Final essay: Is it difficult to live in an era of change? (3 options)

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Change and variability in human psychology is a complex topic. On the one hand, every person has one form or another of conservatism, and on the other, everyone has the innate ability to adapt to the environment.

From personal experience, you can often remember friends and acquaintances who have changed a lot over time. Haven't you changed that much yourself? We will discuss this important topic in more detail in this article.

Variability and its opposite. Where does conservatism come from?

Conservatism and dislike of change can be explained quite simply. The fact is that the human brain is, of course, a complex and multifunctional organ, but at the same time quite lazy. This manifests itself in the fact that the human brain strives to spend as little energy as possible . It is much easier to repeatedly repeat some familiar actions than to try to do something new. The same applies to thoughts - the usual foundations that are ingrained in us from childhood will be much more difficult to rethink as we grow older. The older a person gets, the more diligently the brain saves energy, the less flexible it becomes. This is why many older people are grouchy and endlessly miss their youth, while young people crave new sensations, knowledge and impressions.

“Our hearts demand change,” is sung in Viktor Tsoi’s song, where both the whole people and each person individually want change. Harsh times affected the psychological state of Russians. Everyone dreamed of the very day when everything would change.

Let's talk about how a person changes and what contributes to this. Can a person change on his own? In fact, it can, but not always. People want change when they feel uncomfortable, when they need something. Often the reason for the desire for change is dissatisfaction with life, uncertainty, anxiety, a tendency to aggression and low self-esteem. In this case, some people will begin to blame others, saying that the salary is bad or the boss is evil and in general the whole world is opposed to this person. Others will begin to look for the reason in themselves, and these have an advantage. Finding the cause of discomfort in yourself is an important step towards development and problem solving.

Changes come in different forms – some are positive, others are negative. So what can make a person change radically? What might cause his family and friends to ask questions like “have you become something different”?

What drives variability:

Environment and circumstances

Basic material for most changes in human personality. There are many situations in life when something changes around us, and all we can do is change our attitude towards what is happening.

A change in circumstances often becomes an impetus for personal growth , since a person is an adaptive creature, it changes as conditions change. Such conditions can arise both instantly (a sudden move to another country, war), or slowly and imperceptibly (new acquaintances, new knowledge, training). The consequences may also be different. Some recover from a traumatic event and learn an important lesson from it, while others fall into deep depression.

Shock, psychological trauma, shock

These problems can be caused by some exciting situation: the birth of a child, the death of loved ones, a serious illness. Particular form of circumstance. Perhaps one of the most serious reasons for the changes. Sometimes events happen in life when a person is faced with a choice. Either he becomes a better version of himself, or he condemns himself to a long period of discomfort. Yes, it makes sense to treat mental shock philosophically. Everyone should have trials, but sometimes cases are so serious that one cannot do without the help of a psychologist (and sometimes a psychotherapist) and the support of relatives.

Development of consciousness. Moral and psychological

Improvement is not so noticeable, since it happens slowly and is not always obvious. Naturally, if a person meets an old acquaintance many years later, the latter can appreciate the growth compared to who the person was before. Variability must be noticeable. But those with whom a person spends a lot of time cannot always feel any difference.

Spiritual growth is achieved through re-evaluation of views, gaining new knowledge and experience: we get used to something, we change our attitude towards something. However, it is worth noting that psychological development does not always depend on age. There are teenagers who are mature beyond their years, and there are also infantile adults.

Finance

This point is one of the many indicators of change, since money has become firmly established in the life of society , and by using it you can read a lot in a person. It happens when a stingy friend suddenly begins to invest in charity and waste money left and right. And it also happens when a spendthrift begins to save every penny and take every expenditure seriously.

Read more about wealth in our other article.

Fear of change

This often happens to people: they want to change something, but there is a fear that the current situation is better than what will happen later, after the changes. This is guided not only in personal life, but also in other areas - politics, economics. However, those who are not afraid of change often get much more benefits from life. Changes can include both simple changes and a return to a certain state when everything was fine. For example, psychological recovery from trauma. It is necessary to change - it will be easier for both the person himself and the people around him.

