Empowering Individual to Achieve Social Harmony in a Global Context
Being a responsible netizen
1. Think before you Click
– This is the advocacy of GMA-7, Philippines leading ‘broadcasting network in News and Current Affairs. The power to change, information dissemination , It is one of the major protocols before we react and propagate any information from the internet we have to thoroughly assess, scrutinize the things we will post and we have to verify the authenticity and veracity of the news, information that we share. Because it will create a chaos in the viewing public.
Techno Savvy
– In this age, where everything is already accessible through our fingertips, it is an advantage that we all have to be updated with the breakthroughs of technology, though at first it may be a drastic change, but sooner or later we are going to adapt to it and learn the use and advantage of the advancement, but we have to be very keen enough that we have to be ethically responsible for our actions, our foremost concern is to assume full responsibility and accountability that will ultimately benefit humanity.
Avoid annihilating opinions
– Some opinions are just mean, cruel, violent, and extremist in nature and their aim is tearing people down. If these kinds of opinions are your opinions, then you better to keep it to yourself. Everybody is entitled for expressing their opinions, but nobody deserves such annihilating opinions. Opinions are meant to bring improvement and to help others to change for the better. As GMA 7 advocacy over “cyberbullying, lets choose Love over hate.. Look on……………
Liberate from Social Media Slavery
– The world is much bigger right now, yet people are closer than ever before, thanks to social media. The sole purpose of social media is to create a virtual world which distant people could stay in touch and share various experiences. No one thought that it would be also a platform which most people investing most of their precious time, neglecting important things like education, developing talents and skills, relationship with our family and the environment we are living in. Rather spending more of our time to a world that will never notice when we’re gone, let’s explore and appreciate the beauty of life in the real world where our existence matters.
The Power of Information
2. Inquire and be updated
– Ignorance may be compared as being lame. According to Dy (2003) Inquiry may be defined as man’s effort to integrate his experience as a responsible agent. John Locke once stated the experience “writes” knowledge and understanding of the mind, by being involved and aware of one’s environment in spite of perplexities gives us an open door to grasp further knowledge and be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Be Vigilant
– As a responsible citizen who has an utmost concern to his society, it’s his duty and obligation to become aware and vigilant of the things that happens to his surroundings. It is not the issue whether we will benefit from certain issues and concerns, but most likely we care for the betterment of our community.
Fostering Multicultural Social Bonds
3. Welcoming Diversity
– Just being human equipped with full understanding of individual differences, everybody should learn how to be flexible, respect and look for a different perspective to different challenges, demands of different individuals in diversified culture, ethnicity and backgrounds. We have to be open to their sentiments, feelings and struggles and do not be wedded with something that only benefits are personal well-being.
Embracing Imperfections
– Each person is not perfect, instead of looking for other’s weaknesses or personal imperfections, try to focus on these flaws, because these would serve as a guiding light improve ourselves and be the best person we could be.
Perspective-Taking
We could reduce interpersonal conflict, prejudice and stereotyping by putting ourselves into other’s position. Knowing what it feels like to be on the other side and knowing one’s vantage point would help us to understand more each other. Seeing our own and other’s perspective would assist us to coordinate our behaviors with different set of individuals and establish more rewarding social relationship.
Enacting our Social Responsibility
Being a role model is not a choice but a responsibility
– Whether you are in the spotlight, a government official or a simple national, your actions and words influence the perceptions and behaviors of people seeing you. Our actions could be modeled and repeated by others, so it is our social responsibility to be a good example of what a good citizen is. We couldn’t expect others to behave appropriately if we are doing the opposite.
Think twice before you speak
By now, we must all know how possibly words are so powerful. It can influence, persuade, inform, reconcile and destroy people. That’s why we need to construct carefully things we want to say, be mindful about the words we are going to use and be sensitive enough to whom we speak, because words are like a bullet, once we fired we cannot take it back.
Dwell on Cumulative Social Justice
– There is no authentic change that we could achieve without knowing primarily the internal change would take effect and last without the outer structure to strengthen it. Social injustices can be solved if we can address it to ourselves being an authority to others and influence them to be part of the social change and modify the unjust structures with our philosophies in life in different crossroads.
