Importance of Waiting for the One

It is so important to wait until marriage to have sex because the effects are more than temporal pleasure.  It reduces the risk of regrets later on, but also it has to do with the chemicals in the brain.  During sex, three chemicals are secreted in the brain: serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin.  Serotonin is responsible for the feel good sensations or what makes you happy.  Dopamine is responsible for causing the feelings of excitement.  Lastly, oxytocin is the main reason to wait because it is a bonding chemical.  By having sex with partners, you become bonded to an individual, which is in part what makes those break ups even more difficult.  God created this bonding agent to help keep families together for eternity, it is a blessing and should not be misused because of the serious effects from the bonding chemical.  

Too quick to divorce?

We are growing up in a "throw away" society.  Everything seems to either be disposable or easier/more desirable to buy new than to fix these days: paper plates, iPods, clothes, you name it!  Why must marriage be one of them?  Of course, you don't necessarily buy marriage, unless you're talking mail order brides, but some consider it to be easier to divorce and remarry than it is to fix the problems faced.  Easy is not a descriptive word of marriage; in fact, it can be rather difficult if the marriage is troubled.  Some of the happiest times in a marriage are at the beginning and after the last child moves away.  This is not to be confused to think that marriage is miserable after children are brought into the picture, but it does change the marital relationship significantly.  Marital satisfaction tends to decrease with the birth of each child, but if the marital relationship is nurtured throughout the children's lives, it can still be great and will increase as each child grows up and leaves the home. The problem is that too many couples do not want to wait long enough or put enough effort into fixing the marriage, it's much "easier" to divorce and start over looking for love else where.  Marriage enrichment is vital to marital satisfaction!

When it Comes to Dating, Time is Your Friend!

I feel confident saying that the majority of the world has lost the true and beneficial concepts of dating.  To be honest, my views of dating was seriously misconstrued until I started becoming more educated on the topic- and believe me, the ways of truly dating have made such a difference in my life.  Dating is a science that is crucial to understand, but quite easy to misinterpret. There are many reasons or functions of dating:  recreation, intimacy, companionship, finding a mate, status attainment, and socialization.  If we want to begin understanding we must first understand socialization.

Socialization (noun) :  "a continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position" (www.dictionary.com).

I also think it is important to understand the real meaning of dating.

Dating (noun) :  "A social appointment, engagement, or occasion arranged beforehand with another person" (www.dictionary.com).

How does one learn socialization?  We learn it best through the real meaning of dating!  Dating is meant to be a variety of activities with a variety of people.  By dating this way, and not becoming a permanent fixture upon another person, one can truly understand the importance of socialization vs. exclusively dating someone in which they know little about.  We can learn to understand with whom we "click" with better, understand who we are as an individual, find things we like about different people and use those things to help us understand who we are looking for as a spouse, our eternal companion!  Dating creates opportunities to really get to know somebody before considering themselves an "exclusive" couple.  Sure, it may seem weird or difficult to let the person you like go on dates with different people, but if it does not work out between the two of you, then you are saving yourself unnecessary heartache about a person whom (in the grand scheme of things) you do not know very well, and which it is probably a blessing that you two did not date exclusively.  On a side note, one of the most fascinating things I learned this week was that it takes at least three months to begin to get to know a person!  So why jump into an exclusive relationship so fast?  Why not get to know each other on a friend basis first?  By dating casually and without allowing physical touch to become an issue, you can truly get to know someone before you put your heart on the line.  Take the opportunities of socialization; get to know a variety of people in a variety of activities so that you can know exactly what you want in a spouse and save yourself heartache.  Time is on your side, so don't be so quick to claim a relationship as exclusive.  I promise the blessings from doing so outweigh the idea/hurt of not wanting the person you like going on dates with other people.

When God created Adam and Eve, He made them different for many reasons.  The purpose of God's plan satisfies the ability to form together as a unit and to procreate.  In addition, the differences between genders are meant to balance out the traits and characteristics of each other, one may be more nurturing and the other more disciplinary.  I have a difficult time with the content we have been learning about because society is so desperately trying to make everyone equal, but we were not made equal on purpose.  Society is mistaking equality for trying to make genders one in the same.  In a video we watched, Men, Women, and the Sex Difference by John Stossel, there was a woman with strong feminist beliefs.  She said that we should focus more on raising boys more like our girls or girls more like our boys.  However, we are influencing or inhibiting them from developing their qualities that God intended each gender to have.  Children start showing gender differences from the time they are newborns, such as newborn girls are more likely to imitate facial expressions.  This is not because they were raised to know this, but because it is something in the genetic makeup.  If we try to raise children gender neutral, we are inhibiting them from developing the characteristics God intended each gender to have.  The video explained that certain women wanted to have equal opportunities as men, specifically wanting to have the same opportunities to be fire fighters.  Standards for women were lowered to enable a chance for them to have the same opportunity as a man applying for the job.  There are certain situations in which I can understand equality in men and women, such as some business careers, however, a woman is not capable of completing the same physical tasks as men.  This is not being sexist against women, there are many men who do not make it on the squad as well because they cannot satisfy all the requirements.  These requirements are put in place to ensure the safety of those who are in need of help.  This also plays part in paramedics.  Take my grandpa for example, we had to call an ambulance for him one morning.  When the paramedics arrived, one man and one woman came to his aid.  Now, this woman being knowledgeable in her area of duty, did not make any difference when she was unable to perform the physical part of the job.  Since she was unable to lift my grandpa onto the stretcher, they had to call back up assistance.  Instead of getting him to the hospital as quickly as possible, we had to wait even longer for the back up to arrive, thus slowing down the proper care he needed by the doctors.  Men and women may have the same desires for having a particular job, but if they cannot meet all of the qualifications, it is not a sexist decision, rather a decision made in the best interest for those in need of help.  It is my strongest belief that men and women were created differently for a reason.  I do not believe every woman should be made to be a house wife if undesired, but I do believe there are certain things men and women do not "equally" qualify for based on the ways we were created. 

