Different Languages of Love

It has been a few years since one of my friends introduced me to the topic of different languages of love. The book was not necessarily a scientific or research-based one, rather one of those self-help books on keeping and maintaining loving relationships. I found the topic interesting regardless.

The book had stories of couples, whom some after a lifetime of marriage, did not feel loved by their partners. They seemed to have normal lives, they were life long friends, did not necessarily had any arguments, but they did not feel recognized, appreciated, loved. Often times, the other partner was clueless on what is missing. S/he could not find any basis for his/her partner's complaints.

The book argued different people have different ways/languages for expressing their love. While one person may shower you with flowers or gifts for every occasion, another person may never express his/her love with gifts and sees them as superficial materialistic objects that can actually harm a loving bond. That person may always do things for you and make sure you are taken care of. Whether it is doing the grocery shopping, washing the dishes, giving you a ride, etc. One person may do all these great things and the partner still not be happy, because they do not seem to have much of quality time together. You may shower her in jewelry and do everything for her, but all she really wants is an hour or two of your undivided attention. You get the picture. People have different ways of expressing their love and based on their preferred language, they feel happy/loved when they are talked to in their own language.

The book listed five major love languages:

1) Words of Affirmation
2) Quality Time
3) Receiving Gifts
4) Acts of Service
5) Physical Touch

I would think we probably will feel happy when any of these are applied to us, and need to be at the receiving point of all of these five languages to some extent. However, we may appreciate, or be more sensitive to, being treated (or not) through one approach much more than the other ones. So, just because you do not care for gifts, it does not mean your partner would not mind that you never give him/her anything. Just because it means the world to you when your partner helps you with the house chores, it does not mean your partner likes you to help him/her with his/her chores. S/he may be yearning for more hugs and kisses instead. It is thus important to recognize your preferred love languages and those of your partner, and to receive and express love in those languages more often.

One things is for sure though: we got to get some love in a relationship. No matter how kind and giving we are, or would like to be, we cannot continue to give and give, and not hear any of the love languages back. What do you think?

عهدش بتمبه

به قول مادر بزرگ من: عهدش بتمبه!

Baby Jasmine!

Baby Jasmine!
Tonight is a long night for you.
The beginning of your many struggles in life.
As you work on entering this world.

Baby Jasmine!
This is just the beginning,
Of pushing hard,
Of finding your way out,
Of many battles to fight.
But do not you worry.

Baby Jasmine!
There are people waiting for you on the other side.
To catch you,
To hold you,
They already love you.

Baby Jasmine!
Now you have no choice,
But when you do,
Let people who love you,
Or those worthy to be trusted,
To catch you,
To hold you.
To love you,
You will survive those struggles,
Just as well as you will win the first one.

Baby Jasmine!
I will smell you in the morning.
Till then, sweet dreams.

aunt Nargess.

مدرسه و باسوادی

سال اول دبستان فکر می‌کنم سخت‌ترین سال تحصیلی عمرم بوده. نه از نظر درسی‌، نه، از این نظر که خیلی‌ سخت گذشت. معلم سخت گیر و بد اخلاقی‌ داشتیم. زود عصبانی میشد، داد میزد، و خط کش زدن پشت دست ما رو تنبیه عادی میدونست. من هم که سال اول مدرسه‌ام بود، فکر می‌کردم لابد مدرسه اینطوریه. هیچ وقت یادم نمیره بار اول که مامانم از من در راه آمدن به خانه شنید که معلم ما این کار رو میکنه. دستم را محکم تر گرفت و شروع کرد به تند تر قدم برداشتن. خیلی‌ عصبانی شده بود و همون فردا صبح اول وقت رفته بود دفتر مدرسه مون. منی که قبل از دبستان، مهد کودک و آمادگی‌ رفته بودم و به خارج از خونه بودن عادت داشتم و برای اولین روز رفتن به مدرسه روز شماری کرده بودم، همون کلاس اول ابتدایی از مدرسه بدم اومد. مدرسه برام سخت شده بود.

کلاس اول تازه به پایان رسید بود، و من از آغاز تابستان در پوست نمی‌‌گنجیدم. مهمتر از همه اینکه من دیگه باسواد شده بودم و می‌تونستم همه کتابهای داستانی رو که قبلان نمیتونستم بخونم، خودم به تنهایی و بدون منت کشیدن از برادرم بخونم. عصر روزی که مدرسه‌ام تموم شده بود و تابستان شروع شده بود، خوشحال رفتم پیش بابام و گفتم: "بابا، من دیگه با سواد شدم. دیگه لازم نیست مدرسه برم" و به خیال خودم این بهترین مژده ای‌ بود که من به بابام می‌تونستم بدم. بابام هم سری تکون داد و گفت "آره، حتما" و به کار خودش ادامه داد. من هم از این که اون به عظمت خبر من پی‌ نبرده بود، دلگیر و دست از پا دراز تر برگشتم توی اتاقم و عزای سال بعد و سال‌های بعد رو گرفتم و این که دیگه عمر من فنا شد.

حالا چطور شد اینطوری شد و من مدرسه رو برای سالیان سال وقتی‌ که می‌تونستم ول کنم، ول نکردم و هنوز هم سرم و بزنی‌، تهم و بزنی‌، به بهونه شنیدن سخنرانی‌های مختلف مدرسه‌های مختلف میرم، نمیدونم.

Positive Emotions

Last week's leadership colloquium at work was given by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, professor of Psychology at North Carolina university on "Positivity: How to Embrace it and Overcome Negativity.”

