Importance of Trust

Trust is Everything

Without trust there can be no lasting relationship. I think trust is everything because if you don't trust you can not get close and maintain relationships. Of course some people cannot be trusted, we have to be careful about choosing our friends. We have to find someone who we can confide in, talk to about everything, or work together. As a person, also we should never betray someone who trust us because it is shows us our character and personality. It also gives us inner satisfaction and happiness which is hard to get. Trust also keeps us positive, when we trust someone, we feel safe and thus it gives self-confidence to us. It is true that none of us perfect, therefore we should give ourselves time to build good relationships and we should think about ways to strengthen our relationships with other then I think trust will come by itself.

J'attendrai le suivant

Another short movie that I want to share is called "I'll wait for the next one" in english.

2+2=5

Today I watched a excellent short movie which is about strict regimes.

Video - Islam and Liberty

I want to share a video about a TED conference which is made by Mustafa Akyol who is a Turkish political commentator. He talks about his upcoming book, Islam without Extremes. The way he talks sounds realistic to me. 

Video - First Why then Trust

I found interesting video about trust , hope you enjoy it.

Video - Elif Şafak

I want to share a video of Elif Shafak who is the one of the famous author in Turkey. In the video she argues that fiction can overcome identity politics.

Video - Interviews with Turkish Demonstrators

I want to share this video to show how authority can be used in a bad way

Authority and Power

Authority comes with power. Power is the ability to influence and it is something that people agree to follow. For example, If I can convince my friends to move in the same direction as I do, it means I am the one who have the power. Authority is something much more official. For example, if I were a manager of a one company, my subordinates had to follow my orders and so I was the one who had the authority. But in this case, there is more obligation than power for subordinates.

Generally people listen and respect the authorities because they feel that these individuals deserve respect. In a traffic, a person's relation with police officer can be good example of authority in daily life because a person who sees flashing red and blue lights of a police car, always stops his car without hesitation. This shows the authority of the police officer. Also police officer has a right to fine the person who drives too fast. In that situation the police officer uses his power on the driver who drives too fast. Of course this doesn't mean that people always have to follow the orders of authorities, this is just one example from daily life. In some cases people choose to protest against the orders of authorities. 

Respect and Authority

My last blog was about empathy. Today I want to write about respect because according to Csikszentmihalyi, a key manifestation of empathy is respect. As a meaning respect is taking into consideration the views and desires of others. Therefore when you respect a person, you take into account that person's thoughts and wants into your planning. Actually respect is a very important element in communication because it enables for better communication and stronger relationships with other people and it is something that people appreciate when they receive it.

It should be careful about when need for respect is not met by other people. When we come across with this kind of situation, we need to express our feelings and needs to the other person and we should make a request from other person to find a different way of showing his or her respect. Therefore aim should not be whether we are respected or whether to respect others, the aim should be to continue conversation and give importance to what we want to meet our need for respect. To do this we should make request to other persons.

 As we can see from the cartoon, respect for authority cannot be demanded by the person who is in the position of authority, it is just can be earned. On the other hand, empathy is an important element for gaining respect for authority. We should empathize with other person, when he or she says "no" to us because maybe they are in fact saying "yes" to something else at that time. Maybe they meet their other needs by saying us no. We should keep that in mind when somebody says "no" to us. Therefore if we want gain respect for our authority, we should empathize with people and think about what prevents them from doing what we have requested.

                                     

Empathy for Life

Empathy is the way you understand another person's feelings, needs or wants. It makes possible for us to learn more about people and relationships with people. If we connect empathically with other person, we should  only focus on the how the other person is feeling and on the needs contributing to the feelings. We maybe can understand from the other person's tone of voice or from his or her facial expression that he or she is hurt. Listening is very important for being an empathic person. Second thing that we should is to make ourselves defenseless. We should remove our masks and reveal our real feeling and thoughts to create more strong bond with other person.There some other behaviors that can not be called as empathizing. Some of the behaviors are advising, one-upping, educating, consoling, storytelling, shutting down, sympathizing, interrogating, explaining and correcting. We should not confuse empathy with sympathy. Sympathy requires some degree of agreement with the other person's view. However in empathy, we communicate with other person without agreeing or disagreeing. In other words empathy tries to understand other person, not tries to agree or disagree.

Importance of Listening

Listening is one of the most important skill that you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on your relationship with other persons. There are many reasons to listen other people. Sometimes we listen to get information, sometimes we listen to understand what other person says, somestimes we listen for fun or we listen to learn. There are many ways of listening. One of them is active listening. In active listening, listener should give feedback what he or she hears from the speaker. The listener can give feedback by praphrasing the speech or confirm about what he or she heard.Active listening can be developed by practice. To be an active listener, signs of active listening is essential. One of them is smile. Smile can be helpful to show that the listener is paying attention to what is being said. Eye contact is also very important for active listening. Eye contact can give confidence to the speaker. Praphrasing is also very effective method for connecting with the speaker. The extent of the praphrasing can change from person to person. But in general praphrasing is very effective method for active listening. Facial expressions can also be effective. It can encourage the speaker to continue speech.