Be An Effective Communicator
– By being a liable citizen, we should be an effective communicator, bounded and grounded by genuine service, in the spirit of fairness and truthfulness and transparency. We have to weigh the repercussions of our words and actions because it may add insult, injury, and damage to the reputation to the victim, especially those victims of bullying by being purveyors of malicious and derogating information.
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Promulgating the truth
– Everybody wants the truth, everybody is looking for the truth and everybody deserves the truth. However, telling the truth is the hardest part thus people tend to weave lies without realizing that they just making their own traps and when finally their own game beats them, the consequences are irreversible. No matter how hard to be honest is, still it is the best and right thing to do, remember we can only conceal truth temporarily but once revealed, the effects scars permanently.
No to martyrdom
– There is nothing wrong in compromising, it shows that we are capable of understanding and considerate of other people, and it is one of the ingredients in maintaining social bonds. However, if we keep compromising all the time for the misdeeds of others that are repeatedly happening, then it only shows that we are just tolerating them, allowing them to abuse us, and we are creating a monster in them that eventually will victimize other people. Standing up for what is right and for your own rights is not a bad thing, it’s actually saving each other in a greater conflict.
Overcoming Political Bias
Decades ago, the clash between the nation’s two most prominent families – Marcoses and Aquinos painted the Philippine political system through their political color scheme. A color scheme that shades the Filipino rational thinking and blinds them to what the real problems are. Their supporters turn against each other, and faithfully believe in their principles regardless if those are morally correct or not. Partiality to one color won’t move us any further, and what is right don’t depends on who sits in the position. Be a citizen that do not favor to any color scheme, but to the common good of our country.
Promoting Prosocial Behavior
– We are what we see, and we made things that other sees. We are the one who infesting and corrupting the young minds, but also in our hands we can enrich them with more positive values. We can impart on them prosocial behaviors such caring, sharing, helping, etc. Magnanimous amount of research proves that a prosocial oriented individual is more eligible for healthy and rewarding relationship.
Don't be another social casualty
– Year by year, our society keeps changing its dress, what is "in" in the past becomes "out" in the present, and if you can’t keep up with this rapid and unstable changes, you will be rejected by the society, and this is what people afraid the most therefore we blindly follows what the society dictates, regardless it is morally correct or not. That is exactly what social casualty is, we become victims of our society. But we don’t have to live like this, we should strongly hold on to the values and morality we forged into, don't let the waves drifts you, because adherence to what is right never go out of style.
Compete not just for ourselves
– Survival is part of our instinct, we compete with others no matter what just to save ourselves. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact, it could be a source of our motivation and a way to improve ourselves. However, at certain times, the way we compete and handle the competition becomes totally out of line. We tend to sabotage or wish that something would happen to our contenders, we cheat, we used people, and worst – along the way we forgot that our competitors are humans, just like us trying to survive. Don’t think survival is about winning or losing, it is about realizing how others left behind and helping them how to keep up. Healthy competitions is good, but competing not just for ourselves is better. At the end of the day, it is still best if all of us survive and become all winners.
Social Interest
– Adler suggests that everyone of us has the potential for Social Interest which he defined as "a feeling of oneness with all humanity". However, not everyone develops this feeling because of different experiences and influences we had during the early stages of life. To become a person that strives for the betterment and advancement of the society rather than personal gain, we must nurture young minds with genuine love and respect for others and help them to enrich their social interest. By then, we can muster our society of people with social interest.
Have an initiative to help
– Bystander Effect is a psychological phenomenon in which the tendency of people present in an emergency situation to help is less likely, and our world is the bigger representation of it. We become the bystander who just witnessing helpless situations and yet we keep ignoring to rescue. Each of us think that there's somebody would go to help, but the truth is, no one will and we think it is not our responsibility, well in fact, it is. Let's not wait for a superhero to save the day if you can be a hero on your own, perhaps one's capabilities is not enough, but with your initiative, it could be the source of everyone's power. Be a hero to others so that someday somebody will do the same for you.
