WHY DO PEOPLE EXPERIENCE LONELINESS?

Loneliness is a qualitative problem rather than being a quantitative one. In other words, the matter is not the number of people around the individual, but it is the degree of the satisfaction or happiness in his relations. Although many people live in solitude, all experience loneliness himself. That’s to say it is a subjective experience. Thus loneliness that can appear because of many reasons has a different meaning depending on the individual who describes it. While some people can show the state of being alone as reason for loneliness, some think that loneliness is their preference. Despite the differences in the definition, it causes similar problems such as isolation, depression, insecurity, despair, worthlessness and anger. Unlike the similarity in results, the causes of loneliness can be diverse. However, there are three major reasons for this unfortunate case. These are a broken heart or missing someone, being rejected and abused by others and being unable to adapt to the society.

        Firstly, the most important reason for loneliness is being abused and rejected. All people begin a friendship without any certain knowledge about the people around them. As the time passes, they can analyze many characteristics of their friends. That is to say, they have a chance to know each other sincerely and closely. If everything is still excellent in friendship after a long time, both sides will be happy in their lives without so many problems. However, this satisfaction cannot possible in every relation. People sometimes may want to go on some relations that they are not content with, only for sake of not being alone. As a result of this bad friendship the person who has problems about the relation, may experience hard times in friendship. These problems generally occur when the people around the individual start to treat him in a rejecting manner. For example in these situations, the person is humiliated, used as a means of entertainment, lied not to be admitted to activities of group and eventually rejected. He can even be exposed to some offensive words. Because of these verbal and psychological assaults, the individual begins to form a protective shield to protect himself from these negative situations. He prefers to lead a lonely life instead of being fun of others. 

     Loneliness is not always a way of living or preference. After some misfortunes, like breaking off in a romantic relationship or death of a special person, people can feel lonely, as well. As a law of nature, every person needs to establish a relationship with someone. Even if everybody may not find easily their perfect mate, all of them experience nice feelings and enjoy living more, thanks to these relationships. During the romantic relationships, the person’s point of view in perception of the external world changes largely, because he starts to feel all things more intensely in these times. Furthermore, he sees the world around them through rose-colored glasses. However, everything is not going as it should be in life and as a result, the indispensable end eventually occurs because of many issues such as unfaithfulness, decrease in affection and lack of harmony. The one who does not want to be left and be alone despite unjustly treatment, can fall in a deep loneliness in occasion of an aftermath. However, in the case of death events occur more differently or badly. As in the first situation there is a hope to reunite, but in the other one it is impossible. Thus the person is aware of the fact of this eternal separation and feels loneliness more deeply. Therefore, the result can relatively change, too as more depressive and gloomy.

      The last reason is not being able to adapt to the society which the person belongs. It is a strange phenomenon in a world concerned with over-population. However, keeping all people together and founding only one state and constitution are impossible. As every human being leads a different life, each one has a different world whose rules are determined by the individuals. As a result it is inevitable that there are a lot of different opinions. In order to comply with the society that is full of various thoughts, they have to obey others’ rules and be ordinary among them. However, it cannot be always possible for everybody to fit in with the rest of the world. Due to some reasons they may object to involving in society that they belong to. For example, many people may want to attract attention of the others or they can desire to be popular or admired by being differently or he may feel as if he was not pertained to the society. While some are lucky and go on living happily in spite of their objections to society, many can be rejected or abandoned by society because of his behaviors and thoughts. Thus he may be forced to live lonely in the end.

       All in all, everyone has felt lonely at one time or another, regardless of their happy relations, extension of the friendship circle, or position in a crowd. It crawls on person’s skin like a shadow, quickly making its way into his heart. The important things that should not be forgotten are to do something constructive and trying to cope with the loneliness. Think positively about the experiences. Loneliness is not a totally misfortune, but there are the very worst matters that no one wants to experience. Thus, the only thing is to believe that every cloud has a silver lining and to go on living.

Our Sixth Sense Organ

You may wonder what ‘’sixth sense organ’’ means. I can easily say it is the cell phone that is one of the greatest inventions of the world and we use it every day in every aspect of our lives.  It has been a basic part of our lives, so we feel lost and uncomfortable when we do not take it with us. It has become our sixth sense organ. It serves people from almost every age especially teenagers. Some of them are so fond of the cell phone that when they are asked for something they do not respond to or even not hear the things they have been told. Unfortunately, this case is increasing day by day like an addiction. As it is rising continually, teenagers’ interaction with the outside world by means of face to face communication is decreasing. Should it be prohibited to ones that are not ‘adults’?  I do not think so because prohibition is not the way it should be.