Nonviolent Communication Method

Last class we talked about observation, feelings and needs.Therefore I am going to talk only three of them. Actually all these are the elemements of nonviolent communication method. I think this method could save our personal and professional relationships. In fact the basis of the method is that When something happens that you don't like, explain the situation(observation), let them know what you felt(feelings), and talk about your needs(needs). The reason of why people are using this method is find a way to tell themselves without the practice of shame, blame, guilt or threats.Therefore this method is very helpful for solving conflicts between people. If look at the components of the non-violent communication method in a more detailed way; Observation simply means that what is happening in a situation of disagreement and conflict without judgements and evaluations .For example, it's 4:00 am and I hear your mobile phone alarm, that is a completely observable thing. However feeling is about how you feel about the observations that you experienced like being happy or sad.The need is the reason of that feeling. For example, I see you watching TV while I am talking with you so I am feeling uncomfortable because I need to talk with you face to face. In this example talking face to face is a need for that person. I think I will try this method in my real life.

Movie Critic

Last week I watched a movie which is called The Planet of Apes. I am not going to tell all movie here but I want to emphasize how the movie points out certain issues about humankind. If you watch the film, it is very easy for you to understand that the story of Planet of Apes is not all about Apes, but completely is about humankind. The film starts with a short prologue of the main character Taylor that he explains his concerns about humanity. As story goes on, there is one scene where Taylor is thrown into cage with other native humans. In that scene in which apes treats humans like animals is a good demonstration of dark side of humanity and helps to place viewers to put themselves into animals' position. In those scenes, humans are caged, used for experiments and even a one female native woman who will be later called Nova, is given to Taylor to be able to observe their reactions when they are together in the same cage.Thus these all action that apes do on humans reveals the ethical problem about humankind; do people act to their environment as like they want to be treated themselves. If you ask me, I don't think so. Also these scenes show how humans treat and dominate other species. At the end of the movie we see one of the most iconic scenes and images of cinematic history. As Taylor rides off with Nova into the Forbidden Zone, he realizes that the Statue of Liberty decaying on the sands.The recognition that the Planet of Apes is in fact his own planet makes us realize that how humans find a way to destroy their world because of their actions to other species. I think Planet of Apes is an excellent movie for sci-fi fans who wants to use their brain for a change, needs to see

Needs and Wants

Last week we talked about needs and wants in our class. Needs are things that necessary for our survival like food, shelter, water, sleep. However wants are things that we desire but not necessary in order to survive like mobile phones, clothes. We can classify needs as biological, mental, relational and social. Biological needs are physical needs that are essential in order to live like air, water,warmth. Mental needs are psychological needs like awareness, self-expression, creativity and effectiveness. Relational needs are the emotional needs like acceptance, affection, appreciation, belonging, empathy or consistency. And the final one is social needs. Social needs are personal needs that are related with beauty, equality or inspiration. Here is the picture of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs pyramid. The pyramid consists of five stages. Maslow pointed out that human needs are organized in a hierarchical way.

   

Positive Psychology- Martin Seligman

Today I am going to talk about positive psychology and Martin Seligman's TED conference. Firstly, positive psychology focuses on human well-being and happiness. Instead of other majors of psychology which are focus on dysfunction and abnormal behaviors of human, it focuses on to make people happy. Martin Seligman is an American psychologist and he classifies life in three ways as a pleasant life, a good life and a meaningful life. I will share a video about Martin Seligman talk in TED conference. In the conference, he talks about new era of positive psychology.                                                                  

I really liked how Martin Seligman explained happiness and in the conference he basically says that money isn't everything to become happy and happiest people are usually tend to be more social. Also he argues that depression is a genetic and if people go into depression, they can never completely cured until medical treatment. I think this talk is very enlightening for me and his way of explaining the topics is clear and I will investigate more about positive psychology.

The power of words

"The Power of Words" 

Today we watched a very touching video in our first class. Actually I've seen the short movie before but every time it makes me cry. I think the main message of the short movie was that with only couple of words, we can make a difference and can change everything. Also it is a good example of how perspective shift can affect people's decisions and attitudes and I think the movie's message at this point is that we can change the perspective with different words, I mean if you use true words that touching the hearts of those you communicate with, you can enable for them to feel another people's pain and to put themselves in another's place.Therefore sometimes how you say is more important than what you say.I want to also share another touching short movie in here. The movie's name is "What is that".The movie is short but I think it conveys its message very well, I hope you like it.