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Once upon a time a psychology professor walked around on a stage while teaching stress management principles to an auditorium filled with students.  As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they’d be asked the typical “glass half empty or glass half full” question.  Instead, with a smile on her face, the professor asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I’m holding?”

Students shouted out answers ranging from eight ounces to a couple pounds.

She replied, “From my perspective, the absolute weight of this glass doesn’t matter.  It all depends on how long I hold it.  If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s fairly light.  If I hold it for an hour straight, its weight might make my arm ache a little.  If I hold it for a day straight, my arm will likely cramp up and feel completely numb and paralyzed, forcing me to drop the glass to the floor.  In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels to me.”

As the class shook their heads in agreement, she continued, “Your stresses and worries in life are very much like this glass of water.  Think about them for a while and nothing happens.  Think about them a bit longer and you begin to ache a little.  Think about them all day long, and you will feel completely numb and paralyzed – incapable of doing anything else until you drop them.”

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During a research experiment a marine biologist placed a shark into a large holding tank and then released several small bait fish into the tank.

As you would expect, the shark quickly swam around the tank, attacked and ate the smaller fish.

The marine biologist then inserted a strong piece of clear fiberglass into the tank, creating two separate partitions. She then put the shark on one side of the fiberglass and a new set of bait fish on the other.

Again, the shark quickly attacked.  This time, however, the shark slammed into the fiberglass divider and bounced off.  Undeterred, the shark kept repeating this behavior every few minutes to no avail.  Meanwhile, the bait fish swam around unharmed in the second partition.  Eventually, about an hour into the experiment, the shark gave up.

This experiment was repeated several dozen times over the next few weeks.  Each time, the shark got less aggressive and made fewer attempts to attack the bait fish, until eventually the shark got tired of hitting the fiberglass divider and simply stopped attacking altogether.

The marine biologist then removed the fiberglass divider, but the shark didn’t attack.  The shark was trained to believe a barrier existed between it and the bait fish, so the bait fish swam wherever they wished, free from harm.

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One warm evening many years ago…

After spending nearly every waking minute with Angel for eight straight days, I knew that I had to tell her just one thing.  So late at night, just before she fell asleep, I whispered it in her ear.  She smiled – the kind of smile that makes me smile back –and she said, “When I’m seventy-five and I think about my life and what it was like to be young, I hope that I can remember this very moment.”

A few seconds later she closed her eyes and fell asleep.  The room was peaceful – almost silent.  All I could hear was the soft purr of her breathing.  I stayed awake thinking about the time we’d spent together and all the choices in our lives that made this moment possible.  And at some point, I realized that it didn’t matter what we’d done or where we’d gone.  Nor did the future hold any significance.

All that mattered was the serenity of the moment.

Just being with her and breathing with her.

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How do you think differently today than you once did?  What life experience or realization brought on a significant change in your way of thinking?  Please leave a comment below and share your story with us.

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Sometimes we let things worry us or stress us out too much and this can keep us from reaching our full potential. If you are confident and don’t overthink this can reflect in your work. If you believe it, you can do it.

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This show us how keeping stress and anxious inside of ourselves, with out talking about it has a long term toll not only on use mentally but physical. I think the professor shows us it important especially as year 12's we can hold this anxious from school, sports etc. it has bad impacts as "we can drop the glass" making it hard to bounce back as quick as we have to tidy up the mess made. So in conclusion we need to not contain this stress but talk and relation about them all the time to release this harsh pressure and make sure we don't have to deal with a build up of pressure.

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The same thing can have a different affect on us the longer we carry it with us. By facing it and effectively dropping it, the overall effect will be much less

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Sometimes human beings dwell on things to a certain point where they cannot function properly. Most humans will have faced stresses from societal pressures, constantly reminded of them to the point of incapability. Students especially, like us Year Twelves, need to learn to step back and be resilient when we are worried about something in order for us to be able to push through the stress. If not, it could make us incapable to complete other tasks, rotating around into a cycle of numbness and panic.

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Sometimes human beings dwell on things to a certain point where they cannot function properly. Most humans will have faced stresses from societal pressures, constantly reminded of them to the point of incapability. Students especially, like us Year Twelves, need to learn to step back and be resilient when we are worried about something in order for us to be able to push through the stress. If not, it could make us incapable to complete other tasks, rotating around into a cycle of numbness and panic.

