How can we be happy?

By Mileidy Johana Malagón Tovar (undergraduate Social Communication and Journalism student, level 4 English) 

According to studies by the World Database of Happiness, happiness is not in the places where we might expect to find it, but in our own hands.

The director of this database, professor Ruut Veenhoven, says that, amongst the participants in a recent study, he found that there is a negative relationship between “objectives” and “happiness”. The reason for this is because people who are not happy are more aware of their goals as they try to improve their lives.

It’s also important that, although Professor Veenhoven told the BBC “to lead a happy life, a fulfilling life, you need to be active, and participate in different activities,” an active lifestyle does not always have a stronger relationship with happiness. 

So, what must we do to be happier? Studies compiled by the World Database of Happiness point out that, for people to be happier, it is advisable:

* to go to dinner with friends

* to have close friendships

* to be in a long-term relationship

* to be actively involved in politics

* to be active at work and at leisure

Surprising findings:

- People who drink alcohol in moderation are happier than people who do not drink alcohol.

- You are happier if you think you’re attractive.

- Sadness is actually useful to us, as it acts as a “red traffic light” that stops negative behaviour. It’s good to be sad up to 10% of the time.

- If you are a workaholic, you will feel happier if you do exercise to relax after work, instead of having a beer on the couch.

Extra-terrestrial Life DOES exist!

By Cristhian Mauricio Porras Vecino  (undergraduiate FIGRI student) 

Extra-terrestrial life has always been an interesting issue for human beings. Questions like “are we alone in the universe?”, or “were we visited by aliens in ancient times?” have been considered by not only common people, but also the scientific community.

A while ago, I heard that Stephen Hawking was saying on TV that his mathematical mind suggested that it is very likely that extra-terrestrial life existed. However, if some day we make contact with them, we have to be very careful because the result could be compared to the time when Europeans came to colonise America. Hearing this kind of statement is frightening, but at the same time, exciting for me.

However, there are some people who say that planet Earth has already been visited by aliens, but the government is hiding information from people because they believe that human beings are not prepared to meet alien life. According to British UFO experts like Nick Pope and David Clarke, revealing that kind of information would end up creating social chaos and general panic.

Another astonishing fact comes from the writer Erich von Daniken. For several years, he has developed the theory that aliens came to Earth in ancient times, stating that there is evidence which supports this idea. A clear example of this is related to the construction of the pyramids in Egypt, because according to archaeologists, the average time in which these pyramids were built is around 20 years. This means that each stone had to be placed in around four minutes. The even more “magical” part of this tale is that the weight of each stone varies from 25 to 80 tonnes, and the stones were transported from Aswan, which is located 800 kilometres away.

Given that, the question which comes to our mind is, “how could the ancient Egyptians develop a project like that?”, or “did they have any previous knowledge that we don’t know about, in order to build the pyramids?” Erich von Daniken suggests that they did in fact have this, but that this previous knowledge came from aliens who visited the Earth at this time. Even with the technology we have nowadays, it would be a tremendous task to construct the pyramids, so the idea of aliens helping ancient people to construct the pyramids doesn’t seem weird or out of place.

Nowadays, there has been some progress in terms of getting involved with UFO information. In 2009, the British and French governments decided to disclose documents related to UFOs, so people can now have access to files that only the Ministry of Defence had. My opinion is that the human race should be prepared, and also politicians should take the initiative in creating an exopolicy, which means the discipline of managing the relations between humans and non-terrestrial civilisations, because the idea of being alone in the universe sounds so arrogant at this time.

Did you know that…?

By María Fernanda Bonilla Pedraza (undergraduate Hotel Management student, level 4 English) 

Dreams are a mental state, but you probably don’t know about the mysteries surrounding it. If you want to learn more about dreams, then you should read the following information.

* When you wake up, you usually forget about 50% of what you dreamt about, and five minutes later, you forget up to 90%

* The people that you see in your dreams are people that you have seen before in your life. For example, a man you saw in a shop could be a killer in your dream.

* You dream every night, but sometimes you don’t remember.

* When you are sleeping, your risk of getting the flu increases slightly.

* We only dream about things we already know.

* The animal that sleeps the least is the horse.

* A blind man can dream, but his dreams involve other senses.

* We spend a third of our lives asleep.

