Identity - The True Power of Change

How to Find One's Sustainable Joy, Part 2 Two weeks ago, the blog discussed Walter Orthman of Brazil as an example of being happy in one company for more than 85 years. This week, the focus is on Harland David Sanders of Henryville, Indiana, USA. Harland's father passed away when he was five years old. He had to cook for his siblings at the age of seven and became skilled in making food from the ingredients foraged in the wild. By age 10, Harland started working as a farmhand. He worked various jobs throughout the majority of his life such as painting horse carriages, a streetcar conductor, a soldier in the Army, a blacksmith's helper, and a steam engine stoker. He earned his law degree by correspondence courses and started practicing law. His career as an attorney ended when he had a brawl with his client in the courtroom. Harland then worked as a life insurance salesman. In between all these jobs, he always knew that he wanted to be his own boss for his own business. Harl

  I am NOT a TWIN! Andrew and Kyle Godfrey are students at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). Andrew majors in computer science and Kyle is in accounting. You will probably run into them either having lunch with friends or at the CCSU gym working out. At the first glimpse, their outer appearances are nearly identical. However, they cringe whenever others refer to them as twins. Andrew, despite the relatively mallow attitude, dislikes when people would comment about them by saying, "The twins... ." In fact, both of them insist that they prefer being recognized as Andrew and Kyle, not the Godfrey twins. Kyle performed exceptionally well in one of my very challenging courses. He was quiet in class, but often ready to contribute learning. Kyle exhibited the traits of a deep thinker and was not afraid of telling facts without worrying how his peers viewed him. On the other hand, I got to know Andrew from our overlapped time at the campus gym. He often worked out in the m

How to Find One's Sustainable Joy? Part 1 Before the blog goes on to Step three of finding one's true identity, I thought I would address questions from my students that I believe is of great importance to many through the years of teaching in higher education. Some of my students asked me whether they should be actively looking for an internship, a permanent job, or starting their own businesses. My answer is usually all of the above. Receiving an offer for an internship, a permanent job, or funding for a new startup is not mutually exclusive. I usually encourage them to engage in an activity for a period of time before deciding whether such activity provides them with the sustainable joy most desired. I will use some real-life examples to demonstrate this idea of finding one's sustainable joy in their path of life. I will attempt to accomplish this in the following few weeks as I will provide a real-life example each week to avoid a lengthy weekly post. Walter Orthman, Br

Feeling Good is NEVER Enough I asked my students what they spent their time on. A majority of them admitted that they checked Instagram posts and reels most often. I decided to sign up for an Instagram account after receiving this answer. I thought it would be effective to post something on Instagram to connect with my students. However, my experience with Instagram was a bit shocking. The majority of posts are advertisements. For non-commercial posts from people, most men do not own a shirt and women seem to have gluteus works done by Cardi B's plastic surgeons. Furthermore, pictures and reels that showed people tended to be extremely filtered that they looked almost like animated characters instead of real people. I wondered how my students, who are mostly in their late teens to early 20s, felt as social media such as Instagram seemed to popularize certain body types and superficial aesthetic. If I felt intimidated by all the shirtless men on public display, were my students unde