Care
– You probably heard million times the expression "I don't care" and perhaps that's what the problems of our world started, because people don't care. Care is not synonymous with love, according to Feist "it is the source of love" and to care is also an appreciation of the humanity of other people. Caring for others is the simplest yet best thing we could do for our fellow human being.
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Empowering ourselves
Conquer fears
– We don’t need to be recognized as a hero, but being a simple citizen that cares for his homeland is a hero in the making. We have to conquer our fears of not being a good citizen, we have to fight for what truly is right and just, a life that is worth living by expressing your sense of responsibility is a life worth dying for.
Inspire and Touch Other People’s Lives
Saint Theresa of Calcutta, India once quoted “If you can feed a hundred people, then just feed only one“ (Inspire and make a Big Difference). We need not be beatified and be canonized as Saints of this Modern World, we need not to be a benevolent or an altruistic person …. If we only have the heart to help other people an individual may think that extending help to just a person for one day, it will be 365 people a year, a simple change can be a big difference if we are only genuine, sincere and selfless to extend assistance to others.
Leave a Legacy
– As the Acronym YOLO states “you only live once” this simply states that we have to be high spirited to experience all the things the world offers but we have to look to the other side of our existence. We have to live by the lessons of our experiences and wrench the happy memories and leave a legacy to the next generation. This will create a kaleidoscope world of finding meaning and essence in life.
Collect and Count Happy Memories
– Material possessions, achievements, power and the likes are just part and parcel of what we are or what have gone through , but what the essential thing that we should take into consideration is that of being happy, contented and inspire other people based on our affirmations and experiences. We have to collect and count the happy memories because this will serve as a legacy that we can leave once we are already done with the chapters of our lives.
Quit playing the ‘Blame game’
– It’s time to push our pride away, owning up to our mistakes allow us to grow, to learn and to be responsible as oppose to false beliefs that admitting we’re wrong makes us weak and inept. People point fingers and play ‘blame game’ to save face, to prove they’re right, to show superiority, and thinking they could escape what they did, well in fact, they just prisoning themselves to distorted reality they made. Saying “I am sorry” or “It’s my fault” is perfectly normal, we’re just human after all – making mistakes is in our DNA.
Get a dose of Envy
– Envy may be considered as one of the seven deadly sins, but taking a pinch of envy and use it positively, it will help every person to uplift or improve themselves and equate it with actualization contrary to the negative attitude known as “crab mentality” by simply bashing, pulling other people downwardly, use envy to motivate and reinforce ourselves and contemplate on the things we want to accomplish that other people already accomplished. The success and transformation of other progressive countries and other will serve as a glowing splinter that guide very people to dream and achieve.
Granting forgiveness
– Forgiveness doesn’t mean letting the offender free from what he/she did or forgetting what was done, but it is an act of letting go of all the pain, grievances and resentments that consume the life of the victim. When we refuse to forgive our perpetrator, we’re just denying also to ourselves the chance of healing. Forgiving can’t change what happened, but it offers a freedom and a new future not determined by the past.
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Finding Purpose
– Having a purpose in life gives us something that we can look forward to. Something that will become worthy of our attention and our precious time. We can invest all our efforts and energies to that purpose rather than to things that only destroying ourselves and other people (e.g. substance-abuse, posting violent comments). In the process of achieving our purpose, we become a better person, and to be a better person is already an enormous contribution to make our world a better place.
Vulnerability
– We all born susceptible of vulnerability, and most of the time we tend to camouflage it, in fear of rejection, abandonment, feeling of inferiority and fear that it might use against us. We act tough and build walls to protect ourselves, but in fact we are just only isolating ourselves. Admitting our vulnerability is acknowledging our true self and being more honest to ourselves and at the same time to people around us. Also, it could be a bridge to connect with even more people by accepting and allowing them to help us. Don't take vulnerability as a weakness, instead take it as a reminder that we all need each other.
