Stop seeking out approval and get happier

Stop seeking out approval and get happier We’ve all seen people on treadmills- either at the gym or on TV shows or in movies, and it’s always the same thing: someone is devoting a great deal of time and energy trying to race forward, but the truth is they aren’t actually getting anywhere. Did you know that there are â€Å"mental treadmills† that we often put ourselves on? We focus our thoughts, time, and mental energy on something that gets us nowhere. Worse than this, it keeps us from devoting our limited resources on more productive things that would actually help us achieve our goals in life. Not a good formula for lasting success, is it?One unfortunate but popular mental treadmill is the endless effort to gain the approval of others, which often leaves us unhappy, unfulfilled, and feeling worse and more rejected than before. We spend countless hours- in our daily lives, online, in our interactions with others, and in our decision-making regarding everything from what we wear to what we say and how we behave- trying to get others to approve of us, and it can be thoroughly exhausting. It forces us to expend a lot of effort without really getting us anywhere.Let’s take a closer look at the approval treadmill and discover how we can get off of it once and for all!It’s natural to want approval.First off, breathe- it’s completely normal to want to seek the approval of others. The truth is, humans are social creatures and we’re wired to seek the company and acceptance of people we encounter- from peers and colleagues to acquaintances and neighbors and everyone in between. Simply put, we want to be acknowledged and liked, as it reinforces our sense of self and our life choices, and it provides a boost to our self-esteem.Furthermore, seeking the approval of others can be a strategically adaptive life tool. For example, having a positive mentor or role model in our lives whose approval we are constantly pushing ourselves to attain can really help us ach ieve our goals.A problem arises when we become hyper-focused on the approval of others. This need for external approval and the resultant boost of good feelings it can bring can literally become like a drug, and once we’re hooked it’s tough to get free from it. We tend to want and need larger and larger doses of it to feel â€Å"whole,† and we lose the ability to feel contentment or fulfillment from within. Ultimately, this need for external approval is not a sustainable formula for happiness, and we’re left feeling rejected, exhausted, and alienated from our friends and family. And chances are, the people around us feel frustrated by our constant neediness.It isn’t difficult to imagine a scenario where an intense focus on seeking approval from others can blow up in our faces. Imagine being the person at work who’s always second-guessing himself or herself and asking people for their opinions on every single work task and project. Imagine sp ending way too much time obsessing about your outfits every morning, full of anxiety about what others will think? Imagine feeling the pressure of wondering how everything you say, every gesture and bit of body language will be received by those around you? It’s exhausting!There’s just no way that coworkers and colleagues will be able to keep up with your never-ending demands for approval, and the end result will be them getting frustrated and turned off by your neediness- and you’ll wind up feeling rejected and unhappy, which could even affect your work performance.This â€Å"backfire effect† from seeking the approval of others isn’t just a workplace phenomenon. It can negatively affect all aspects of your life, so it makes sense to take this seriously and try to end the vicious cycle.Get off the approval treadmill.Here’s the bottom line: if you spend a great deal of time and effort on seeking the approval of others, don’t beat yours elf up- it’s a natural human urge. But if it’s ultimately leaving you feeling rejected, use the following strategies to try and free yourself from the approval treadmill.Learn to find approval from within.Some people are naturally good at finding internal motivation and self-satisfaction, while others struggle. Which one best describes you? If you’re among the latter, that’s ok- it isn’t a terminal condition! Give yourself the power to approve of your life decisions and feel confident in your choices. After all, you’re the most important person in your life, so trust yourself and your opinions, and be good enough to yourself to realize that the only approval you really need is your own!Don’t try so hard.Here’s an interesting facet of human social interaction- most of us can tell when someone is trying too hard to get others to like him or her, and it’s usually a real turnoff and has the reverse effect. So, not only are y ou spending extra energy at trying too hard, it has the reverse effect of what you’re hoping for! People usually respond best to those who are genuine and true to themselves, and don’t seem desperate to receive the approval of others, so it’s worth giving a try.Be your best self.Not trying too hard does not mean not trying at all and giving up! We do want people to think well of us, we just don’t want to be insincere. We should always strive to be our best possible selves and to make good decisions with the feelings and needs of others taken into consideration. What’s the best part about this approach? When you share this great version of yourself with the world, that approval from others that you’re seeking will come naturally!Move on when it’s time.Here’s some more truth for you: not everyone that you encounter in life is going to like you (hard to believe, I know), and there are just some folks who’ll never provide th at approval that you’re seeking. When you encounter these people, be polite, but don’t beat yourself up or waste too much effort trying to constantly get their approval- it just isn’t going to happen. Cut your losses and move on- there’ll be plenty of people that you’ll come across in life who will like you for who you are and let you know it!End the rejection.It’s okay to admit that you’ve taken more than a few runs on the approval treadmill- we all have at one time or another, and though it’s more than likely that the experience left you feeling worse than you did before you started, you can now see that there are ways to get off of it and end the rejection. Good luck!

