Choices
Every day life is full of choices, but how do you go about making decisions? It is estimated that the average adult makes about 35000 decisions each day. Some will be fairly inconsequential and pass by without too much thought, others are made in the moment (like when to cross the road), but many decisions are much more important. So how do you make a decision about something that impacts your life and potentially the life of others?
Identity
When you meet someone for the first time, it is quite probable that you will be asked “What’s your name, what are you studying, where do you work and where are you from?” These sorts of questions might be a good conversation starter, but they really only scratch the surface when it comes to finding out who you really are. There is so much more to all of us than the course we are studying, where we live, what career we have or what we share on social media. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Who is the real person staring back at you?
Justice
Wherever we look around the world, we see the pressing issues of injustice that shape our lives and the lives of others. As we think about these subjects we can grow our awareness, develop empathy and even become actively involved in fighting for change. However we can also find ourselves over-whelmed by the problems in hand, or even become desensitized and disinterested. There are many reasons why there is suffering in the world and many situations that need someone to step in, speak up, and make a difference. The question is: what should our response be?
Purpose
Life comes in phases and people will often ask what you are going to do next in life. It might be about the next course you are going to take, what career you are thinking of, where you are going to live and much later on in life what you are doing to do when you retire. Being quizzed about the future may not always be that appealing, and yet there is a time and place to think about the big picture — to ponder what you want to do with your life. You may find the question is much bigger than what job you are going to do next.
Relationships
‘Snog/Marry/Avoid’ might be a great question to answer on a road trip with friends, but hopefully there is more to how we do relationships than this. Clearly not every connection we have with another person is romantic, and whilst some are by choice, others are not. Relationships can be complex or straight-forward. They can last for a moment or a life time, they can be intense or distant, easy going or require some work. Whatever they are like, we all have them.
Well-being
Most people want to be happy, but based on statistics about mental health, it seems many of us are finding that hard. The topic of mental health and well-being is mentioned a lot these days, but mentioning the topic isn’t the same as actually taking time to talk about our well-being and explore how we can look after ourselves and others. It really is ok to ‘not be ok’, and it is good to talk to people when we are feeling low or overwhelmed with life. However, how else can we look after ourselves and is there a formulae for a happy life or improved well-being.
