Reaction Paper About Positive Psychology

1675 Words7 Pages

Introduction Throughout our lives, we encounter a multitude of struggles, hardships, and challenges that sometimes leave us begging for answers. Often, we may even wish for a higher being of power to place us in some alternative universe where something so brutal could not possibly happen. These trials induce suffering, an act or feeling that entails pain and distress that is usually deemed negative. Suffering can come from a subjective spectrum ranging from simply uncomfortable difficult situations such as the experience of boredom to extremely harsh misfortunes that may include illness, poverty, loss, and many more potential variables. However, instead of succumbing to these tribulations, there are ways that we can rise above and confront …show more content…

As can be observed in everyday consumerism, there has been an increase in medicinal remedies for treating various modes of suffering. While these remedies are essential for many of those who suffer from these differing forms of illnesses and injuries, the overuse of pharmacological resources has perhaps changed the mass population’s understanding of how recovery occurs. In other words, turning only to medicinal treatments suggests that these methods are the only cure that we can or should rely on to get better. Rather than entirely depend upon the pharmaceutical business that simply focuses on the absence of wellness, positive psychology offers strategies that allow the suffering individual to become conscious of the good in his or her life so that he or she can then build upon these good life factors. In turn, he or she identifies new strengths and abilities in order to generate practical and progressive solutions for decreasing effects of …show more content…

Whether dealing with daily hassles, lifelong illnesses, or even just annoying people, patience requires us to look at the larger picture in life by realizing that though we are fighting pain, the world does not revolve around us. Thus, in a difficult time, we may turn to religion or spirituality. Spiritual communities are ones that can provide resources to counter the effects of suffering. Some of these resources include promotion of a positive self-identity, essential coping skills, and acceptance with life. By engaging with one’s own spirituality and self, he or she may experience eudaimonia, which is a feeling of flourishment or a sense that one is living in accordance with his or her virtues. According to Schnitker, Houltberg, Dyrness, and Redmond (2017), through one’s virtues, patience would be assumed to be “characteristic adaptations leading to effectual emotion regulation combined with a narrative identity that conceptualizes suffering as meaningful” (266). Once one identifies and cultivates his or her virtues through patience and spiritual means, patience becomes something more meaningful and not just a façade we have to wear whenever we are not getting what we want when we