The Impact of the Dust Bowl on the Environment

The Impact of the Dust Bowl on the Environment Many accidents and natural disasters have done serious environmental damage to the United States. Some of the most famous events include the  1989  Exxon Valdez  oil spill, the 2008 coal ash spill in Tennessee, and the Love Canal toxic dump disaster that came to light in the 1970s. But none of these events, despite their tragic consequences, come close to being the worst environmental disaster in the United States. The worst was the 1930s Dust Bowl- created by the drought, erosion, and dust storms, or black blizzards, of the so-called Dirty Thirties. It was the worst and most prolonged environmental disaster in American history. The dust storms started at about the same time that the Great Depression really began to grip the country, and continued to sweep across the Southern Plains- western Kansas, eastern Colorado and New Mexico, and the panhandle regions of Texas and Oklahoma- until the late 1930s. In some areas, the storms didnt relent until 1940. Decades later, the land is still not completely restored.  Once thriving farms are still abandoned, and new dangers are again putting the Great Plains environment in serious jeopardy. Causes and Effects In the summer of 1931, the rain stopped coming and a drought that would last for most of the decade descended on the region. Crops withered and died. Farmers who had plowed under the native prairie grass that held the soil in place saw tons of topsoil, which had taken thousands of years to accumulate, rise into the air and blow away in minutes. On the Southern Plains, the sky turned lethal. Livestock went blind and suffocated, their stomachs full of fine sand. Farmers, unable to see through the blowing sand, tied themselves to guide ropes to make the walk from their houses to their barns. Families wore respiratory masks handed out by Red Cross workers, cleaned their homes each morning with shovels as well as brooms, and draped wet sheets over doors and windows to help filter out the dust. Still, children and adults inhaled sand, coughed up dirt, and died of a new epidemic called dust pneumonia. Frequency and Severity of Storms The weather got worse long before it got better. In 1932, the weather bureau reported 14 dust storms. In 1933, the number of dust storms climbed to 38, nearly three times as many as the year before. At its worst, the Dust Bowl covered about 100 million acres in the Southern Plains, an area roughly the size of Pennsylvania. Dust storms also swept across the northern prairies of the United States and Canada, but the damage there couldnt compare to the devastation farther south. Some of the worst storms blanketed the nation with dust from the Great Plains. A storm in May 1934 deposited 12 million tons of dust in Chicago and dropped layers of fine brown dust on the streets and parks of New York and Washington, D.C. Even ships at sea, 300 miles off the Atlantic coast, were left coated with dust. Black Sunday The worst dust storm of all hit on April 14, 1935- Black Sunday. Tim Egan, a New York Times reporter and best-selling author who wrote a book about the Dust Bowl called The Worst Hard Time, described that day as one of Biblical horror: The storm carried twice as much dirt as was dug out of the earth to create the Panama Canal. The canal took seven years to dig; the storm lasted a single afternoon. More than 300,000 tons of Great Plains topsoil was airborne that day. Disaster Gives Way to Hope More than a quarter million people fled the Dust Bowl during the 1930s- environmental refugees who no longer had the reason or courage to stay. Three times that number remained on the land and continued to battle the dust and to search the sky for signs of rain. In 1936, the people got their  first glimmer of hope. Hugh Bennett, an agricultural expert, persuaded Congress to finance a federal program to pay farmers to use new farming techniques that would conserve topsoil and gradually restore the land. By 1937, the Soil Conservation Service had been established, and by the following year, soil loss had been reduced by 65 percent. Nevertheless, the drought continued until the autumn of 1939, when rains finally returned to the parched and damaged prairie. In his epilogue to The Worst Hard Time, Egan writes: The high plains never fully recovered from the Dust Bowl. The land came through the 1930s deeply scarred and forever changed, but in places, it healed. . . After more than sixty-five years, some of the land is still sterile and drifting. But in the heart of the old Dust Bowl now are three national grasslands run by the Forest Service. The land is green in the spring and burns in the summer, as it did in the past, and antelope come through and graze, wandering among replanted buffalo grass and the old footings of farmsteads long abandoned. Looking Ahead: Present and Future Dangers In the 21st century, there are new dangers facing the Southern Plains. Agribusiness is draining the Ogallala Aquifer- the United States largest source of groundwater, which stretches from South Dakota to Texas and supplies about 30 percent of the nations irrigation water. Agribusiness is pumping water from the aquifer eight times faster than rain and other natural forces can refill it. Between 2013 and 2015, the aquifer lost 10.7 million acre-feet of storage. At that rate, the aquifer will be completely dry within a century. Ironically, the Ogallala Aquifer is not being depleted to feed American families or to support the kind of small farmers who hung on through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl years. Instead, the agricultural subsidies that began as part of the New Deal to help farm families stay on the land are now being given to corporate farms that are growing crops to be sold overseas. In 2003, U.S. cotton growers received $3 billion in federal subsidies to grow fiber that would ultimately be shipped to China and made into cheap clothing to be sold in American stores. If the water runs out, there wont be any for the cotton or the inexpensive clothing, and the Great Plains will be the site of yet another environmental disaster.