Life is About Choices and the Decisions We Make

Life is like a road. There are long and short roads; smooth and rocky roads; crooked and straight paths. In our life many roads would come our way as we journey through life. There are roads that lead to a life of single blessedness, marriage, and religious vocation. There are also roads that lead to fame and fortune on one hand, or isolation and poverty on the other. There are roads to happiness as there are roads to sadness, roads towards victory and jubilation, and roads leading to defeat and disappointment.

Just like any road, there are corners, detours, and crossroads in life. Perhaps the most perplexing road that you would encounter is a crossroad. With four roads to choose from and with limited knowledge on where they would go, which road will you take? What is the guarantee that we would choose the right one along the way? Would you take any road, or just stay where you are: in front of a crossroad?

There are no guarantees.

You do not really know where a road will lead you until you take it. There are no guarantees. This is one of the most important things you need to realize about life. Nobody said that choosing to do the right thing all the time would always lead you to happiness. Loving someone with all your heart does not guarantee that it would be returned. Gaining fame and fortune does not guarantee happiness. Accepting a good word from an influential superior to cut your trip short up the career ladder is not always bad, especially if you are highly qualified and competent. There are too many possible outcomes, which your really cannot control. The only thing you have power over is the decisions that you will make, and how you would act and react to different situations.

Wrong decisions are always at hindsight.

Had you known that you were making a wrong decision, would you have gone along with it? Perhaps not, why would you choose a certain path when you know it would get you lost? Why make a certain decision if you knew from the very beginning that it is not the right one. It is only after you have made a decision and reflected on it that you realize its soundness. If the consequences or outcomes are good for you, then you have decided correctly. Otherwise, your decision was wrong.

Take the risk: decide.

Since life offers no guarantee and you would never know that your decision would be wrong until you have made it, then you might as well take the risk and decide. It is definitely better than keeping yourself in limbo. Although it is true that one wrong turn could get you lost, it could also be that such a turn could be an opportunity for an adventure, moreover open more roads. It is all a matter of perspective. You have the choice between being a lost traveller or an accidental tourist of life. But take caution that you do not make decisions haphazardly. Taking risks is not about being careless and stupid. Here are some pointers that could help you choose the best option in the face of life’s crossroads:
· Get as many information as you can about your situation.

You cannot find the confidence to decide when you know so little about what you are faced with. Just like any news reporter, ask the 5 W’s: what, who, when, where, and why. What is the situation? Who are the people involved? When did this happen? Where is this leading? Why are you in this situation? These are just some of the possible questions to ask to know more about your situation. This is important. Oftentimes, the reason for indecision is the lack of information about a situation.

· Identify and create options.

What options do the situation give you? Sometimes the options are few, but sometimes they are numerous. But what do you do when you think that the situation offers no options? This is the time that you create your own. Make your creative mind work. From the most simplistic to the most complicated, entertain all ideas. Do not shoot anything down when an idea comes to your head. Sometimes the most outrageous idea could prove to be the right one in the end. You can ask a friend to help you identify options and even make more options if you encounter some difficulty, but make sure that you make the decision yourself in the end.

· Weigh the pros and cons of every option.

Assess each option by looking at the advantages and disadvantages it offers you. In this way, you get more insights about the consequences of such an option.

· Trust yourself and make that decision.

Now that you have assessed your options, it is now time to trust yourself. Remember that there are no guarantees and wrong decisions are always at hindsight. So choose… decide… believe that you are choosing the best option at this point in time.

Now that you have made a decision, be ready to face its consequences: good and bad. It may take you to a place of promise or to a land of problems. But the important thing is that you have chosen to live your life instead of remaining a bystander or a passive audience to your own life. Whether it is the right decision or not, only time can tell. But do not regret it whatever the outcome. Instead, learn from it and remember that you always have the chance to make better decisions in the future.

Free Holiday E-Book

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Protect women in Darfur from abuse. Make sure help arrives by year's end!

As the holidays approach, our thoughts turn to those who are less fortunate than ourselves. This year, we have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of countless innocent women and their families who are suffering in Darfur, Sudan.

These women and their daughters are struggling to survive in cramped refugee camps where sexual assault is common, food is scarce, and medical help is almost non-existent. But there is hope. Tell our leaders to protect women from abuse and genocide by sending humanitarian aid to Darfur!

