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positivity

Gratitude Glasses

November 25, 2015 by Sara Nolan

Why put a limit on gratitude? One day each year we're told by the calendar to feel grateful.  But this shortchanges what gratitude can do for you, if you practice it beyond the national holiday.  In short, gratitude gives everything in your life an upgrade. It makes you a bad-ass in the face of set-backs; It makes you not an ass in the face of great good fortune. And you can make it part of your daily routine, if you're hoping to live a rich existence.  And of course we're going to say it has benefits for your college essay (it really does) and your appeal to admissions officers (positivity is attractive). But that is just the beginning of how this feeling and virtue can alter your perspective and prospects for the better. Gratitude's brag sheet Gratitude opens you to what is, rather than what isn't. Gratitude allows you to appreciate, rather than depreciate, your life as it is. Gratitude is anti-consumerism-- it doesn't need more, it always has enough. Gratitude is knowing even the chance to apply to college, the know-how to get through even the simplest application, spells opportunity and privilege. Compare this with the education models available elsewhere in the world and you'll resent the effort a little less. Gratitude is simple-- you can exercise is towards anything.  You can be grateful you can read these words, breathe, drink water, pee...no, really, the list never runs out.  It's actually inexhaustible. Gratitude gives you a second chance when there is a shit-storm.  When things don't go "your way." When you-- if you-- get rejected. When you-- if you---get accepted. Gratitude gains you positivity The chain works like this: Gratitude induces positive feelings where more are needed or where there aren't any.  Positive feelings set your nervous system at ease.  Positive feelings lower baseline stress. A nervous system at ease is solution-oriented.  A nervous system at ease believes things can or will be OK. There is science to  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Integrity, Practice, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Wisdom Tagged With: 1000 Awesome Things, acceptance, admissions officers, brag sheet, college essay, Gratitude, Gratitude journal, Oprah, positivity, rejection, stress

How to start your best college essay? Mind your Mind

September 6, 2014 by Sara Nolan

Your essay is mental Your college essay starts in your mind and with your mind. It seems like your college essay begins on the blank page, I know.  But all words have a murky pre-history in the mind.  So it's important to know what our minds are really like, what conditions in there are shaping, selecting, and producing those critical words.  If we're serious about writing with the "sincerity" and "honesty" colleges hope to detect, then we better know what drives us.  And the biggest threat to progress is not examining our minds for the problems they make. So when you-- the writer, the student-- mind your mind, you increase the possibilities for great outcomes in your college essays, and (since real life matters) in the world.  Better word and better world.  This is why our college essay projects at Essay Intensive begin with the state of your mind and end with the transformation of your life.  If you agree that it could be cool to give this essay bigger context, meaning and impact, read on.  If not, you know, go have a snack and get on to writing! Dr. King did it Dr. King knew how to write what was on his mind, but not without looking skillfully at what was in it first. Along with many other unsung civil rights activists, Martin Luther King Jr worked (himself to death) for a better word and world.  As is true for of your best personal writing, language was his power tool-- the familiar language of the people, but used in new, stimulating, and even acrobatic ways.  To change what people do, you have to change how they think. And how they feel.  Direct them towards positive possibilities, even (especially) in dire circumstances.    This doesn't take SAT words.  It takes something much more basic. A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us in "The Letter from Birmingham Jail"; this unrelenting honesty and urgency of the letter is admirable.  Every year, reading it with my 7th graders, I cry. I ask them  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Integrity, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Wisdom Tagged With: attitude, college essay, Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr., mind, positivity

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