Positivity In Louise Ogawa's 'Dear Miss Breed'

Life is a State of Mind “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart,” observed Anne Frank, a nationwide and posthumous author of the Holocaust. Anne Frank suffered many hardships during her lifetime for a 15-year old female: going into hiding for 25 months, living in a concentration camp for a year, and dying of typhus fever. Anne Frank wrote “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl”, where she describes her experience hiding from the Nazis.

P. Seligman, Acadia C. Parks, and Tracy Steen, authors of the article, “A Balanced Psychology And A Full Life,” focus on the benefits of “positive psychology.” Psychologists on the “pro positive psychology” movement are working towards a mental make­up that, “is an integrated, balanced field that integrates research on positive states and traits with research on repairing weakness as well as nurturing strengths” and are creating “a balanced psychology” (Seligman et al. 420). Being in a negative mood can be more beneficial to the mind of a person than one many think, but it does not mean that everyone should only be focused on being negative. As compared to opinions of the psychologists that are not on the “positive psychology bandwagon” who believe chasing happiness causes a person to be less happy. One should experience all emotions from happiness, sadness, anger, hurt, contentment and so on.

“Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.” William James explains that positive attitude can help in many situations. In “The diary of Anne Frank” by Anne Frank, she keeps her head held high in the Annex and has a positive attitude. A letter from “Dear Ms. Breed” by Louise Ogawa, has a similar response. She stays focused on her work, all while being grateful for what she had. Mayo Clinic website also says that positivity can help in many situations. The best way to respond to conflict is by staying positive in tough situations and fighting for what you feel is right.

Living long, healthy lives is a massive focus of many Americans today, while on the contrary, focusing on happiness does not truly bring happiness to one 's life. Experiencing other emotions such as sadness, fear, and anger are as important in life as happiness. In the article “Don’t Worry, Be Gloomy” author Susan David states, “While it is certainly not healthy to constantly stew in negative emotions, there are some positive things that sadness, anger, guilt or fear can do” (126). David gives five reasons bad news can be good news: Helps form arguments; Improves memory; Encourages perseverance; Ups generosity; and Boosts ability to reason.

Ronald Reagan once stated “Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means”. In the passage “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank, a story of how a young girl responds to conflict by staying optimistic. In “Dear Miss Breed”, written by Joanne Oppenheim, Japanese children of all ages write letters to Miss Breed that explain the conflicts that the individuals have and how the children overcome and resolve it. Others may say that the most effective way to respond to conflict is to stand up for what a person believes in, however, the best way that people can respond to a conflict is to have a positive outlook because it helps to not focus on the hardships in an individual’s life, alleviates stress, and affects other people 's attitude.

Having a positive attitude can make people less stressed during a time of conflict. According to the Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, “...optimists tend to use coping strategies that focalize on the problem more frequently compared to pessimists. When these strategies cannot be enacted, optimists resort to adaptive strategies that focalize on the emotions, for example, acceptance, humour and positive re-assessment of the situation.” Unlike pessimists, optimists are more equipped to unravel a dispute calmly and quickly. After people use healthy strategies, a conflict would not be as stressful as before.

The best way to respond to conflict is through positivity and optimism, as they can provide health benefits, stress-relief, and solace during times of conflict, such as how Anne Frank and Winston Churchill did. To start, Anne Frank responded to conflict by staying optimistic and having a positive outlook on things even though she faced tough circumstances. As the text says, “I don 't think I 'll ever feel at home in this house, but that doesn 't mean I hate it. It 's more like being on vacation in some strange pension” ( Frank).

Throughout history, we have had to deal with conflict. How we deal with conflict can be most challenging of all. We all can find our strength to make it through treacherous times. A positive attitude can help a tremendous amount when dealing with conflict. An example of this can be found in The Diary of Anne Frank.

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it”. Have you ever experience conflict with yourself not wanting to do something but doing it anyways, against someone else or even against nature? This essay will explain the different kinds of conflict in order of: Person versus self, person versus self and person versus nature. In the story Time of the Wolves Alma had to overcome some tough obstacles and a variety of conflicts.

People can best respond to conflict by staying positive because it affects their physical and mental health in a helpful way and can affect others around you in a positive way. It can help someone greatly in stressful situations when their life could be at risk. Positive thinking is one of the best ways to respond to conflict because it can affect your physical health in a constructive way. The Mayo Clinic Staff states that a positive attitude can, “Increase a person’s life span, can help them build up resistance to the common cold and cardiovascular disease, have better physical well-being, and better cardiovascular health”. Staying positive is somewhat crucial to a person’s health.

As humans, we each face conflict in our everyday lives. Conflict is basically anything that happens that a person may disagree with, or not be happy with. Conflict could be something as little as losing your pencil, or something as horrible as the holocaust. For example, Anne Frank was forced into hiding at the age of 13. There was nothing that she could do about it, so she kept her thoughts on the positive side by writing in her diary once or twice a month, and hoping for the best.

Throughout countless lives, conflict is regarded as a common fact of life that one must endure. People must learn to handle stress and pressure while also being open to the ideas and feelings of others. Many more people over the years have tried to decipher the best way to deal with these unfortunate happenings and some have come within the smaller measure to achieving the great feat. While this may be a complicated and sinuous road to travel, the benefits of various practices can add amazing improvement to one’s way of living and can even help others in order to benefit all of society. Perhaps the best way to deal with conflict is to simply not give up or not stay silent when conflict and wrongdoings are happening such as in “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat” by Winston Churchill and in “Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech” by Elie Wiesel and perhaps a closer look must be taken at how these methods affect the situation, how they affect those involved, and how this can help with a person’s emotional well-being.

Journal Expansion Assignment #2 Imagine you are a refugee, you come from a country where you lived in fear because of war. Your living on the streets with many other citizens because the bombs caused your house to go in flames. Half of your family is gone because they died in war. In both these quotes, "It is through cooperation rather than conflict that your greatest successes will be derived." - Ralph Charell and “History [and life are] complicated—neither life nor history [are activities] for those who seek simplicity and consistency.”

In the excerpts Dear Mrs. Breed by Joanne Oppenheim and Hitler Youth Growing up in Hitler’s shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti there are many examples of how these characters suffer yet rebel against their conflict that they are facing. People should respond to conflict by being positive and taking on the conflict because it shows that you are a strong person and it’s the best way to get through a problem. In “Dear Mrs. Breed a young girl named Louise Ogawa stays positive through her conflicts as she states ““There is no water on Sundays. The electricity is also turned off.

In addition, employees who experience more positive emotions at work make greater contributions to organizational effectiveness and, when people are in a good mood, they are more sociable, less aggressive, and better able to recall positive information (Pinder, 1998). Also, those employees who are more positive possess higher confidence, optimism, self-efficacy, likability, and sociability, which in turn, making them more satisfied with their job and increases workplace achievement (Lyubormirsky, King, & Diner, 2005). Happy employees bring their happiness from the office to their home and they also transfer their happiness from their home to the office (Lyubormirsky et. al,