* 12% of people dream in black and white.

* Randy Gardner has the record for the person who was awake for the longest. He was awake for 11 days.

* Pigs and rabbits sleep the same amount of time as humans.

Books and cleats

By David Canal V. (undergradute FIGRI student)
 

During my time at the university I´ve had a great time learning, studying and meeting new friends and teachers. But certainly until now, I wouldn´t associate my college memories with sports.

For me sports are very important, not only as a source of fun, but also as an activity that complements your student life. Maybe it could be because I come from a school that encourages you to practice at least one discipline. We had the opportunity to choose from a wide spectrum of possibilities: athletics, soccer, basketball, volleyball, swimming… you name it, my school had it. Hence I developed a link between my academic life and my sporting life. Having them connected is excellent, because you can offload some of the stress you get from the assignments, stay fit, develop self-discipline and avoid health issues.

As the semesters passed by, I noticed that it doesn´t matter if the student comes from such a sports-oriented school as mine, because sport is necessary in one´s life. The problem is that our institution, The Externado, doesn´t offer students the chance to build up a symbiosis between books and courts or fields. The geographic location of the campus makes it difficult, so the only option that we have is to go and play some table tennis in the student lounge. Nevertheless, we have a sports facility located at Bogota´s savannah; the thing is that it is very far from the campus.

But enough of beating up the university, because the lack of opportunity to do physical activity isn’t the only thing to mention. In these 3 years I’ve also noted that we have some of the best teachers in South America, that we are part of one of the toughest faculties in the country and that we go to university to make friends and study like crazy! Therefore, I started to realize that all the guys that were soccer players and wanted to be part of the official team and went to training, started to fail assignments and some of them even dropped out.

At that point I knew it was going to be difficult to keep up with the degree if I wanted to be competitive in soccer. That’s why I chose books over cleats. But the effort is temporary (3 years). Now I’m at a stage at which I have more time. For example, I don´t have class on Saturdays anymore. I hope that all my classmates that like sports and that have overcome the hard schedules with me, can now enjoy their free time playing their favorite sport!

Does Beauty have only one Face?

By Angie Parada Suárez (undergraduate FIGRI student)

Nowadays, the concept of beauty has managed to become a major topic, not only for teenagers and for kids, but also for grown-ups. However, wanting to be beautiful is not the problem. The problem is when we believe beauty has only one face and then issues such as racism, anorexia and bulimia start to arise in society.

Sometimes it is difficult for many people to understand that we are different in so many ways, not only physically but also mentally. For example, some people may love romantic music, but others enjoy rock music more. Also, if we talk about beliefs, religions appear to be a really important part of our lives, or maybe if we talk about food, some of us love meat, while others may love a different type of food, such as vegetarians, for example. What’s important about all this is that those specific things may greatly influence the way we want to be or the way we want to look.

In modern society, people have created an illusion about perfect beauty, that in some ways shows us beauty as a specific type of person. For example, the first thing that comes to mind when we think of a beautiful girl or handsome guy is a perfect body, nice hair, slim, tanned, toned muscles and blue eyes. When it comes to reality, however, we see fat women with curly hair and brown eyes, or teenagers who claim to be emos, punks or even rappers. So, according to the modern concept of beauty, are these people ugly? What I don’t understand is how people can be so stubborn about perfect beauty, as if it was some kind of shirt that should fit everybody.

In my opinion, beauty has become a bigger issue than it should be. However, what is interesting is that nobody seems to care. They are all so busy trying to be beautiful that they don’t even realise that they are already are. It is really sad to find girls and boys of all ages having different types of eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia, just because the media and society in general, shows beauty as models with such thin bodies that you can count their bones, one by one.

Most of these problems start with regular diets that, if we are honest to ourselves, we all do, but then people become obsessive and start controlling everything about what and how much they eat. People become insecure; they don’t like the way they look and in most cases they start feeling rejected. Beauty has become so radical, that even being born with a different skin tone has become a sin. I mean that the concept of beauty is so twisted that you are not even allowed to be different from the rest, even if this is not something you can decide.

Thus, everybody should ask themselves if it is really worth it to become somebody else so they can be accepted in a society that doesn’t even know what real beauty is. Maybe it is time to open our minds to a new concept of beauty which starts with the beauty of being unique.