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The more we dwell on things in our lives the more we overthink them until we can no longer deal with the stress. Even though the item we are stressing on doesn't change, from when we are mostly calm to completely paniced as a result of simply over thinking it

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The more we dwell on things in our lives the more we overthink them until we can no longer deal with the stress. Even though the item we are stressing on doesn't change, from when we are mostly calm to completely paniced as a result of simply over thinking it

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It is easy to unknowingly obsess over particular aspects of our life and let them take over our everyday life. In the story, the at the beginning the professor doesn't realise the weight of the glass until it it takes over and she is unable to focus on anything else. If we dwell on something small, such as the glass of water, it becomes a bigger and bigger problem until we over-analyse the situation. This is particularly common to do with work or school related things, such as exams. It is important for us to realise how much we obsess over small details and to ease the pressure on ourselves. The professor can let go of the glass at any moment and rid herself of the pain, but the more she holds on the more pain she causes herself.

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The shark was conditiond to believe that there was barries, set by an absolute power, preventing it from getting resouces i.e the food source of fish. Even when this barrier was removed the shark had been conditioned to believe that the resources were out of its reach, and it could therefore not consume them. In our society, minority groups are often faced with barries that prevent them from reaching their goals or from accessing the bounty held by society. Even if these barries are 'taken away' these people have been conditioned for lifetimes into believeing that there are so many things in their way that are stopping them from reaching their goals. Therefore, these groups are able to remain oppressed systematically without actually putting in any active oppressors.

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Sometimes we are the causes of our own stress. We unknowingly hold onto small petty things and amplify them in our mind until we collapse under the burden we create for ourselves

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Throughout life, most of us will experience stress and worry about many things. We need to think openly and not stress too much as it will eventually be over and done with. Constantly stressing about every challenge we face will not do us any good, eventually leading to us becoming both physically and mentally tired.

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Based on previous experiences we can sometimes make assumptions about our current situation, even though it may be different. To avoid this we must learn to assess the situation before jumping to conclusions about it

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We can see how the way you view a situation can influence how it affects you. The amount of water in the glass doesn’t change but due to the holding onto it the weight hets heavier and heavie. This shows how that sometimes the perceived pressure we put on ourselves it not actually there in real life and the more we dwell on it the more that perceived pressure builds up

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With time we can be taught to adapt to new things, although it went against the Sharks nature to not attack the fish, with time the shark realised that it didn’t necessarily need them if it meant not hitting the fiberglass. This shows us that even what is thought to impossible can be accomplished with persistence.

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Sometimes in life we just need to let go and live in the present rather than focusing on the past or the future, we need to live and focus on the now. If we let things worry us too much we can become trapped in a downward spiral by focusing on things that later on will not really matter, instead we need to let things go to prevent "holding the water" too long and letting it get more weighted and just let it go.

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It is not unusual to become stressed at points in our lives. The psychology teacher shows us that the pressure we as humans tend to put on ourselves can effect us both physically and/or mentally. It is important to recognize how crucial it is to maintain a balance in our life and focus on things ahead of us, rather than to dwell on the things in the past.

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It is not unusual to become stressed at points in our lives. The psychology teacher shows us that the pressure we as humans tend to put on ourselves can effect us both physically and/or mentally. It is important to recognize how crucial it is to maintain a balance in our life and focus on things ahead of us, rather than to dwell on the things in the past.

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So some,  one's mental capability can be limited on the basis that their mind is already full of stress and other circumstances. Without realising, we can focus too much on one worry, and therefore, forget the real message and reason originally behind it. The longer it is considered mentally, it will not be processed, and will move on to becoming a greater problem, as the person containing these thoughts feel immobile and stuck within their own mind, and in a way, metaphorically drowning in their own mind.

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The most important thing for us as humans to appreciate is the current moment. If we are always thinking ahead and not focusing on what is happening, it becomes easy to miss things

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Humans have a tendacy to internally overthink things in order to try and find a solution, resulting in unessascary stress and harming wellbeing. The longer we internalise situations, the more we clutter our minds and end up feeling as though we are drowning in stress, which means that we are are unable to cope positively when faced with a situation. It is important for people to spend less time mulling over how a situation could have been different, and instead focus on improving the future

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The importance of having a supportive and safe environment in which one is comfortable to confide in their family/friends their stresses or concerns.

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As humans beliefs are important to us as they are sometimes our motivator, the belief for a better tomorrow or the belief of hope. Sometimes our beliefs are so strong the origin of the belief becomes unimportant. Sometimes our own beliefs aren't even our own but what others instill into us.

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Often at the beginning of a challenge we are quite optimistic and think that if we just persist we will eventually achieve our goal. However it is human nature to slowly lose hope when things start to not go our way and eventually stop trying at all as reality kicks in and we give up hope.

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Often at the beginning of a challenge we are quite optimistic and think that if we just persist we will eventually achieve our goal. However it is human nature to slowly lose hope when things start to not go our way and eventually stop trying at all as reality kicks in and we give up hope.

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regardless of where what we have been told by others or what we think should be right the feelings of true peace and happiness  we feel throughout are brief and unpredictable .  

