Sophia Demetriades Toftdahl

By Sophia Demetriades

Anger kills… every day… through an ocean of infirmity such as depression, stress, broken relationships, strokes and heart disease. Yet its victims often never know what hit them.

I’ve heard anger to be a more comfortable feeling for men, whilst it makes women cry, the suffering none the less does not differ between men and women. Either way, the most painful anger is self anger, which leads to anguish and despair, which again lead us to do the most hurtful things to others, and to ourselves.

Once we are angry with ourselves for being vulnerable, denying ourselves to be vulnerable again, we forget to remember that forgiveness is the solution to a broken heart, whether it belongs to you or someone else. No matter how deep you are hurt, there is a way to effectively reduce your anger, improve your mental and physical health and put you in charge of your life again. Forgive to live is not just a dream, its a way of life that can save your life. Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right, and if you want to take your life back and have the love you definitely deserve, you must believe that you have what it takes to forgive yourself and others for being human.

Forgive yourself for breaking someones heart. Forgive yourself for not completing something you started. Forgive yourself for choosing something else. Forgive yourself for what has been and move forward in belief. Forgive your friend for what’s probably a tiny mistake in the big picture of things. Forgive your parents for not being perfect. Forgive your colleagues for not understanding you. Forgive your brother for what has been and move forward in belief.

7 steps to forgiveness:

1. come to a new understanding of what has happened to you

2. discover what forgiveness does and doesn’t mean

3. take steps to reframe your grievance story

4. stop giving control of your life to the people from your past

5. stop controlling other people and events around you to the level of which you can’t let go

6. get your life, and maybe even your health, back

7. find a freedom, peace, and strength you’ve never had

Forgive. Whether its your or own someone else’s heart you hold in your hands today, own it.

Look forward and cherish it. It has someone’s dreams inside.

By Sophia Demetriades Toftdahl

A current emerging trend is the shift in western education where we are slowly moving away from the university (which is likely to collapse unless they collaborate more with industry) and towards personalised, customised education which increases engagement in candidates or students. And it’s being replaced my mentors and coaches.

Library is free, internet is almost free, courses are easily available online. What is not so available in the current university are good teachers, and I say that with the utmost respect for those few of my teachers that were excellent, good teachers are a scarcity in the university today because all they do is to sit inside the uni and read and write, and they no longer have industry experience, and so we are not closing the gap between education and industry, we are in fact widening it.

It’s not long ago that Chris Anderson explained the idea of teacher as mentor, teacher as coach, teacher as informant. Who the teacher is will also change. It mightn’t be an academic in the future, it could be someone from industry…

Then, we have internships, which have been very popular in parts of Europe and the US for decades with the intension of being a transition between study and work life. Yet now, because some people are incredibly skilled at taking advantage of others, and some very negative, and some don’t have the skills to make sure they are not taken advantage of, we are experiencing a somewhat bad name for internships. Not everywhere of course, there are some excellent internships out there, and I’d like to believe we offer them too. What I mean is the fear of internships lurking in the university halls and in media.

I’d like to take us back to the origin of the university, I’d like to walk you down the hall with Plato and Aristotle, I’d like to challenge you to ask them what the meaning of university is (learn how to think in a different way) and compare it to what we are doing today (conforming), and then answer this question:

Considering the emerging trend of personalised and customised education, which increases engagement and motivation in students. What will the university look like in 10 years?

Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520) School of Athens

What is fascinating about the fresco The School of Athens is the fact that many known philosophers, poets and mathematicians that lived in different periods of time are depicted together in the same room, as if they were contemporaries. Some say this is just a homage to great thinkers, but others say that the intention of Raphael was to pass on a message. What message would this be?

Read more at Suite101: Raphael – the Symbolism of The School of Athens | Suite101 http://suite101.com/article/raphael–the-symbolism-of-the-school-of-athens-a188908#ixzz2MtYNP38M
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