The Four Agreements

Psychology is a science that has different fields and subfields. It’s also an evolving science that keeps changing and many fields are added to constantly. What holds these fields and unifies them is something called “the five enduring issues.” The five Enduring issues are the backbone that holds psychology together. These issues are shared by all psychologists as a common interest and overlap in all fields and subfields of psychology.

Should people put the value of life into monetary value or should life be kept solely as an emotional quantity? People and societies throughout the ages have been trying to answer the problem of putting the value of life into terms of dollar bills. The ancient Egyptians buried their dead with all of their worldly belongings. They believed a person’s monetary worth on Earth was over, and they should take all of that earthly worth with them to the afterlife. Modern day Americans are different from the Egyptians. Today people believe that the families of the dead should be compensated for “their” loss.

The novel The Pact which was read over the summer by Penn State students was considered interesting to some and dull to others. I personally enjoyed the book since I could relate to the book in more ways than one. The story takes pace in an inner city setting with three young men who become doctors and plan to give back to the community in any way they possibly can. The three young men are known as Sam, George and Rameck. Each of these characters posses a different personality which contributes to the book as a whole.

After reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz I realized I’ve been living dreams of other people in my life and not my own. It was decided early on what I should do, what’s possible and what’s not. Starting at birth we are told what to think by our parents, schools, and church. Subconsciously, we have made agreements with them to live our life according to their rules. Don Miguel believes that these agreements are self-limiting and shares four agreements that if we adapt into our lives we will reach true peace and happiness. The book made so much sense to me, but the hard part is to actually commit to living out the four agreements. In short, the four agreements are listed below:

In my family, an important principle we have is to always follow through with a promise, especially if the promise involves someone else. For example, if my mom told me she would take me to the DMV for my drivers test on Tuesday, she would have to follow through with that and take off instead of taking Friday off to relax because she promised me she would take me to the DMV. It sounds like no big deal because everyone should follow through with their promises, but my parents work most of the time. If they have any free time to take us to something that is a rare occurrence in my household. My family makes sure we all follow this principle because if we were to all break our promises to each other at random, my family would lose the trust we

My worldview has been shaped and expanded over the course of my lifetime by many different influences. My family, friends, coworkers, teachers, and even strangers have made impacts on my life that have in one way or another changed how I view society and the world around me. The three main components that help to form my worldview are Ethics, Human Nature, and God, because they molded my thoughts, experiences, education and life decisions.

Some of the things that Rameck, Sam, and George, the three boys in The Pact, were tempted with have occurred with my friend named Paul. Things such as temptations involving drugs, family issues, and the ways of life of the family. Paul's parents both dealt and did drugs, this made it hard for Paul to deviate from this kind of life. As time progressed he soon picked up the “family business” and started heading down the wrong path in life. These temptations to follow in the path of Paul's parents footsteps were very much the same as the temptation in which George, Rameck, and Sam had, which were the constant pressure from society and family.

Throughout history, every country had a body of government. Some strived and some opposed, in which only the people that were under their rule would be effected. The way I see it, Freedom to do what you want and living under the government’s care is hard to keep in balance. My question is would having absolute freedom be appropriate for people, is having the right to freely to pursue life’s goal without government interference important? Or would having your government guarantee that nobody is in need preferable? For example health care or unemployment or even education. This is all opinion based and there are many pros and cons to these situations but personally, I’d rather have the government having my back. Aiding me with education, helping me look for a job when I lost one and paying for my medical expensive definitely helps the individual.

“Do not be concerned about the future; keep your attention on today, and stay in the present moment. Just live one day at a time. Always do your best to keep these agreements, and soon it will be easy for you. Today is the beginning of a new dream.”

"The current federal system of government in the United States is failing to meet its social contract obligations to the American people." There is nothing closer to the truth than this statement. While some may argue that the government is following the guidelines of a social contract, many aspects of the government have outgrown their britches and taken over.

The quality of your individual life would greatly improve in utopia. The burdens you face from corporate monopolies, the overwhelming weight of the devaluation of your currency and the lack of faith in your neighbors to achieve a civilization of peace and mutual respect has taken its toll for too long. Although this sounds as if it was taken directly from George Orwell’s book (1984) itself, the propaganda of a utopian government rule and the current everlasting war breathes as it’s on self-reliant organization today. Weary of the multiple political parties that are emerging every three seconds, we are faced with a question that has been proposed since the beginning of logical thinking. Is it

The world is a complicated place and today's standards of society make it even more difficult to live and act in one's own way. I sometimes wonder what life would be like if we could start all over and build a brand new society - a society that guarantees social justice for all groups and full rights to every individual. Would there be a way to make everything and everyone equal? From the beginning society has been judgmental in one way or another, rather it is through racism, sexism, or classicism. There has always been a group of people who declared themselves righteous above all others and if one was not a part of this group he or she was discriminated against simply for not being the same as the dominating group.

The word “ethics” comes from Greek ethikas meaning character. Today, we use ethics to describe the normative standard of behavior. The history of philosophical ethics has been broken up into five rational methods: Virtue, Traditional, Modern, and Post-Modern Ethics. Within these periods, the philosophy of ethics changed along with the changes being made within society.

On the formation of the Social Contract Theory has a long history, many people have formed Social Contract Theory has made a great contribution. Thomas Hobbes as one of the representatives of Modern Social Contract Theory, his departure from the theory of human nature, to a fictional state of nature as a starting point, put forward the basic principles of natural law, natural rights, and then through the Social Contract Theory, the establishment of his country theory. Thomas Hobbes certain extent, played a significant role, for people to bring enlightenment. But his theory does not apply in all cases; we need to analyze different aspects of different problems. In this essay, I will describe the Social Contract Theory, and explain the problem of how do we get out of the State of Nature raised by Hobbes Game. I explain the idea of cooperation that Thomas Hobbes can give to this problem, and then argue that this is not a satisfactory response to the problem for three reasons.

In this paper I will present and critically assess the concept of the principle of utility as given by John Stuart Mill. In the essay “What Utilitarianism Is” #, Mill presents the theory of Utilitarianism, which he summarizes in his “utility” or “greatest happiness principle” # (Mill 89). Mill’s focus is based on an action’s resulting “happiness,” # pleasure and absences of pain, or “unhappiness,” # discomfort and the nonexistence of contentment, rather than the intentions involved (Mill 89). After evaluating Mill’s principle, I will then end this essay by discussing my personal opinion about the doctrine and how I believe it can be altered to better suit real-life situations.