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regardless of where what we have been told by others or what we think should be right the feelings of true peace and happiness  we feel throughout are brief and unpredictable .  

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we should time to focus on these moments while they are there and not take them for granted with the expectation that they will last.

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THIs story is an example of how every situation can Be viewed from a different perspective. If we have the capacity to understand ones opinion form their perspective or gain the knowledge from understanding someone else’s perspective than conflict could be more easily solved.

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Sometimes it is important to not overthink stuff and just appreciate the small little moments in life. It’s good to live in the moment and not dwell on the past or what’s happening in the future. We often take things for granted so it’s good to recognise what we have and not let it slip away

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As humans we are often influenced by the experiences of our past and the midsets of those around us. We see in this story how the mindset of the shark changes due to it realising that it cant get the fish because of the barrier. As young adults, In life we are often told by adults what we can do and what we can’t and barriers are put up around who we can be. We have to get rid of these barriers and push for what we want and not let the experiences of our past cloud our perceptions of our future.

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In this story, the shark was limited due to its own lack of persistence. This can be related to humans, as we can easily give up on our goals if we do not reach them the first time as opposed to trying again and learning from our mistakes. If the shark had kept trying, in the end he would of ended with the reward of fish, but his own restraint led him to give up. As humans grow up, we can become obsessed over failure. Failure is seen as embarrassing, so instead of risking failure again if we have already failed we may be more likely to give up in order to reduce this embarrassment. However, reward only comes with persistence, so we must overcome this fear of failure to actually achieve our goals.

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Rather than getting on with things in our busy lives we can get caught up in what's going to happen in the future, rather than living in the present. If we let these stresses pile up it can make the present unpleasant and overall bring down our haora

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In life, it is not uncommon for us as humans to always be rushing towards a goal, stressing about the future or dwelling on the pass , never satisfied with the 'here and now' aspect of life, we forget to appreciate the small moments that make up our lives. It is vital to take time to reflect on ourselves and appreciate the life we are currently living

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The shark in this story is representative of us humans.  Just like the shark, many often have a goal or something they want. Most of the time, we will go for what we want, and obstacles(like the divider), will lower our level of confidence and want for the prize as we then begin to lose faith and think that it's too hard. Then, when we have the opportunity to reach out and grab what we originally wanted, we will no longer have faith in ourselves, now believing that it's impossible.

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In our society we are often conditioned to believe certain things by being told it over and over again by the people around us. This can keep us from thinking twice about it and really consider if this is true or not. The shark was trained to believe that it couldn’t attack the fish just like in society we are trained to believe that boys like boy things and girls like girl things, which is just one example of this in our society. 

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In our society we are often conditioned to believe certain things by being told it over and over again by the people around us. This can keep us from thinking twice about it and really consider if this is true or not. The shark was trained to believe that it couldn’t attack the fish just like in society we are trained to believe that boys like boy things and girls like girl things, which is just one example of this in our society. 

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Time has the great influence over our perception, the more time spend dwelling on any one thing the more extreme that thing will be, whether it's our problems, our passions, or physical feelings, the longer w spend thinking about it the more exaggerated it will seem.

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In society we experience many different situation good or bad which can impact our behaviour towards others. This experiment shows us a metaphor of how it can negative experience can break our hope and will and shape our behaviour as mentioned before.

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As humans we always look forward,  we wonder what will happen tomorrow or sometimes we reflect on the past but we often forget to live in the moment to fully experience what is happening to us now. Living is now, as before this day today was the future and tomorrow today will be the past.

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Contrary to the beliefs instilled into us since our birth by our consumerist society, the things that hold the greatest value are not the things we buy but the things we do and feel. Those are the true measures of societal wealth, as when we all complete our time participating in society (die) our money will hold not value, but our memories will.

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We must live in the moment and enjoy things as they occurr. Often people think about past experiences and dwell too much on what will happen in the future. If we purely do the things that make us happy and follow our heart and head we will end up in the right place

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Sometimes in life we just need to let go and live in the present rather than focusing on the past or the future, we need to live and focus on the now. Rather than holding onto things and letting them become worse and worse we need to learn to move on and realise the "glass" or issue is only as heavy as we make it if we let it go it will never become to heavy.

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Sometimes people focus or worry too much on the past and the future that the miss the magical moments happening at that time. It can hugely add to peoples happiness if they learn to appreciate and take notice of those little things that happen in your life. 

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Sometimes people focus or worry too much on the past and the future that the miss the magical moments happening at that time. It can hugely add to peoples happiness if they learn to appreciate and take notice of those little things that happen in your life. 