She emphasized on the scientific aspects of her research and supporting data indicating how positive emotions affect people's behavior, perceptions, and interactions, and that positivity is far beyond happiness and includes many feelings such as joy, gratitude, interest, etc. In particular, her experiments showed that positivity fuels resiliency and people with positive emotions respond better to crisis.

She mentioned we as humans cannot ignore or eliminate negative emotions. They are essential for our survival and learning experiences. However, if the negative feelings linger over time, and we get stuck in them, we will end up depressed.

An interesting fact she mentioned that made me pause and think was that one percent of our body cells are renewed everyday. That is 30% of our body is reborn in a month and we get a whole new self in a little over three months*. Maybe that is why it takes us at least three months to master a new skill, she wondered. In the same way, our health can be changed for better or worse depending on emotions we go through.

Thus, she introduced the concept of the positivity ratio, the number of times we experience positive emotions over the number of times we experience negative ones during a fixed period of time. Depending on how large or small this ratio is we can flourish or languish as water lilies do in response to sunshine. Positivity opens us and expands our horizons to new learning experiences, and consequently we feel energized and up-lifted. Since we cannot eliminate the denominator of this ratio, we need to increase the quantity of our positive experiences to feel positive. She and her colleagues had done studies to find the tipping point for this ratio: what would it take for individuals, businesses, and married couples to be happy?

Here are their magic numbers: experimental results indicate the positivity ratio to live a happy life is at least 3:1 for individuals, and 5:1 for marriages. I forgot the ratio for businesses but I think it was 7:1. In other words, it takes much more positive experiences and emotions to be happy in a marriage. They found for divorced couples this ratio was 1-1 or even zero and surprisingly they did not find many examples in between: people were either happily married with a 5:1 positive experiences over negative experiences or were depressed/divorced because they had a 1:1 or zero positivity ratio in their relationships. They also found another tipping point of 11:1, that is being too positive/happy is not good either. This is where the value of negative feelings as a survival and defense mechanism shows itself. Only 20% of people in the U.S. have a positivity ratio of 3 or more in their lives (i.e. feel good and do good).

Finally, she mentioned in order to create the mindset of positivity, one needs exercise being open, approachable, curios, kind, and above all real. Faking positivity is more dangerous than negative emotions, she stated.

To learn more about her work please visit:

http://www.unc.edu/peplab/home.html
http://www.PositiveEmotions.org
http://www.PositivityRatio.com

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* If we accept that people can change so periodically, how would it affect our perception of them? Do we keep judging, punishing, or rewarding individuals for what they once did without re-evaluating them often? Do we give others a chance to be forgiven or prove themselves in different contexts, or do we constantly judge them by their past behavior?

Fired Up or Burned Out?

We invest the best years of our lives preparing ourselves for a career from which we expect to make a living. Naturally, we would like to be happy at our jobs. We question and evaluate our choices constantly. Many people who end up at the wrong job suffer on a daily basis. At some point, they decide they had enough and quit even without knowing what will substitute their source of income.

A while back I attended a leadership seminar at work titled "Fired Up or Burned Out? Creating a Connection Culture" by Michael Stallard and Jason Pankau. This was part of their talk's announcement:

Seventy-five percent of Americans, on average, are not engaged in their work and 20 percent of the disengaged work against their organizations’ interests. For many this raises the question: What work environment enables everyone to perform to the best of their abilities and align their behavior with organizational goals?
.....
Employees in an organization with a high degree of connection are more productive, more engaged, more collaborative, and less likely to leave. In fact, research demonstrates that there is a set of learnable leadership behaviors that can ignite the workforce so individuals do more than survive – they thrive.

Speakers said emotional factors are four times as effective as rational factors in engaging employees at work. They emphasized the importance of feeling connected. Lack of connection at work results in loneliness, isolation, confusion, distrust, disrespect, and dissatisfaction. On the other hand, connections result in enthusiasm, satisfaction, and involvement. We feel fired up rather than burned out.

Speakers argued we all have certain needs that should be met in order for us to be happy with our jobs. They emphasized the word needs, they are not wants, not things that would be nice to have. If these needs are not met, our mental and physical health will be jeopardized.

This was their list of needs that should be met at our jobs:

1) Respect
2) Recognition
3) Belonging
4) Autonomy (Freedom)
5) Personal Growth
6) Meaning

I am often asked if I plan to get a new job. So far, I have responded no. I do not see any reason or need to do so. The above list helped me understand better why. During the past eight years, I never felt items 4-6 were at risk of not being met at my work. I almost always felt good about items 1-3, with the exception of one difficult team I had to work with for a while. Even during that time, working on multiple projects came to my rescue: those needs were satisfied via other teams and projects. While working on multiple projects with different groups can be inefficient and counter productive, it can also come to your rescue. By not putting all your eggs in one basket, one person/group/project won't have all of the power to deprive you from meeting your needs. You go to a meeting with a different group who respect and appreciate you more, and you get enough satisfaction to carry on. So, I am not going to complain anymore about being on multiple projects each with their own meetings and deadlines. They are all working together to cover my six above mentioned needs.

ستاره‌های دنباله دار

باشه ستاره‌های دنباله دار، باشه، یادتون باشه. من و یک ساعت نصف شبی تک و تنها کشونیدید وسط خیابون، هر ماشینی رد شد چپ چپ نگاهم کرد، اون وقت شما نیومدین سر قرار. من هم دیگه اومدم خونه، هر چقدر می‌‌خواید ببارید واسه خودتون امشب!