Women and girls as young as eight risk being raped and attacked when they leave their homes or refugee camps to gather firewood and food.

Hungry families face a terrible choice each day - do they send out their husbands and sons who may be killed, or their mothers and daughters, who may be raped and beaten? This is a choice no one should ever have to make!

Speak up for the women and girls who have no voice: http://go.care2.com/e/R2Qq/btrH/DmWm

It's been nearly three months since the government of Sudan agreed to send help to those suffering in Darfur. But they have yet to follow through on this promise. The situation in Darfur is shocking, but if we don't send aid now the worst may be yet to come. Ensure that the suffering in Darfur ends today by signing the petition letter to UN Secretary-General Annan and President Bush.

In the three years since the rebel fighting started, over 400,000 women, children, and men have been killed; more than 2 million have been forced from their homes; and over 3.5 million rely completely on international aid for survival. And most recently, the UN Secretary General's special representative was ordered to leave the country. All the while, the number of civilian deaths in this brutal civil war continues to climb.

That's why it's so important that our leaders ramp up the pressure and demand that the peacekeepers are admitted!

This is our chance to reach millions of women who need help right now. Thank you for making a difference today.

Pay Day Loans

Many people take out a Pay Day Loan to raise cash for unexpected expenses, to start a home-based business, or even to buy holiday gifts. The interest rates of these loans can border on Usury!

Have you taken out a pay day loan? What was your experience- good, bad, or ugly? Did it help, or did it just get you deeper into debt? Post your thoughts here!

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony were all leaders of the early women's rights movement.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born November 12, 1815, in Johnstown, New York. She was the fourth of six children. Later she would meet and marry Henry B. Stanton, a prominent abolitionist. Together they would have seven children. Although Elizabeth never went to college she was very learned in Greek and mathematics. During her life, Elizabeth was a very important person to the women's rights movement. This paper will present to you the difficulties she encountered and her major contributions.

Nothing is easy when you are trying to change the opinion of the world. In the nineteenth century it was only harder if you were a woman. Elizabeth Stanton not only faced opposition from the outside world but also from those closest to her. After her only brother died she tried to please her father by studying and doing the things that her brother had done. Her father's response was that he wished she had been a boy. Her high hope of working with her husband to abolish slavery was shattered when she was not allowed to enter into the conventions. She, as a woman, was told to keep silent and to do her work quietly. Who better than her husband, who champions the rights of black people, should understand and applaud her work. However, that was not the case. During the Seneca Falls convention that she had organized, her husband left town rather than witness here propose the idea of women's suffrage to the group. When she lectured she was often booed and hissed at. She suffered much at the hands of the media. The only support that she ever received was from her fellow suffragists. This did not stop her from continuing her work and becoming an integral part to the early women's rights movement.

With seven children and an entire household to manage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton somehow found time to help found the women's rights movement. Her contributions were considerable. After attending an abolitionist convention in London she decided to concentrate her work on the rights of women. Her first cause was that of Divorce. She believed that people ought to be able to obtain a divorce on any grounds. She also championed the married women's property act. Perhaps one of her greatest contribution she had was the Seneca Falls convention. There she helped draft the Declaration of Sentiments. This was a list of twelve items that were unfair to women. The twelfth, concerning women's right to vote, would probably have not been included if it was not for Elizabeth. She later published the Women's Bible in two volumes. These books refuted the idea that God had set man to rule over women.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked hard for a thankless task. She received opposition from every where, even the women whom she was championing. She never saw the results of the fire that she lit. There is no doubt that the women's rights movement would have started without her but it would probably not have started when it did. It would also have lacked some of its fire. Without Elizabeth Cady Stanton we might not have some of the rights that we enjoy today.

The Limitations of Gender Roles

Everyone acknowledges that there are significant differences between males and females, even if they are only physical. Others see not only the physical but also the social, emotional and intellectual differences between male and female. Gender roles by definition are the social norms that dictate what is socially appropriate male and female behavior. In early American culture it was common for a women's job to be a submissive homemaker in clear contrast to the males aggressive breadwinner role. The seventies marked the beginning of the Woman's Movement and the end of the ideals we held on what it is to be a "man" and what it is to be a "woman". Women were no longer like the stereotypical homemaker, always offering a hot meal for her family, but were instead out burning bras and protesting inequality. No one disputes that the Women's Movement began but there is a disagreement on whether or not it should come to an end.