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We must live in the moment and enjoy things as they occurr. Often people think about past experiences and dwell too much on what will happen in the future. If we purely do the things that make us happy and follow our heart and head we will end up in the right place

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Society can often force us to believe certain things by a mass agreement of other human beings. This act can often leave to deception, making us wonder whether what society perceives as true, is not. The shark was forced to believe and adapt to what society believed, that it couldn't attack the fish because there was a wall separating them. Often teenagers are affected by society in the sense that barriers are restricting them into who we can be as an individual. Humans need to learn to break down these walls and push change for what we want our lives to be.

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Society can often force us to believe certain things by a mass agreement of other human beings. This act can often leave to deception, making us wonder whether what society perceives as true, is not. The shark was forced to believe and adapt to what society believed, that it couldn't attack the fish because there was a wall separating them. Often teenagers are affected by society in the sense that barriers are restricting them into who we can be as an individual. Humans need to learn to break down these walls and push change for what we want our lives to be.

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 In life we need to not let things weigh us down as after a long period of time it can cause an unnecessary reaction or trauma, whereas if it were let go or dealt with in earlier stages of life it would cause a much more relieving and better outcome.

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 In life we need to not let things weigh us down as after a long period of time it can cause an unnecessary reaction or trauma, whereas if it were let go or dealt with in earlier stages of life it would cause a much more relieving and better outcome.

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The shark was influenced by someone of higher power in this case the shark trainer. When we are influence by someone above us we are convinced to believe something that may not be true. In a generation like today once society has formed unrealistic expectAtions or ideas we eventually believe they are correct or true, purely because majority believe that and we fall into that. Much like the shark being convinced to believe there’s is a barrier between itself in the fish.

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As humans we are always thinking about what we are going to do next and where our future may lead. Sometimes this rush ahead mind set means we fail to see and appreciate the things in the life that are more important to us. We need to appreciate what we have and learn to live our lives in the moment so that we don’t rush past and miss something that could bring us more happiness than the future ever could.

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It is natural behaviour for humans, and animals to feel defeat after a process of failures. What is not natural, is the feeling to want to improve, and therefore not conform to the expectations that you will give up. Generation after generation, people and animals have been influenced by various forces to continue with the fight, and complete the original task. It can be only expected for humans and animals to believe mental barriers are in place, restricting them, as they believe that there has been no improvement of the situation. In reality, the mental incapability of not only humans, but animals to, force us to realise that we can do it, and we can complete our intention.

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This text for me highlights that we need to live in the moment not be fussing about the mistakes or decisions were made together or what the future holds, in order to live life to the fullest we need to have this quality of being able to live in the moment and be spontaneous

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Although sometimes hard work does not pay off, like the shark being unable to eat the fish, we must escape the barrier of our own assumptions of a situation. It is important to persevere and keep trying to get the fish or result, no matter how long it takes to gain the outcome that is wanted.

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Sometimes as humans we get get caught in the future, and don’t stop and ‘smell the roses’ or appreciate life right now. Time can seem like it’s moving faster if we don’t stop every once and a while and live life right now.

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Mental barriers are as restraining as physical ones. If we allow ourselves to believe something is in our way it will be, even if it's not physically there.

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One thing that some people don't truly appreciate is the power of time. We often think ahead to the future, and about what we hope to remember such as in the story, or back to the past and reflect upon memories, but we are often to busy dwelling in the comfort of our own minds to appreciate the present. The narrator learns of the importance of being in the present at the end of the story, by realising that it doesn't matter what the past or future holds because it is just that- past or future, and not now.

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Humans have a tendacy to internally overthink things in order to try and find a solution, resulting in unessascary stress and harming wellbeing. The longer we internalise situations, the more we clutter our minds and end up feeling as though we are drowning in stress, which means that we are are unable to cope positively when faced with a situation. It is important for people to spend less time mulling over how a situation could have been different, and instead focus on improving the future.

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we can be trained to change things about ourselves that we may be predisposed.  

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we can be trained to change things about ourselves that we may be predisposed.  

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It's important to treasure time and be greatful about what we have experience so far in life. When we reach an old age, for most of us, memories will be an important asset

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As humans if we are told something enough times we begin to beleive that it is reality so the shark hit the wall enough times for it to believe that there is always a wall there. We are told and believe many sterotypes as if you say or do something enough times it becomes a habit and that habit will then turn into what you perceve as reality like the shark in the tank.

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The future and the past are only mental constructs made purely of our perception. The present is the only thing that is real and tangible to us in reality.

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As the rush of reality and life surround us, we often forget what it feels like to mentally stop, and actually take it what we are viewing around us. We haven't been taught to live in the moment, we have instead been influenced to think about our future, and what it holds for us. We must consider what is happening now, and how we can pause and actually consider its presence.