It is true that mobile phone affects the rate of face to face communication but due to this drawback , it advantages cannot be disregarded. One basic advantage of the cell phone is that it is the best tool that enables us to tell our family members or whoever about where we are. Nobody could deny this fact. Another positive side is its features. Thanks to the technological developments, the cell phone has many facilities in it such as a video camera, an MP3layer,an internet connection, games and so on. I am personally not fond of these aspects of the cell phone, yet I should accept that they are really impressive, appealing and indispensable properties of it.

In conclusion, what I am trying to say is that cell phone is somehow a blessing. It has undisputable advantages. It has bad sides, too, but they could be diminished by making people conscious about how to use it, thus, people who are fond of it could be aware of the disadvantages of the cell phone.

THE MAGNIFICENCE OF THE FAMILY MEAL

Family meal has a great importance on the family members due to the fact that it brings them together and creates an ambiance where feelings, thoughts and affairs can be shared among the family members. I think these kinds of things make the relationship in the family more stronger. Thanks to the family meals, parents can give much more importance to their children, so the children have less probability to get into trouble. I have a piece of interesting also beautiful information about the meal and I would like to share it. Once upon a time, in America the natives eve deer when they kill it, which is precious belief showing the truth that there is respect to the food which is forgotten after being eaten in today’s world.

While I was a child, we were all ready in a happy mood when the time of the family meal came. It was so important for my father that he didn’t eat anything even a member of the family didn’t come to the meal. We were all waiting for the family members to start the meal. Moreover we used to have the meal in the same time every day. After the meal we used to drink coffee, tea and tell different stories of the place in which we were living to each other.

In recent years, people have lost the habit of the family meal together because of the technological changes throughout the world. For instance, some mothers sometimes forget to cook meal while they are watching their favourite TV series and programs. Even if the members of the family come together at dinner, they cannot see each other because of the TV, computer, mobile phones. Consequently, they could not share anything. They just watch TV, play computer games, text his/her friends, eat and go. Thus, this lack of communication results in domestic problems.

Finally, family meals have an undeniable effect on the family members. If family members don’t share anything, they become stranger and stranger to each other. I think they should look into each other’s eyes and have a delicious meal together.

Being a METU Student

BEING A STUDENT AT UNIVERSITY ESPECIALLY AT METU

Almost every university student experience a life which is different from the one they have in their hometown.I think university means independence, having your own decisions, leading a life without anybody’s help, and feeling that you are capable of doing whatever you want and many things like these. The time period in which we are living is passing quickly. We are growing up and being an adult day by day.

This is my second year at METU and I have an extraordinary life here. As I have said before every university is different, but Metu is also much more different than the others. It is a life style on its own with its campus, activities, student communities, and the forest, which is one of the biggest man-made forest of the world,  its rings used for transportation inside and outside the campus,etc. One morning, when you wake up in your dormitory, you can find many things that you haven’t seen up to that time. For example, there may be a protest against the government or the university authorities. How many of you have seen a strike protest in your hometowns before? How many of you have tasted pepper gas up to now? They may be accepted as nasty behaviour patterns but, they are the differences of METU.

There is a concept as ‘’being a METU student’’. After you register at METU, whereever you are, whatever you do, whenever you graduate from METU or after graduation you are ‘’the student of METU’’ every time and you will be happy by feeling this privilege.METU is a place of freedom and, you can express your opinions in an easy way to the others. Some may object to you, but they don’t interrupt you. You can find millions of different thoughts at METU.

I had many problems while adapting to this place, and I think this a very normal situation as there are thousands of students here coming from different parts of Turkey. For example, transportation was a problem for me. There is a great distance between my dormitory and my school. Last year, in the first weeks of the school I didn’t know the ring system and I used to walk to school from my dormitory every morning. Moreover, I didn’t know too much about Ankara, but I learned eveything day by day.

All in all, I am now happy with almost everything. After some time, I will watch the match between GS and BJK with Odtülü Aslanlar.

Metu is a kind of place which makes you feel happy : )