Journalists cannot change the cards By Prof Dr Sohail Ansari & A happiness paradox &History Threats and Their Influence Upon Cause and Effect

Journalists play the hand

·         The horse-race metaphor is understood ‘as a ploy to lure in audiences and tighten polls during election cycles by discrediting candidates favored to win and hyping underdogs’. This is not necessarily so. Media can help a candidate likely to win more likely to win, thus discrediting further the candidate not favored to win.

A candidate is judged not by its own absolute speed or skill, but rather by the speed or skill journalists assign to it. Journalists cannot change the candidates, but by creating their own horse race perception, they decide the campaign.  Journalists cannot change the candidates they are dealt, just how they play the hand

In Randy Pausch's “Last Lecture” that he gave when he was dying of a terminal illness, he stressed the idea of working with what we have and in his most memorable quotes said: “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand’’.

It means that we can't decide many of our circumstances, for example: where we are born, if we are smart, if we are tall, if we are male or female, etcetera. But we can decide to use these things to make as good a life as possible for ourselves.

The phrase comes from poker, or any other casino-type card game. This is the kind of cards the phrase refers to. All of the cards that you hold in your hand together is called "your hand." This means the cards in your hand, not your actual physical hand of your body.
So you can't control which cards you get in your hand, (dealt is past tense of to deal = give out the cards), but what you do with what you have is entirely up to you.

31:31 "It is He Who created for you (the faculties of) hearing, sight, feeling and understanding; little thanks it is ye give!"

There are many verses in the Quran that talks about Allah's mercies. One of them tells us to not take the water for granted (35:12). The water in the ocean goes through many phases and figures in the maintenance of life and the ecosystem. When the water of the earths surface evaporates, the wind will move the water and convert it to clouds which will bring fresh water on land in form of rain or snow. This cycle of water doesn't flow on it's own. It is only upheld due to the mercy of Allah. So why don't we give thanks ?

The water in the sea is divided in two; One is potable, sweet and pleasant to drink and the other one is salty and bitter. If Allah wanted he could have made all of it salty and bitter so that we wouldn't be able to drink it. So why don't we give thanks?

By expressing daily gratitude we will learn how to understand and deal with difficulties. It will make us pay more attention to everything that has been bestowed upon us rather than focusing on what we don't have. Happiness is a state of mind. You can be a millionaire and get anything you want in this world but still end up as unhappy. The trick of nurturing your own soul is to give thanks. The important points are to look at your past and give thanks for the many favors that Allah has already bestowed upon you. Think of the night that merges into day. Look also at your present life. There are probably hundreds of things you are surrounded with that are only given to you by the mercy of Allah. So give thanks and you will make a remarkable change in your life - Alhamdulillah for everything.

A happiness paradox

Eric Kim June 22, 2009 happiness, life, philosophy

There is a happiness paradox nowadays. Life has gotten much better for people in terms of convenience, technology, and general standard of living, but people aren’t any happier than people from 50 years ago. This is quite a conundrum. Wouldn’t it be natural that people should be getting happier if their lives are getting better on a scale?

On average, people are living longer, healthier, with having more luxuries. Fifty years ago it was rare for a family to have two cars, but now it is a given. The average age of living is now around 80 years old, while around 50 years ago it was 60. With the internet everything is so much more convenient; 50 years ago nobody would have imagined that you could pay your bills or even order groceries online.

So if we are living longer, healthier, and more conveniently, why aren’t we living happier lives? The answer lies somewhere in human nature as well as society. As humans, it is difficult to ever be truly satisfied which may be rooted in our primal sense of “survival of the fittest.” However at the same time, society promotes the “dog eat dog” mentality which makes us to always want more and never be satisfied with what we have. If we have a car, we will want to have two. If we have two, we might want to add a third. If we have three, we might want to have a motorcycle on the side.

In Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture” that he gave when he was dying of a terminal illness, he stressed the idea of working with what we have and in his most memorable quotes said: “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” This quote has many meanings, one of them being that we should be satisfied with what we have, and make the best out of it.

Now I’m not saying to achieve anything in life and to lose all sorts of inspiration, but just not to become frustrated when your neighbor drives a BMW and you drive a Toyota. Materialistic goods never bring happiness or satisfaction. The feeling we get when we buy something new or expensive is a fleeting one. It is gone here for a second and gone the next.

