^{I. Introduction}

^{II. Adjustment in my life
            A. Loneliness
            B. Shifting of environment
            C. Lost in competition
            D. The American educational system
            E. The money exchange rate}

^{III. Adjustment in my social interactions
            A. Meeting new friends
            B. Having different friends
            C. Friends went overseas
            D. Dependent vs. Independent
            E. Trust vs. Distrust}

^{IV. Adjustment in my relationships
            A. Freedom vs. Restrain
            B. Subjection vs. Assimilation
            C. Coping for insecurity
            D. Solving future-phobical thoughts
            E. Coping after separation}

^{V. Adjustment in my thinking
            A. Purity vs. impurity
            B. Absolutism vs. Relativism
            C. Grown up}

^{VI. Conclusion
            A. Adjusting for truths and awareness of motives
            B. The will to change
            C. Adjusting for people or yourself?
                    1. False adjustment
                    2. Right adjustment}
        The only thing that will not change in this world is change. Nothing is permanent and nothing is absolute in this physical world. Thus, we need adjustment to cope with these changes. Adjustment is an everyday process; it deals with our life, our social interactions, our relationships and our thinking. To deal with these adjustments, a conscious mind and awareness is vital. Next, I will air out some of my past experienced adjusting skills to confirm the theories learnt.
        Loneliness can decrease adaptivity. I am the only son in the family and I have been living alone for 20 years. My father left to China since I was Form 1. When it comes to personality, I do not have a model from my father since he is not at home. I sometimes felt lonely but I have used to it. Thus, I like being alone, doing things alone and think alone. Sometimes, I felt that I am not normal. I liked to talk to girls, maybe I spend most of my social life with my mom, talking with girls giving me less stresses; the more familiar you are with a potentially stressful event, the less threatened you are likely to feel (McGrath 1977). I have tried to change it from spending more time with male friends.
        Shifting of environment can cause stress but can also increase self-independence skills. I have changed many primary schools due to my father's job. I felt very stress adjusting to different people; unpredictable situation can create stress (Weiten/Lloyd). I felt anger to my dad; fear to the change; and felt sad to my friends, which is the emotional responses to stress (Woolfolk and Richardson 1978). Maybe the changes did not give me any bad memories, after few times of changes, I felt I had used to the change. I became more independent and adaptive to change of environment.
        Lost of competition can also create stress. I am a very active student in my secondary school. Maybe because I had won too much, I afraid of loosing; I quit joining the recitation contest for just afraid of loosing for I have won first the previous year. I was well known in my secondary school for every time I always came back with flying colors, but when it comes to school competition, I choked under pressure for I felt very stress the way people watching me; I lost in that competition (Baumeister and Steinhilber 1984). Thus stress can impair one's ability to perform a task even if one is a gifted professional speaker.
        I have also experienced stress when an experienced person looking the competition. This is what Keinan called the Disruption of Cognitive Functions. It can cause me to have to have high level of emotional and physiological arousal that leads to reduced flexibility in thinking, poor concentration, and less effective memory storage (Mandler). I will also jump to a conclusion very quickly. Well, even I have been on stage for so many times, I can also feel the stress.
        Educational system can also affect one's view. The American Educational System gave me a lot of stresses, especially the CPGA; one single subject can affect the overall grades. I felt more and more stress as semesters went by. But now, since I'm taking the untransferable subjects, I feel less stress compare to previous semester. But I think that stress can increase my motivation. Stressful events can help to satisfy our need for stimulation and challenge; stress frequently promotes personal growth or self-improvement; stress can inoculate us so that we less affected by tomorrow's stress and this I strongly agree and I have experienced before (Carolyn Cutrona 1990). I am a hardy person and I like challenges.
        The money exchange rate had caused a massive change and I am still adjusting to it. The change of the exchange rate can be described as the heart of a woman. I was planning to go to the US last year's December but I postponed it to this year's June. Although many people had asked me to think clearly but I still have that positive thinking in me that I think I will make it. I think that one's view is important, how healthy minded a person is depends on how one view a situation. Optimism leads people to cope more adaptive with stress (Scheier and Carver 1992).