Breaking the Jonah Complex mentality
Most of the times, we ourselves are our worst enemy. We have this tendency of self- sabotaging which we are afraid to maximize our true potentials and achieve greatness, this is what Maslow called Jonah Complex. As a result, we lived in mediocrity and our opportunities to live into fullest deprived and we lost our chance to make a significant help to the world. To break this kind of mentality, we should believe and trust ourselves, enhance our prowess and dream big for ourselves. Our aspiration could be others inspiration.
Unconditional Positive Regard
– According to Carl Rogers, unconditional positive regard is loving and accepting people regardless of their personality. We have to believe that every person is capable to love and possible to be loved, we just have to let them feel that they no longer need to be liked or receive approval from someone else because we are here loving and accepting them unconditionally. A person that receives an unconditional positive regard tend to reciprocate it to other people, and if this chain continues, then loving world is possible.
Learned Optimism
– According to Martin Seligman, a positive psychologist, we can learn optimism, and once we become an optimist, we can easily achieve happiness, embrace imperfection, we tend to live longer, have strong social relationships and we become more hopeful. Optimist individual can reserve their belief that they can change things for the better, so as the unpleasant things happening in his/her society. Optimism could be our antidote to make our lives and this world better. It takes time and lots of practice to learn optimism, but it is worth the try.
Make deeds not complains
– It is easier to complain, to demand, to blame people whenever we don't get what we want or what we deserve. We always focus to someone's fault rather than finding the solutions. Too much complaining isn't resolving the problem but creating even more problems, so let's stop firing rants and start to make plans and actions for the resolutions of our problems. Our world needs answers not whiners.
Fictionalism
– It refers to beliefs that though not true in nature, it guides, shapes and influence people's perceptions and behaviors. This could be used as a powerful tool to create a common goal that will unify and move people as one for the better. To instill a fiction to everyone won't be easy, but with everyone's participation and coordination, it is possible.
Three modes of Dasein
– Rollo May enlisted three modes of dasein or existence in the world, those are Umwelt (our relationship with the environment), Mitwelt (our relationship with other people) and Eigenwelt (our relationship with our self). May claimed that living with these three modes simultaneously, we will achieve a healthy and meaningful life.
Destiny
– Whether you like it or not everyone will die eventually, it is all our final destination, our destiny. However, it doesn't necessarily means that we don't have to live our life. You have freedom to act what you will do while you're still breathing, what are the things you want to experience or what will you do to make your time worth. We can't change what we destined for, but we can make our life worth living.
Balance Your Freedom
– Rollo May, a prominent existential theorist, identified two kinds of freedom – existential freedom (freedom of action) and essential freedom (freedom of being). With existential freedom, we can enact our choices like going somewhere we want to, pursue things we desire, etc. but too much exercising of this kind of freedom, our essential freedom suffers. We can't find peace of mind or inner freedom to ourselves, therefore we also can't find the meaning of our lives, other people's lives and our existence in this world. We don't need to refrain ourselves just to have essential freedom, because that's not freedom anymore, instead we just have to realize the things that hindering us in attaining our essential freedom and we have to accept that everything has an end.
Agape
– It is one of the four kinds of love identified by Rollo May, and he defined as a benevolent concern for the other's welfare without expecting something in return. If we can cultivate this kind of love to the people closest to us, it is possible to reach even the farthest people from us.
Paradox of Nonbeing
– Death is inevitable thing that will come to all of us at some time. Rollo May used this as an example of the opposite of existence, he called -nonbeing. Many of us afraid of its coming, but May postulated that the more we are trying to escape this and the more we refuse to confront it, the more we position ourselves to the edge of it. We protect ourselves tirelessly by constricting our existence, and as a result, we feel more despair and empty and prone to addiction, compulsive behaviors and horsetail that will affect all our relationships with others.. Acknowledging our nonbeing help us to value and cherish more our existence and the existence of others.