I remember when I was 9 years old, my biggest dream in the world was to have this RC car which could drive itself even when flipped over. Flashy commercials with the RC car doing flips off stairs, driving in the dirt and water, and doing spins tempted me so badly. I wanted more than anything to get this car, and I decided that once I got it that I would be satisfied for the rest of my life. Therefore for my 10^th birthday, I begged and pleaded with my mom and told her that this was the last toy that she would ever have to buy me. She shook her head and tried to talk some sense into me, but I refused to listen.

On the fateful day that I finally got the car, I was the most excited kid in the whole wide world. It was an exhilarating feeling tearing open the box and taking out my new toy. However after a few hours of playing with it, the appeal quickly wore off and I remember being shocked of how quickly I got bored by it. I then had a small epiphany as a child how material things couldn’t truly bring lasting happiness.

As elementary as this example is, I feel that it is an effective one. Even though we may look at children and say that they are foolish for wanting to have such useless toys, we could easily look at adults who buy even more expensive “toys” such as designer purses or expensive cars. Sometimes when people feel depressed they try to cure themselves with “retail therapy” by buying expensive things to make themselves feel better. However it never brings satisfaction, but rather wanting newer, better, and more trendy things.

Therefore we must learn how to stay away from material things, and be truly satisfied with the small and personal things that we have in our lives that we might often take for granted such as friendships. At times we forget how precious friends are that we often push away friends in lieu of work or even studying. Sure that extra hour at work or studying may earn us a few more bucks or even help us a little on our test the next day, but think about how much more precious that extra hour would be with our friends.

So to truly be happy in life, really count the blessings that you already have in your life. We are often distracted by what we don’t have which blinds us from what we already have in front of our eyes. The only way we truly realize how valuable something is until we lose it. For example, I always took my health for granted until I damaged my knee during a basketball game which put me in crutches for almost two months. During those two months just getting from point A to point B was a chore, and I remember looking with envy at people who had perfectly good legs who just took them for granted.

Being happy in life is not a goal or destination; it is a process. People often tell themselves that once they have that Mercedes or that 3-bedroom house with the white picket fence that they will be happy in life. And guess what? Once they get that fancy car or that big house they still feel empty which makes them constantly chase for bigger, better, and more expensive things. There is no reason why we can’t strive to be happy RIGHT NOW than later. Why make ourselves miserable in our everyday lives just to say that we will strive to be happy once we finish school or get that top-paying job?

I have many friends who often put schoolwork over their own personal happiness. They always tell me that by secluding themselves from their friends and from social events, that they will succeed and go to a top-school, where they will get a high-paying job from when they can start having “real fun.” But the sad fact is people with this type of mentality never end up being happy, because they will always have the mindset of putting work above everything else. One day they might get that high-paying job, but when they get that they will find another distraction. Working even harder to get that raise or that higher position.

I am not advocating just having fun and putting away all of life’s responsibilities. I am just stressing the fact that we must balance our lives and value our own personal happiness and well-being at the same level of school, work, and our responsibilities.

So really try to live in the present and value the things that we already have rather than we don’t have. Sure other people might be richer, taller, or better looking than us, but that shouldn’t distract us from all the other blessings we might have like our talents, passions, friends and family.  And really try to put happiness as one of the NECESSITIES in our lives, not something that are frivolous and unnecessary. And once we can learn how to focus on what we have we have than what we don’t have, we can truly be happy

History Threats and Their Influence Upon Cause and Effect

One of the biggest threats to internal validity through incorrect application of cause and effect is the 'history' threat.

This is where another event actually caused the effect noticed, rather than your treatment or manipulation. Most researchers perform a pre-test upon a group, administer the treatment and then measure the post-test results (pretest-posttest-design). If the results are better, it is easy to assume that the treatment caused the result, but this is not necessarily the case.

For example, take the case of an educational researcher wishing to measure the effect of a new teaching method upon the mathematical aptitude of students. They pre-test, teach the new program for a few months and then posttest. Results improve, and they proclaim that their program works.

However, the research was ruined by a historical threat: during the course of the research, a major television network released a new educational series called 'Maths made Easy,' which most of the students watched. This influenced the results and compromised the validity of the experiment.

Fortunately, the solution to this problem is easy: if the researcher uses a two group pretest-posttest design with a control group, the control group will be equally influenced by the historical event, so the researcher can still establish a good baseline.(a minimum or starting point used for comparisons) There are a number of other 'single group' threats, but establishing a good control driven study largely eliminates these threats to causality.