Today is your chance to make a choice to make a change or stay the same. Everyday chances are given or taken in life. With those chances, we all must make choices that will bring changes in our lives, or cause our lives to remain the same. If you want to make a change today, the choice is yours. Take a chance and see how wonderful your life can be!
Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—both big and small—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice—the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish—becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
In the tumultuous 1970s, four twenty-five-year-old female friendsBeth, Connie, Michael, and Aprilnewly divorced with children had no idea how their lives could change so radically and so quickly. The somewhat ordinary, Chicago suburbanite housewives became willing participants in escapade sex, some drugs, and more alcohol than needed. They liked men, just not the ones theyd been married to, and though not fully fairy tale dreamers, a little romance would be nice. They experimented dating men, not acceptable before, tried some drugs, often drank too much, but danced their cares away. With new male attention, they grew more brazen and confident exploring the gamut of men for dalliance or clandestine. Also, some bikers and even a mnage trois with a famous movie star for Connie and Beth that empowered them more than expectedall about laughing and learning. They took college classes, started a house-cleaning service, and thought about their changes as the friendships shifted. Dilemmas and decisions of children choices, real careers and the biggie of remarriage came up, with a sense of wiry satire and sarcasm in situations to handle whatever hit them. Life separated them when Beth and April moved out of States then Beth overseas; still they reunited frequently. Twenty-plus years later, they became definitely changed women in so many different ways. Yet some things did not changehow they supported each other through thick and thin and other circumstances that would have torn weaker women apart. Their history together was the foundation that kept them moving forward through lifes harshest realities. They changed their lives and encouraged many other women to do the same, sharing their experiences of the wild and crazy times of their younger years.
Everything we create in life begins as an image in the mind, whether it's a passionate affair or a new business venture. But the power of images goes well beyond illustrating the 'germ of an idea'; used in its full capacity, it has the potential to transform us all. In her bestselling classic LIFE CHOICES, LIFE CHANGES, Dr Dina Glouberman explains how each of us can use the incredibly effective practice of imagework as a self-help tool to uncover our own personal vision for changing our life for the better. Her innovative approach synthesises imagery, visualisation and counselling techniques, and provides the practical techniques for understanding where we are now in our life, and how to get to where we want to be. Infinitely applicable to all areas of life - from self-image, relationships and health to work and managing money, it is the perfect guide for anyone wanting to make the best of themselves.
Faced with the BRCA mutation—the so-called “breast cancer gene”—one woman must answer the question: When genetics can predict how we may die, how then do we decide to live? Eleven months after her mother succumbs to cancer, Jessica Queller has herself tested for the BRCA gene mutation. The results come back positive, putting her at a terrifyingly elevated risk of developing breast cancer before the age of fifty and ovarian cancer in her lifetime. Thirty-four, unattached, and yearning for marriage and a family of her own, Queller faces an agonizing choice: a lifetime of vigilant screenings and a commitment to fight the disease when caught, or its radical alternative—a prophylactic double mastectomy that would effectively restore life to her, even as it would challenge her most closely held beliefs about body image, identity, and sexuality. Superbly informed and armed with surprising wit and style, Queller takes us on an odyssey from the frontiers of science to the private interiors of a woman’s life. Pretty Is What Changes is an absorbing account of how she reaches her courageous decision and its physical, emotional, and philosophical consequences. It is also an incredibly moving story of what we inherit from our parents and how we fashion it into the stuff of our own lives, of mothers and daughters and sisters, and of the sisterhood that forms when women are united in battle against a common enemy. Without flinching, Jessica Queller answers a question we may one day face for ourselves: If genes can map our fates and their dark knowledge is offered to us, will we willingly trade innocence for the information that could save our lives? Praise for Pretty Is What Changes “By turns inspiring, sorrowful and profoundly moving. Queller’s sense of humor and grace transform the most harrowing of situations into a riveting and heartfelt memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews “Seamless and gripping. Readers will be rooting for Queller and her heroic decision to confront her genetic destiny.”—Publishers Weekly “Jessica Queller gives us a warm, chilling, unflinching look at her personal journey of survival with style. The ending will surprise you. Her prescience is astounding. Her courage is inspirational. Brava Jessica!”—Marisa Acocella Marchetto, author of Cancer Vixen
We live in an age of media saturation, where with a few clicks of the remote—or mouse—we can tune in to programming where the facts fit our ideological predispositions. But what are the political consequences of this vast landscape of media choice? Partisan news has been roundly castigated for reinforcing prior beliefs and contributing to the highly polarized political environment we have today, but there is little evidence to support this claim, and much of what we know about the impact of news media come from studies that were conducted at a time when viewers chose from among six channels rather than scores. Through a series of innovative experiments, Kevin Arceneaux and Martin Johnson show that such criticism is unfounded. Americans who watch cable news are already polarized, and their exposure to partisan programming of their choice has little influence on their political positions. In fact, the opposite is true: viewers become more polarized when forced to watch programming that opposes their beliefs. A much more troubling consequence of the ever-expanding media environment, the authors show, is that it has allowed people to tune out the news: the four top-rated partisan news programs draw a mere three percent of the total number of people watching television. Overturning much of the conventional wisdom, Changing Minds or Changing Channels? demonstrate that the strong effects of media exposure found in past research are simply not applicable in today’s more saturated media landscape.
This textbook introduces students to the study of marriage and the family in ways they can easily relate to. The text gives equal and balanced attention to people of all racial, ethnic, and other societal groups, and treats a variety of lifestyles with equal attention. The author focuses on the way families are changing, and acknowledges the constraints that families face today.