Entrepreneurs are capitalists

In the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, the highest privileged society was divided into new and old nobility. The old nobility was represented by noble landowners who were proud of their noble origins and despised the new nobles. The new nobility were wealthy entrepreneurs who bought a title for themselves or entered into arranged marriages with representatives of an impoverished noble family. The new nobility lived by using hired labor in business activities, while the old nobility relied on its passive income from family estates.

Entrepreneurship, both in the city and in the countryside, brought huge profits. More and more nobles began to engage in business:

• became participants in international trading companies;
• engaged in banking, lending money at interest;
• opened scattered and centralized manufactories;
• engaged in agriculture based on the labor of hired peasants - farm laborers.

of enclosure began in England. Peasants who were once serfs and received personal freedom were forcibly expelled by the feudal lords from the communal land and fences were installed on it. The nobles used the fenced lands for breeding sheep in order to sell wool, which was highly valued at that time, on the market. Such new nobles began to be called gentry (the middle class of nobles engaged in entrepreneurial activities in the field of agriculture).

While enclosure in England enriched the new nobility, peasants, driven from their homes, went to the cities. There they were hired as workers in factories, or became beggars, beggars, thieves, and vagabonds.

Variability for the worse

We can highlight the following things that, as a rule, lead to changes in a bad direction:

– Opinions of others

Dependence on the opinions of others often causes low self-esteem. The desire to please everyone leads to the fact that a person ceases to value his own opinion and tries to achieve some invisible ideal. In this case, you need to start accepting yourself, your personality, your values. Find a balance between individual needs and the interests of society.

– Perfectionism

Perfectionism is a very scary thing that puts an end to every attempt at self-realization. A person is afraid of failure. Every mistake is perceived as an impossibility of improving anything, and that nothing can be learned - everything will end in failure.

Such people usually have a heightened sense of self-importance (SIE). Find out more about this in our other article.

Fear of failure requires work on yourself. And the deeper this fear sits in a person, the longer it will take to “get it out” of the soul. This is taken, for example, from childhood, when parents force children to study with only A’s and B’s and thereby instill in schoolchildren the idea that any mistake is unacceptable and malfunctioning. In such cases, it is advised to learn to accept yourself and your strengths and weaknesses. Recognize the possibility of making mistakes, since every mistake is experience necessary to achieve success in any business.

Some people are so pessimistic and susceptible (the reason for this is often low self-esteem) that any problem can lead to prolonged melancholy. And the sum of all difficult situations leads to depression and apathy. This is felt as a desire to change something, but a fear of overstepping any internal prohibitions.

Change is good. Variability can contribute to meaningful and positive experiences. Yes, you can’t be too superficial and flighty. You need to be flexible and learn to understand yourself and your own desires.

The situation of hired workers

The use of wage labor became the basis for the emergence of capitalism in Europe in the early 16th century.

Let's memorize new words!

Capitalism is an economic system based on the exploitation of hired workers, through whose labor the owners of the means of production, the capitalists, enrich themselves.

The wage workers of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries were in an unenviable position:

• harsh working conditions shortened workers' life expectancy;
• the already low wages of workers were constantly devalued due to the price revolution (the fall in gold prices resulting from the Great Geographical Discoveries);
• the working day reached 14-16 hours;
• Numerous fines for the most minor offenses reduced the already small wages.

Many workers lived right on the territory of the manufactories, leaving them only on Sundays and holidays. Others rented beds and closets in the poorest neighborhoods. However, they spent very little time there, because even the workers had less than 5-6 hours to sleep.

In addition to men, the labor of women and children was actively used in manufactories, and no special working conditions were created for them. Women's and children's labor was paid several times less than men's, so many factory owners hired mainly women and children.

Despite the difficult situation of the workers, they held on to their jobs with all their might. After all, if a worker was kicked out, most often he became a beggar, a disenfranchised vagabond. Laws against beggars in the modern era were harsh: tramps could be branded, flogged, and sent to the galleys.

