In today’s spotlight I wish to discuss self-esteem. By way of definition, or reference with respect to today’s comments, self-esteem “describes a person’s overall sense of self-worth or personal value. It s the ‘feeling of self-appreciation’ and is an indispensable emotion for people to adapt to society and live their lives.” Importance of Self-Esteem I read a study just yesterday that pointed out the importance of cultivating a strong sense of self-esteem in our youth. I posted this study on my FB page and was surprised by comments that discounted ... Read More
Religion and Spirituality In this week’s spotlight I would like to take a moment to reflect on the nature of truth. We hear a lot today about the idea that truth is personal—statements like, “I have my own truth.” This is an interesting idea that essentially can be used to argue for cultural relativity, something I have railed against many times on my radio show. Still—we all do have our so-called personal truths. For example, I have personally spent years studying, researching, and otherwise investigating the entire nature of religion and ... Read More
In today’s spotlight I wish to focus for a moment on the issue of trust. Who or what are we to trust, when, under what circumstances and for how long? Think about that for a moment. I saw a T-shirt this week with this on it: “Trust the Government” printed in black bold lettering, but underneath, printed in a shade of gray just slightly darker than the gray shirt were these words, “ Said No Founding Father Ever!” What’s True? We have hosted a number of professionals on my radio ... Read More
In this week’s spotlight I wish to address the subject of values. One of the more interesting areas of human research has to do with our emotions, and there is a heuristic to them. A heuristic is a rule or method, that shortcuts the necessity to reason, or think about a decision. If you think of it this way, then when our emotions arise, they are reflecting a value. Let me flesh that out some. Belief Mirror For years I have taught that our stream of consciousness is a mirror ... Read More
In this week’s spotlight I would like to discuss the capacity for deferred gratification. There’s a genuinely tutorial study known as the marshmallow test. In this study young children were sat down in a room with a large fresh marshmallow. They were told that they could eat the marshmallow if they wanted, but if they waited until the researcher returned to the room, they could have two—the researcher would bring them a second marshmallow. They were also told that if they decided to eat the marshmallow before the researcher returned, ... Read More