One of the Women's Movement primary goals was to invalidate gender roles in the sense that women were secondary to men. The fact that gender roles exist is indisputable. Gender roles influence women and men in virtually every area of life including family and occupation. Early into childhood girls and boys are treated differently in families, schools and other institutions. Girls are encouraged to play with dolls and playhouse type of toys while boys will often play with trucks and army toys. Boys are played with in a rough manner and told to "tough it out" when they get hurt. Girls are taught to be more passive and expressive with their feelings. Whether these gender roles are fair or not, is where the argument begins. Does the fact that we are treated differently based on our sex prevent us from reaching equality or are we treated differently because we are different by nature? We are indeed raised differently, but does the fact that a boy is given a blue room and a girl is given a pink room mean that a girl is being sleighted? The outdated, sexist gender roles that dehumanize women are extinct, the ones that presently exist are the ones that are true. "Males are better in math while females are better in English. Women master language skills better than men, while men are better at organizing objects in a spatial layout". Gender roles are present but they are not beneficiary to either sex. Women are portrayed as physically weaker, but that is because as a general rule they are physically weaker. It is not so much an evil conspiracy by "the man" but an observation of an obvious fact.

It has been proven that gender roles are not something that society determines, but that nature determines. A recent story that has hit the media illustrates this point. "John" was born a normal baby boy, however in a tragic accident his penis was damaged beyond repair by a circumcision that went wrong. The parents then decided the childs best shot at normal life was as an anatomically correct woman and therefore the baby was castrated. This case became a landmark in sex research during the 1970's, in that sexual identity exists in a kind of continuum and that nurture is more important than nature in determining gender roles. Experts thought babies are born gender neutral, catch them early enough and you can make them what you want. What the doctors and the parents did not know was that the celebrated sex change success story was, in fact a total failure. "John" rejected anything remotely feminine. He refused to wear dresses, make up, and when the time came he tried to refuse to take any hormones that would give a feminine figure. "John" did not know that he was born a boy. He only knew that, "…something was wrong." The fact that he instinctively tried to take on a masculine role, even when everyone in his environment was telling him to do the opposite, proves that there are undeniable differences between the sexes. These differences should be celebrated instead of being ignored, after all in the end they all balance out.

On the other side of that, is the argument that gender is a part of our culture integrated into our being and does in fact give men an edge. "Gender is a social structure that has its origins in the development of human culture, not in biology or procreation….As is true of other institutions genders history can be traced, its structure examined, and its changing effects researched". Traditional gender role ideology has reflected male dominance and bias. For example, having been trained like most American boys to dread the accusation of doing anything "like a girl" men were said to grow into the assumption that women were valueless, natural prey. It is true that women are physically weaker, not because nature intended them to be but because women are discouraged from building muscle and resembling a man's figure. "In a great many cultures women are taught to depend on others, not themselves, for protection from bodily harm. Women are not taught to defend themselves from strangers because fathers and husbands fear the consequences themselves". This trend demonstrates the fear that males hold in that a woman is dangerous with too much power.

Traditional gender roles for the woman include, nurturance, dependence and emotional expressiveness, this socialization rooted from the placement of male and female in separate roles. Emotionally, this is impacting on the woman because she has to teach other females how to be caretakers. Furthermore, women are taught to be self sacrificing, passive victims. As a result of this, a woman's identity is based on how well she serves others. Men are encouraged to venture out and establish a place in the world, women are encouraged to stand behind them and clean up their mess. Seen in this light equality does not really apply.

In conclusion, Gender equality has been a social concern since man has step foot on earth. When we think of gender equality discrimination is the first thought, which comes to mind. Gender Roles by definition are the social norms that dictate what is socially appropriate male and female behavior. The argument begins between these two sides in which the stated gender roles in society, are they fair on both sides or do they in fact discriminate against the two sexes. Men are taught to be stoic in times of stress and women are taught to be helpless and needy. This is how our society expects men to behave. Maybe, in the near future as a culture we will use gender transcendence, in which as a people we will abandon our "assigned" gender idea, so that other aspects of life become separated and gender free.

