also a lot easier to convince someone of your ideas when you see it from their side of the table.

If it is truly time for our world to grow beyond a place where we decide someone else’s capabilities, then it begins with us –– the people who shaped this election –– to step up and, as hippie-esque as it sounds, step beyond our limited perceptions and our “in group” and “out group” evolutionary trappings and see the world through someone else’s eyes. Even if it’s just the roommate, family member, friend, professor, frenemy, enemy, terrorist or whomever we’re having a conflict with. It is time that we realize that what happens to us is not just about the individual getting by, but our interconnected global society flourishing as a whole.

Stephanie Ramones, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at sramones@bu.edu.
“Stepping out of our Mocassins” Originally Published in The Daily Free Press: Boston, MA 11/10/08

Life:The Manual- Vote or Die

Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:34:41 -0500

It’s probably no surprise that I voted for Barack Obama with my Florida absentee ballot last week. It’s also probably no surprise that with Nov. 4 finally dawning, my column is taking a political slant this week.

My family had to earn our right to vote. I immigrated to Miami from Barquisimeto, Venezuela when I was 6 months old, and even though I’m more American than I am Venezuelan, I still had to earn my rights and liberties in this country –– just like many other immigrants. What few people know is that I was an illegal immigrant. It was a lot easier than now to survive in this country illegally, especially growing up in Miami. I didn’t even know we immigrated illegally until I moved to Boston.

I’m not here to give you the clichéd “get out and vote because your vote matters” speech. Honestly, I know that maybe one vote may not really make a difference, even though it was my home state that got George Bush into office with a mere 537 votes. What I am going to say is if you don’t speak up now, you’re likely not speak up anywhere else. How you show up in one area in your life is how you show up in another.

I grew up knowing that in most other places people are not as free as U.S. citizens to say they’re dissatisfied. If you decide to stay quiet in this election, you are giving yourself and others permission to stay quiet when you don’t agree on something. Heck, what does it matter if you even say anything, right? Who’s going to listen to us?

When I was 10, I started a petition to stop the rebuilding of the Homestead Airport near the Everglades where the air traffic would disturb the ecosystem of numerous endangered species. I collected more than 200 signatures –– most of which were from my classmates –– and started calling public officials to find someone to turn it in to. One listened: former South Miami mayor Julio Robaina (who I just found it is actually a Republican — go figure). He came to my school, collected my petition, gave me an award from the city and made a day named after my school. Coincidentally, my school is named after Majorie Stoneman Douglas, the original Everglades crusader.

I’m not telling you this story to brag about my young environmentalist days, but to tell you that public officials are listening, and they’re listening because we can or will vote some day. When you sacrifice your vote, you sacrifice your voice, not just politically but everywhere else. Sorry for the clichéd “Get out and vote speech,” but it’s not just about voting; it’s about where else in your life does something piss you off and you stay quiet? Where else do you brush it off because you think it doesn’t matter?

It can be an unfair grade in a class, someone getting discriminated against, some unfair proposition, getting underpaid or getting over-charged. It can be when you don’t speak up for yourself when you don’t live the life you truly deserve. Where do you brush off one workout, one study session or just one chance to make your life a little better?

When P. Diddy (or is it Puff Daddy?) said “Vote or Die,” he was right, because apathy translates to the rest of your life –– not just politics. And by not caring to stand in line and vote, you’re really saying you don’t care about yourself or anyone else.

Stephanie Ramones, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at sramones@bu.edu.
“Vote or Die” Originally Published in The Daily Free Press: Boston, MA 11/3/08

Life:The Manual- Filling The Cup

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:55:58 -0400

So, I had a bad day. I bombed a statistics exam, a paper I thought was good was deemed “unclear,” my cork board fell off my wall and my dorm room was freezing –– along with the outside air. (I’m from Miami: I don’t do cold.) I could feel my downward spiral of complaining ease upon me like a warm down comforter on a cold night. I knew it could only get worse from there.
It’s so easy to complain and focus on everything bad going on in the world, especially during months when there seems to only be bad things in the world. I’m with you guys. I practically want to snap the necks of those “New Age” junkies who tell me, “It’s all positive thinking. Feel good about the money leaving your bank account.” I admit, sometimes I indulge in sending out “negative energy” into the universe, and I know I get exactly what I ask for –– a bad day.
Having a bad day is up to you. There’s really nothing you can control in this world but the meaning you choose to give to the events that happen. I promise you this isn’t any of that “see the cup half full” nonsense, it’s about filling the cup up yourself.
Imagine a line of cups sitting on top of an endless countertop. The cups are labeled with the events in your life, such as breaking the heel of your brand new boots on some crack in the sidewalk, your fifth birthday party, missing the T and your first day of high school. Inside the cups can be anything –– orange juice, coffee, vodka, egg yolks, manure or urine. It’s really easy to say that your first day of high school was the worst day of your life and breaking your heel is proof the world is against you. That’s the meaning you filled your event with. It’s the stuff you filled your cup with, not the cup itself.
Your perception is the culmination and integration of the interpretations you give to your life events. I’ll admit that a lot of “bad” things happen in the world, but in those events we find opportunities –– even if it’s just learning for next time. Whenever something happens, take a deep breath and ask yourself, “What does this really mean?” If you say it means that everyone in this world is evil, fine, then let it be so and you’ll keep bringing people into your life who will prove you right. If you choose to make it mean there aren’t really any bad people in the world, just people doing the best with what they know, then you’ll get a different result.
Once you figure out the empowering meaning to what happened ask, “What can I learn?” Then ask the more important question, “How can I use and integrate what I learned?” If you’re the type of person who even after you figure out that the door says push, you keep pulling, then don’t use what you learn and see what it gets you.
Lastly, ask, “How can I share this?” When you know how you can share what happened to you, it presupposes that you have figured out a positive way to answer and integrate all the previous questions.
These questions help refocus your life. What you focus on is what you get. If you choose to continue to give disempowering meanings to your life, then you’re going to get a poor life.

Stephanie Ramones, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at sramones@bu.edu.
“Filling The Cup” Originally Published in The Daily Free Press: Boston, MA 10/27/08