Week 5 Who you?!

              Through extensive guidance testing I have received my results and I have been classified as an introvert. I think this classification alone help explain why I have so much difficulty in meeting and talking to people I do not know very well. It always feels so awkward when I have to meet new people because I do not know what to say and do. Being an introvert I do all typical introvert stuff. I stay at home all day, watch the telly all day, eat all day, sit all day, and play videogames all day. These typical introvert activities make me a poor conversation starter. I do not know what to talk about because I only know what happens inside my house or what I am interested in, but I cannot talk about that it’s boring.

                I can only talk normally and with full confidence with my friends. This makes it hard when I am being required to talk to strangers or others that I am not close to. This sometimes consists of buying stuff, interviews, or asking others to answer surveys. This is a dilemma for me because sometimes school work requires talking to people that most likely I am not close to or are total strangers. It is not a nice feeling and it puts me in a delay. In class we talked about uncertainty reduction theories. People want to reduce the uncertainty they have in others in order to build a good relationship with each other or to know each other better. I feel like I have to utilise this uncertainty reduction thingy in order to be rid of my unsociable nature.

I am also a partially shy person. Sometimes I am confident when I am in front of people but sometimes I get scared and nervous. This all depends though on circumstances though. I can get my confidence if I have friends in the audience, for my grades, or if I just enjoy what I am doing. I get very nervous when I know I will be embarrassing myself in front of people, I do what I normally do not do, or I have no idea of what I am supposed to be doing in the first place. Just sharing :)

                Sometimes or often I wish I was like the sociable ones. They can talk to people with ease and they always seem to know what to talk about even if they do not know the person they are talking to. I feel like they actually do know who they are talking to and that is something I envy them for. 

Week 4 Hey Guy, You Got A Problem?

                Things do not always go the way we want it to happen and that is so true. You give everything you can do, all your efforts, all you hard work but ultimately in the end nada, zilch, NOTHING! Everything you did, gone in mere seconds and you cannot do anything about it. Painful isn’t it? Saddens you? Relates to you?

                People fail all the time and that is normal. Heck! I fail (in my tests) all the time but it hasn’t stopped me from being cheerful and hopeful that the future holds the better. Do not be so over bent with failure as you learn from the mistakes and it eventually leads to success. But no matter how you think and know that the future will be better you are still struck by the failure you have experienced because you know that the effort that you put in to something just became pointless. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE! ßWhat a phrase! It just basically means the “feeling of discomfort caused by situations inconsistent with one’s own cognitions” or in plain English “WTF! NO! That is not what I wanted! Wa!” and then cuss words follow. :P

Let us define a few terms shall we?

Cognition – this is what you want, what you believe in.

Dissonance – this is what you do not want, it just doesn’t sit well with your beliefs.

Consonant – everything is consistent with your beliefs, you crave this!

                Cognition is what everybody wants. By nature people want it their way and will be disappointed if their way is not to be followed. This is now called dissonance and people do not want this. Some people will be really shallow and some will be very critical at this. For example when it comes to sports I am pretty shallow. I just play for the fun and I do not mind when I lose but when it comes to video games I can be very critical and I always want to win unless I know that I am really no match against my opponents. I play this online game called Heroes of Newerth and I play to win because of the opponents that I usually get. I usually get the boastful ones that think they are better than everybody else. So naturally this makes my friends and I uncomfortable (dissonance) and we want to correct this. We beat the crap out of them and at the end we feel all good and happy inside that we were able to make them eat their own words and shut them up (consonant, mmmm feels goood). They trash talk, we deliver and that is how it works. Oh, and we trash talk back also to complement the opponents’ ass whooping courtesy of my team. Another thing my friends and I find joy in is planking. Planking is when you lie face down in the most unusual of places with your arms placed at your sides and somebody takes picture and posts it on the internet. We enjoyed this activity so much so that we made our own fan site called Ateneo Planking which now has a relatively good following of more plankers in Ateneo. We find joy in this activity even though it makes us look stupid in the eyes of many because it is very weird and unusual and it also brings joy to those that see you.

I am wearing the purple shirt :)

                To sum everything up, everybody wants it their way. Things though do not always happen the way they want it to be, but this is okay! We learn from our mistakes to lessen the risks of making the same mistakes in the future and when things go our way we just feel very happy for ourselves.

Back Street Boys, take it away! “♪ I want it that way… ♫”

Week 3 I Regret Not Buying!

                Buyer’s remorse. Do you have it? Did you get it? Either way you are not going to feel good about it. Sometimes I get it and then sometimes I don’t. Generally when I buy stuff I do not regret it. Why would I regret buying stuff for myself using my own money anyway? I used my own money and that means I really want what I’m buying right? But sometimes why do some people just seem to be less cheerful than they should be? Maybe it was because they realized that what they have bought was utterly useless to them, or they found something better, or they expected too much from what they bought and many more reasons to state.