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia nervosa is defined as two or more episodes of binge eating (rapid consumption of a large amount of food, up to 5,000 calories) every week for at least three months. The binges are sometimes followed by vomiting or purging and may alternate with compulsive exercise and fasting. The symptoms can develop at any age from early adolescence to 40, but usually become clinically serious in late adolescence.

Bulimia is not as dangerous to health as anorexia, but it has many unpleasant physical effects, including fatigue, weakness, constipation, fluid retention, swollen salivary glands, erosion of dental enamel, sore throat from vomiting, and scars on the hand from inducing vomiting. Overuse of laxatives can cause stomach upset and other digestive troubles. Other dangers are dehydration, loss of potassium, and tearing of the esophagus. These eating disorders also occur in men and older women, but much less frequently. Women with diabetes, who have a high rate of bulimia, often lose weight after an eating binge by reducing their dose of insulin. According to recent research, this practice damages eye tissue and raises the risk of diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to blindness.

Many anorectic women also indulge in occasional eating binges, and half of them make the transition to bulimia. About 40% of the most severely bulimic patients have a history of anorexia. It is not clear whether the combination of anorexia with bingeing and purging is more debilitating, physically or emotionally, than anorexia alone. According to some research, anorectic women who binge and purge are less stable emotionally and more likely to commit suicide. But one recent study suggests that, on the contrary, they are more likely to recover.
The exact cause of the disorder is unknown, but a variety of psychological, social, cultural, familial and biochemical theories are being investigated. Bulimia has been recognized for a much shorter time than anorexia, and there is less research on its origins. One theory is that bulimic women lack all the parental affection and involvement they need and soothe them with food as compensation. The overeating subdues feelings of which they are barely conscious, at the price of later shame and self-hatred. One recent study found that bulimic women differed from depressed and anxious women in several ways. They were more likely to be overweight, to have overweight parents, and to have begun menstruating early. They were also more likely to say that their parents had high expectations for them but limited contact with them. The parents themselves were not interviewed.

According to the American Journal of Psychiatry, surprisingly, the risk for bulimia was not related to social class, income, education, occupation, the occupation of parents, or even an outgoing or introverted personality. A woman's childhood relationship with her mother, as she reported it, was not associated with bulimia, but neglect by her father was. Women with bulimia had lower self-esteem and more neurotic symptoms, and they were more likely to say they were not in control of their lives. They also had a slimmer ideal body image, and they dieted and exercised more. The risk factors for narrowly and broadly defined bulimia were similar.

Women with broadly defined bulimia had high rates of phobias, alcoholism, anxiety disorders, anorexia nervosa, and panic attacks. Their lifetime rate of major depression was also high (50 percent), but bulimia had no special association with that common disorder. All other things being equal, a woman with a history of major depression was 2.2 times more likely to have suffered from bulimia as well. The corresponding odds ratio for phobias was 2.4, for alcoholism 3.2, and for anorexia nervosa 8.2. In most studies of patients treated for both bulimia and depression, bulimia is found to precede depression, but in this group of largely untreated people the depression had usually come first.

In some families of women with bulimia, the problem may be more serious than rigidity, over protectiveness, or inadequate nurturing. Child sexual abuse, an increasingly common explanation for psychiatric symptoms in women, has naturally been proposed as a cause of eating disorders. The connection has not been confirmed, and some recent studies raise serious doubts about it. Women with bulimia do not report more sexual abuse than an anxious and depressed woman in general.

The problem of bulimia is closely related to the problem of obesity, since almost all bulimic women either are or think they are overweight. According to a widely accepted theory, each person's body weight has a biological set point that is strongly influenced by heredity and difficult to change. Studies in several countries have found that mothers and their biological daughters have a similar weight-height ratio, while the correlation between adoptive parents and adoptive children is low. According to the set point theory, metabolism during a diet shows to counteract the effect of reduced intake until it settles at a lower level consistent with the new weight. A person who continues the same diet will eventually regain weight until the set point is reached.

Many individuals with bulimia do not seek help until they reach their thirties or forties when their eating behavior is deeply ingrained and more difficult to change. Bulimia is often treated more successfully than anorexia, partly because bulimic patients usually want to be treated. Most antidepressant drugs relieve the symptoms, usually more quickly than they relieve depression. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are probably most useful, because they have relatively few side effects and tend to cause weight loss rather than weight gain. In 1997, fluoxetine became the first drug specifically approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for bulimia.