Paul Graham's Participatory Narcissism

Let’s face it the world is changing. This change is necessary if we, as a population will succeed, and this change is more evident than ever in the workforce. The working person of the past had skills necessary for a social economy that befitted that generation, but with today's market increasing

“Build your own life...find your opportunity, and always be sexy.” The general claim made by Aston Kutcher’s in his speech at the Teen Choice Awards is that to be successful you have to make your own life, work hard, and be thoughtful. He uses ethos and rhetorical devices to support his claim. His purpose is to inform in order to be inspiring. He establishes a serious but casual tone for his audience of mostly teens.

Patrick Bateman is a wealthy investment banker living in Manhattan in the late 1980s. His life revolves around dining at trendy restaurants while keeping up appearances for his fiancée, Evelyn, and for his circle of wealthy and shallow associates, most of whom he dislikes. Bateman describes the materialistic nature of his lifestyle: his daily morning exercise and beautification routine, his music collection including performers such

Robert Waldinger´s purpose is to share the lessons he has learned on what makes a happier and more fulfilling lifestyle. Most people believe that the key to a more gratifying life could only come from materialistic items and fame. However, Waldinger attempts to refute this claim by sharing the results that he has gathered from conducting a 75 year old study on happiness.

Everyone in the world needs a successful in their life in both work and family. We can see that some people have very success in their work, but not so great in their family, and some of them have separation spouse, living alone, having misbehavior children. In the article, ‘How Will You Measure Your Life?’ by Clayton Christensen from the Harvard Business Reading, explains and guides us how you can make your life happy and successful. The three topics in the article that I think they will be benefit to our life are allocating choice, creating a culture, and importance of humility.

Enjoying and achieving: getting the most out of life and developing the skills for adulthood

We cannot let our work and living conditions limit our success, we must take control of the situations in our lives. As much as we have all heard it, we need to keep a positive attitude and mindset, or at least try to. This is probably the easiest way to take control of the situations you are in; keeping a positive attitude has been known to increase your physical and mental health, which can really only benefit you. In a study performed by the University of California, Riverside, in which productivity, happiness, and overall physical and mental well-being were analyzed in working individuals, it was concluded that a positive attitude and outlook has a great effect on one’s life. Generally positive, or “happy people,” were found to be more satisfied with their jobs, to perform tasks better, and less likely to be unemployed and more likely to be physically healthier and live longer than their less happy peers (Joy). Positive people being less likely to be unemployed allows these individuals to accumulate more money, which makes the general public happier nowadays, and this ultimately makes the dream of having success more easily attainable. Happy individuals being found to be healthier and to therefore live longer than less happy individuals gives these happy individuals more time to attain the “American Dream” as well. Keeping

The most universal goal every human has in common is the pursuit of happiness or “creation or construction of happiness” (Achor, 78). To be able to fulfill this wish of becoming happy, people often think the key to achieving happiness is success. In the book, The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor, he debunks this theory of success leading to happiness by illustrating the reverse theory of success. Through dozens of studies and experiments as forms of evidence, the author argues that an individual needs to achieve happiness in order to be truly successful. Achor 's argument is valid in that happiness should come before success because there is a clear advantage to being successful in an individual’s work life, personal sphere, and liveliness if they are happy first and foremost.

In finding happiness at work, there is a large but limited set of values or factors; the key is determining how much of each value is needed. The individual is the only one who can make the determination of how much of each value is needed. What makes one person happy at work is not the same combination for the next guy. One guy may value a big salary to be happy while another could be just as happy with a little less pay and a little more involvement. The right mix of variables is personal because priorities need to be set. Rare is the job that provides all the values that you need in the exactly right proportions. Because of the rarity of the perfect job, we need to decide on what values we could be content with upholding.

In the second seminar, Aditya Chakrabortty’s article ‘Why our jobs are getting worse’ provides us a great standpoint of work reality and explains the reason of why people no longer enjoy going to work. Similar to Ritzer, He believed more and more occupations are changing

After 40, many people begin to look at life differently which they often begin to feel that life really is too short to be stuck in a dead-end or unsatisfying job. In this middle age situation, it is a time in which adults take on new responsibilities at the workplace and therefore, people of this age often feel a need to reappraise previous life structures with an

In the article “The Go-Nowhere Generation,” the Buchholzes argue that the present generation of youths has taken a turn for the worse, losing the sense of spirit that were once synonymous with people of their age and settling for meager jobs in their hometowns instead. The target audience of “The Go-Nowhere Generation” is educated older adults and parents, who are most likely to share the authors’ views. The authors implement a series of comparisons, which include statistics and descriptions, between the past and present generation of young adults to illustrate their position. However, though the authors make several valid points that are supported by solid evidence, the article falls short of being truly convincing due to its narrow views

Remember when we were young and all we could think of was growing up and getting to do ‘grownup’ things? We spent our whole childhood thinking of what we would do when we finally ‘grew up’, and here we are, almost completely grown up and we still haven’t made up our mind of what it is we will do when we grow up. We’ve painted this pretty little picture in our head of what it’ll be like when we eventually do grow up, and when it finally comes for the picture to be taken off the wall and put into action, it’s not nearly as fun as creating the painting.

Anyone who is familiar with our generation knows that our generation is extremely different from our parents’ generation. Thus, creates a gap between the two generations, and has been acknowledged by many sociologists. Aside from today’s young people inability to accomplish the millstones of becoming an adult, there is lot more differences between this generation and the older generation. Therefore, in this essay, I will be comparing and contrasting both generations. From how their career expectations are different, what was their definition of happiness, and how their parents played a role on making their dream or expectation turn into reality?

Through our weekly discussion of Adult Development and studying Erik Erickson’s theories of development, allowed me to gain great insight to human development. In our reading Erik points out that “adults seek to accomplish goals that make them feel they have made a difference in the world. This is the payoff stage in which we can use the personality that we’ve developed to achieve our occupational, social and personal goals. We gain a sense of fulfillment from those accomplishments but also seek additional satisfaction through mentoring younger generations.” (Witt & Mossler, 2010, p 9). This is truly where I am in my life right now. Growing up as a child I always dreamed of becoming a doctor one day. As I got older and became a part of numerous debate teams, student government associations groups and community advisory boards, my interest changed to law school. When I became a wife and a mother, I developed the nurturing spirit and I wanted to become a nurse. Looking back at where I was and where I am now I am seeking career satisfaction in my life. I am struggling with generatively versus stagnation. I do not feel I am useful in my career achievement and that is why I am seeking to better my