When change is needed

The state of complete satisfaction with your physical and emotional form, level of self-development, degree of financial well-being and daily activities can be called happiness.

It’s different for everyone: for some it’s the joy of buying a new thing, while for another it’s important to realize the meaning of their existence.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when dissatisfaction with work, appearance, standard of living and other aspects grows like a snowball. He begins to feel that he can no longer live like this, looks back and realizes that all his actions were wrong.

10 signs that it's time to change everything:

• you experience terrible emotions when thinking about work;
• you regret the past and have vague dreams about the future;
• loved ones say it’s time for you to rest;
• envy of other people's victories appears;
• you feel tired before you can wake up;
• you gossip;
• irritability for every reason;
• constant tension and anticipation of a bad event;
• It seems to you that everyone is hiding something and telling lies.

If you leave everything as it is, a depressive state develops and you give up. Then the deterioration of health is added to the emotional stress.

Therefore, in order to stay healthy and happy, it is important not to rush around in a meaningless search for the best way to change your life, wasting precious time, but to use the strategies proposed by psychologists and successful people.

Views of scientists

Scientists presented the main reason for the changes taking place in society in different ways.

O. Comte saw it in the progress of the human mind, in the transition from a military society to an industrial one.

G. Spencer considered the fundamental condition for transformation to be the complication of the structure of society, the growth of self-awareness and personal freedom.

K. Marx assigned the main role in the transformation of society to the productive forces.

The main reason for social change according to M. Weber is the social structures necessary for social development. When creating these structures, each person relies on his own moral and political attitudes, as well as religious views.

This is interesting: the opera “Prince Igor” - a summary.

It was religion that Weber assigned a key role in the progress of humanity and recognized it as the driving force in the development of society.

Having subjected a deep analysis to the main world religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism), Weber came to the conclusion that it is beliefs that leave an imprint on the methods of farming, the structure of society, and the development of civilization as a whole. For example, immersion in one’s own feelings and the desire to acquire spiritual experience, characteristic of Confucianism and Buddhism, hinder the advancement of capitalism in the East.

The sociologist also sees the reasons for the rapid development of Western society in religious views and personal characteristics characteristic of Europeans: rational thinking, a tendency towards bureaucracy.

The change in the structure of society and the emergence of new social institutions in Weber's sociology is associated with the concept of charisma. It is this quality, inherent in some public leaders and generals, that distinguishes an outstanding personality from ordinary people. The owner of charisma is credited with exceptional, superhuman abilities (Buddha, Christ). A charismatic leader, according to the scientist, can make changes even to a stable social structure devoid of dynamism.

Interesting to know: interesting topics for research work.

Life and life of peasants

In the modern era, the life of peasants changed significantly. Most of them received personal freedom, but being personally free, the peasants were still dependent on their own masters. The land still remained the property of the feudal lords, and the peasants used it on a rental basis. Rents were high, so peasants were forced to sell their products on the market.

Many of the peasants went bankrupt and left the villages in search of work in the city. Some peasants became rich, bought up plots of land and hired their impoverished neighbors as farm laborers. However, the majority of the village population combined work on the land with the search for additional income. They were hired as cab drivers, weavers, cloth makers, spun yarn, and smelted iron.

The food of the peasants was not plentiful and varied. Traditionally, the peasant's daily diet included coarse stews made from barley, millet and oats, seasoned with onions and garlic. Peasants ate very little meat, ate poultry only on holidays, and only residents of coastal villages could eat fish in large quantities.

The life expectancy of peasants was low, like most poor city residents. Child mortality was especially high; more than half of the children did not live to reach adulthood. The average life expectancy was only 30-35 years, so 40-year-old people were considered old.

Factors promoting social change

With all their diversity, the main factors of social change can be combined into the following groups: social, economic, political, technological.

The characteristics of each group are presented in the table.

Table. Factors of change in society