                What I found out today is that one can have buyer’s remorse from not buying something. Say what? Buyer’s remorse from not buying anything? Yes! Buyer’s remorse from NOT BUYING ANYTHING!! Don’t be annoying!

                It might seem strange but it is true. The explanation? Easy. The buyer was somehow prevented or refused to buy self a nice reward of sorts. This is true from personal experience. A friend of mine (his blog will give his identity away) wanted to buy a little something something for himself but he didn’t. He wanted it but didn’t get it. Now regret fill his mind and now wants that something something even more. See? Buyer’s remorse without buying anything. How fun was that?

                Sometimes I feel the same way too. I want to buy stuff too but sometimes I can’t and that just makes me a little sad inside. I usually want shoes, games or electronics. When I can’t buy them I can’t them off my mind and it bothers me for a long time. Why? Because I want them and I know I have uses for them. I don’t just buy anything for no reason. Almost anything I buy have practical use. My shoes for example. Some are for my sports activities while others are for casual purposes. Games are a way for me to unwind after a tiring school day. When I do not get my games I feel sad because I know that I am going to be bored for a long time before I can get a new game.

                Buyer’s remorse comes with a package of emotions. Not only do you feel regret but you feel sad and unfulfilled at the same time. You feel sad because you did not buy what you want or you bought something of no use to yourself. Unfulfilled because you just feel something missing from you (maybe money or there is a hole in your wallet) or you feel empty because you did not get anything that would fill the void.

                But why feel sad? Buy what you want to buy and don’t buy anything that wouldn’t make you happy. Just make sure that what you buy will truly make you happy.

                Food makes me happy. Electronics makes me happier. J

Week 2 Persuasive Ain't It?

                 Recently an intriguing, but a very interesting question popped out and made me think and I rarely think. The question goes like this “How do I persuade my audience?” and it made me wonder how all those rich businessmen get all their buyers, those politicians to get the favour of the voters and what not. The art of persuasion is very interesting indeed. You might be wondering: “Hey Joseph, why did you just call persuasion an art?” and that is a very good question and asking that makes me think and as I said earlier thinking is a rare instance for me and when I do think just stand back and watch as I blow your mind away with the things I will and can come up with ranging from the utterly nonsensical things or to the cleverest of things even for my standards, but what is not rare for me is learning.

                “Why is persuasion an art?” you might ask and this makes me ask “why did you just ask that a second time?” just wait and you will know soon enough because I will tell you. I call persuasion an art because not everybody can use it as effectively as others. I can compare it to other forms of art like illustrative or musical arts. In the illustrative arts others can use their abilities and imagination more effectively than others do. For example in painting there are those that are just not cut out to be painters while others paint and the audience basks in the greatness and artistry. Musicians also have that ability to be much more able than others. They make great music with originality in every note they make while others take so much time to learn the simplest of songs. Comparing these to persuasion it is all the same and thus I can call persuasion an art. Some people have the art of persuasion down and they are juggernauts when they persuade people. People gather and they gather to listen and they do what they are told. On the other hand others who do not have this art act like repellents to the audience as if they have somehow converted their insect repellents to ward people off.

                Now, how does this art of persuasion work? Well I think persuasion plays with the mind of the audience. Others choose to make the audience feel good with their barrage of sweet and uplifting words, others make the audience think, and others play with the ethics of the audience. Respectively these can be classified as pathos, logos, and then ethos. Thinking about this it made me realize something: it is all in the mind. These persuasive people somehow know what their audience wants and what their audience wants gets the attention of the audience. Some just use the cuteness :3

                And now I will give some examples as to how to attract some attention and do some persuasion. The most attention grabbing phrase that I know of is “Hey, do you want money?” and then make them do what you want them to do and I know nothing beats money or is it just me? LOL! You can also do something unusual that will grab the attention of the people around you like dance in the middle of a crowd, do a stunt, do a magic show (Criss Angel whoooo!!), or run around screaming. Just make sure that you keep the attention on you while you are already trying to say what you want to say and they do what you want them to do.

                Persuasion gets audiences, people to do stuff for you, or people to buy stuff from you. Learn this art and it will never let you down. You can get people to do what you want even if they do not want to. You attack them subtly inside (as to not hurt them) to convince them to do anything you want them to or be convinced of what you are trying to tell them. Persuasion is just not for others to do your bidding, you use it also so that people will listen to you and side with you.

                Now do you want to learn the art of persuasion? Persuasive ain’t it?