Discussing stereotypes and classifications of people can be a rather touchy and offensive topic.  I grew up in a very integrated area with people from various cultures, so I feel as though I have a pretty good sense of diversity which I feel makes me a little more understanding and accepting than some others.  However, I am not perfect (although sometimes I like to think my thoughts and opinions are all perfect, it is rarely the case).  I still have weak moments in which I categorize people and apply stereotypes when I should know better.  For instance, the people where I am from are very much city people - they keep to themselves (you almost always see people walking the streets with headphones in or hand-free headset for their phone), they suffer from what I call tunnel vision (they typically divert their eyes to avoid eye contact of people passing by), and they walk in fast forward (trying to get from location A to location B as quick as possible).  It is easy to pass judgments from a quick glance at somebody (even in the quick glance moment of passing city walkers), however, our likelihood of being correct in our judgment is very unlikely.  Putting people into these categories in our minds is very dangerous.  We may subconsciously make assumptions about their individual character or lifestyle.  In doing so, we may pass by opportunities to get to know some great people and cause great emotional hurt to them by treating them differently than we would someone we classify more similar to ourselves.  Another one of the problems of categorizing people is that people do not easily fit into one particular category, thus we have taken away a part of who they are by either forcing them into one category or another.  We may also treat these people differently, but in reality people are just people and deserve to be treated equally.  I want to share an experience that I found to be hurtful and eye opening.  I was walking through an expensive boutique in the quaint downtown of where my grandparents live.  I was shopping around all of the little shops near the river with my mom and grandma when this beautiful window display dragged us into the shop.  We walked in and said hello to the employees, yet we received no response.  We were dressed normal, but it was obvious we were very out of place.  Now, I would consider my family a very honest and good deed-doing kind of family, but yet these upper class women followed us around as if we were waiting on our chance to pocket everything in sight.  It was so degrading and just goes to show how they were too quick to pass judgment onto us.  The problem with this experience is that we were categorized and made out to be something we weren't, and thus we felt offended for being mistreated when they didn't even give us the opportunity to show them the type of people we actually are.  This weeks lesson really opened up my eyes to how we should not be so quick to stereotype or classify people and redirect our thinking when those thoughts come up.  I have a lot I can improve upon, no change takes place over night, but I know that we can make a difference a little at a time.  It is my hope, that people will learn to be more accepting of people different from themselves by learning to appreciate the differences in people and by standing up against stereotyping, even if it means standing alone.  

The Effects of Role Playing

When done properly, we can understand the concepts demonstrated in role playing.  In class this week, we had three students act as a family unit: mother, father, and daughter.  We also had our teacher, Brother Williams, act as the marriage counselor.  We watched them role play as a family unit who had been dealing with their daughter suffering from bad fits of asthma.  We learned that instead of letting one parent take care of a situation (in this case, the mother being the one who usually calms the daughter when she was suffering an asthma attack), when both parents worked together as a unit, the daughter felt safer and had less frequent asthma attacks.  I think it is an interesting concept that children have the ability to sense a strain or a stronger bond between the parents having an effect on the environment, becoming less stressful and more safe.  In this scenario,  the parents loved each other and had a good relationship, but because they were separating responsibilities as parents and not necessarily working together, there was a disconnect in the family structure that they could not identify on their own in regards to what was causing the frequent asthma attacks.  Role playing in the classroom environment helped me to understand the importance of changing the family's habits instead of changing one family members habits.  When the family works together to fix a problem, the effects are greater and last much longer, where as, changing one family member's habits only lasts for so long before they revert back into their old habits. 

Slow first week!

     Well, we're just getting into the class routine and this week does not give me a lot to choose from to discuss. We mostly settled into and got a feel for the way the semester is going to go, but I do think there is something interesting we talked about and that is the challenges of research.  One challenge is that, believe it or not, the recorder of the information does not always site a source properly, thereby bending and twisting the true cited meaning.  Shocking... yes, I know.  But now you see, I am a very gullible person and I find it difficult to sort through research because like a child, I believe everything I hear.  Now, my argument to that is that Christ says "be like unto a child", so really, I hold the secret to our Earthly life. ;)  
     Okay so I am sort of joking, but in all seriousness, how is it that people like me find reliable sources that we do not have to read and feel tricked?  Well, let's start with staying away from Google!  Personally, I am not a fan of Bing so I will always choose Google when searching for something online.  With that being said, stick with scholarly journals for a start.  Research is complicated and quite the headache!  I offer my advice this evening, if you face the situation this semester that you need to find reliable research, I recommend two Tylenol, a large glass of water, relaxing music, a trip to the scholarly journals in the library, and followed by a little reward to yourself!  :)  
     I hope everyone starts their semesters by being able to keep their focus and keep the stress levels down!