Creative Power
Social Harmony using Filipino Psychology
Pakikibaka
PAKIKIBAKA – Literally in English, it means concurrent clashes. Refers to the ability of the Filipino to undertake revolutions and uprising against a common enemy. Recognizes one’s convictions as part of one’s being. —— Pakikibaka – level of fusion in a common struggle in the face of justice and exploitation or adversity. Pakikibaka as an aspect of a kapwa-oriented worldview awakens the Filipino’s consciousness of present-day realities and motivated him to be one in the struggle to break away from the clutches of neo-colonial setup.
Spirit of Volunteerism – “BAYANIHAN”
Extending help from people regardless of their status in life. The essence of rendering genuine service catapults significant contribution to social harmony which delineates a battle from social exclusion which brings people to connect and building bridges to those who are oppressed and destitute.
Practical Goodness – “ Bait “
foundation of virtue ; Moral will ; Gives final shape and form, and actualizes moral character, ———- ?????? Citation from Fil Psych “The heart never ceases to care and give, it is indeed selfless, it is clearly associated with benevolence and altruism, as a citizen of every nation, we try to weave and create a beautiful tapestry by combining different strands of pains, struggles of helping without really counting the amount or cost of the convergent mantle which covers genuine goodness from within.
Pakikitungo (civility with)
Profanity, lash outs, disrespectful behaviors is just some of incivilities that became rampant among people in our society nowadays. If these remain uncorrected it will be contagious like virus and will infect our relationships with other people. Yes, we are social animals, but we don't have to act like animals, we should value other people as we value ourselves. Filipino psychology suggests we could do this with pakikitungo or civility with, because it is not simply treating others as we wish to be treated, but it is treating our kapwa or fellow human being with respect and humanely.
Pakikisalamuha (Interacting with)
Our interactions with our people reflects how we value them. Many people failed to realize that interaction is two-way street, thus many people became so busy thinking about themselves and ignored the other side. If we continue doing this, we will never ever gain the respect and value that supposed to be for us. Things will be different if we are practicing pakikisalamuha, it is a Filipino concept of interaction which shows the value and compassion to our kapwa or fellow human being. Pakikisalamuha is not self-oriented, but kapwa-oriented because one is thinking and concern about the welfare of his/her kapwa.
Pakikilahok (Participating with)
Participating in a group, in an organization, to politics and to society, is showing our interest, exercising our right to express ourselves and sharing our own ideas, skills and talents. Pakikilahok could cultivate a sense of belongingness, increase self-worth, establish mutual support and offer a greater chance for growing and learning.
Pakikibagay (Conformity with)
Following the norm is not about social acceptance alone, it is also our way of showing respect and value for one's culture. We align our actions and behaviors in accordance with others to create social bonds, social connectedness, a sense of oneness and importantly social harmony.
Pakikisama (Being along with)
– is a Filipino interpersonal relationship which an individual yielding to the leader or to the majority. It can bind people with different backgrounds and perspectives, form a camaraderie and can unify people for one goal. With right and just objectives this could be key for achieving the elusive social change.
Pakikipagpalagayang-loob (Being in rapport/understand with)
Trust is like stalagmites and stalactites that takes time to form and easily died once damaged. We don't demand trust, but we must earn it. According to Russell (2013) "Building trust is building relationships" and this is what pakikipagpalagayang-loob is all about. In order for us to understand our kapwa or fellow human being, we must have mutual trust so that one can share his actions, ideas and perspectives confidently to his/her kapwa. If we all have this kind of pakikipagkapwa then all of can have social connectedness, concern and care for our kapwa and essentially mutual understanding.
Pakikisangkot (Getting involved with)
It means that an individual become socially and emotionally connected to one's life. The more we become part of other's life, the more we become important to them. And basically, we tend to nourish our relationship with those people who are important to us, by showing affections, concern, respect, understanding and love.
Pakikiisa (Being one with)
This is the highest level of Filipino's social interaction according to Enriquez, it refers to actions, ideas and perspectives that indicate full and thorough trust, understanding and acceptance of one's ambition as our own. Pakikiisa is sharing a sentiment to our kapwa or fellow human being, feel what they feel and we value them as we value our self. With this, it deepens and binds even more our relationships to one another.