        Adjusting to social interactions is a hard thing for me because social interaction is quite complicated. Sometimes, I feel that having different friends has high pressure to fit with the person's self. I have to adjust to the person's personality so that we could have the same topic. This is not very appropriate, one should search for the true self to have true happiness, thus I decided to change, instead of following peoples self, and I try to bring my self to the person and let the person feel what I'm feeling. This is quite manipulating, but I feel happy with it.
        In college, friends just come and go, when you get to know the person well, and that's the end of the semester. When you both became close friends, then it's time for the person to fly overseas. Friends like disappearing in front of you. One needs to be more independent to face this kind of situation; I learned to take things easier. This is the outcome of the Americans Educational System, it create individualism and more self-centered. Since the system creates a more self-centered person, when it comes to communications, it creates more manipulation rather then effectiveness for they are not caring; they just care for themselves.
        Having an effective communication is vital for caring is needed in communication, but I sometimes have conflict between dependence and independence. Do we always need to depend on someone or be more independent? Do we need to rely mostly on friends or just rely on you? I have once betrayed by a close friend, I did not trust anyone after that, my self was closed; but I opened after a while for I think that friends is needed in our life. Sometimes, life need not to be too clear and too aware, if one are too aware, one could not experience caring from someone else; we need to have some self-disclosure so that we could experience the care from others. Self- disclosure helps us clarify our thoughts and feelings, helps us express our feelings and aids in social comparison and self-understanding (Derlega and Grezlak 1979).
        The biggest change through my experience is my past relationships. Changes exist everyday; thus adjusting to it is hard, time consuming and exhausting. We faced conflicts between freedom and restrain at the beginning. Can I still get freedom after committing to that relationship or just restrain from that person? Are we willing to take the risk? Sometimes we willing to be restrained, but sometimes we need certain freedom. This has to do with one's will; the will to be restrained and the will to give freedom.
        Having subjection and assimilation is also common in relationships. Some people easily assimilated but some doesn't. Thus, adjustment can exist unconsciously. But some people don't, those are hard to change, they are very conscious to themselves, they not easily get assimilated and they are very subjective. Thus, which should we choose? To be yourself or willing to be assimilated? This is also a big problem I had faced, but I choose to go with the flow, which means put the problem aside.
        I felt very insecure with my ex for she is very outgoing. I know why I feel that way is that I think that way, our emotional distress is actually caused by our catastrophic thinking in our appraisal of stressful events (Albert Ellis 1977,1985); you feel the way you think. I used Appraisal-Focused Constructive Coping Skills to cope with it. I have also sought some help from my friends. Uncertainty to future events can cause many stresses. One of the problems is going to different country; I planed to go the United States and she planed to go to the United Kingdom. Uncontrolled, unpredictable, unfamiliar, imminence can cause great stress and passive thoughts. I was not planing to make us together; catastrophic thinking from her was very stressful; believe tend to lower. But this also made us more preciouses on our time being together. Thus, we used Emotional-Focused Constructive Coping. We tried to share our feelings, giving commitment and to be more open to each other. A good listener and a good expresser can discharge problematic emotions by letting your secrets, fears, misgivings and suspicious spill out in a candid conversations (Pennebaker, Colder, and Sharp, 1990).
        Even though I managed to maintain the stresses, but we still brooked up. I was very sad, my life had missed the center point, and I really felt bad. Thus, I used Problem-Focused Constructive Coping Skills. First, I clarify the problem; I know that we often describe our problems in vague generalities, for example, "She must not leave me"; we tend to focus too much on negative feelings and this tendency confuses the consequences of problems, for example, "I have nothing but her, now I'm alone". Secondly, I generated alternative courses of action by thinking that I'm still young and not bad. Next, I evaluate my alternatives and select a course of action by making more friends, widen my social circle, joining activities and others. Lastly, I took action to maintain flexibility by finding a job, and I choose to work in Cozy Corner, an artistic cafeteria; I tried to make myself very busy (D'Zurilla and Sheedy, 1991).
        After the separation, I felt that my identity changed a lot, especially very similar to her, thus my next move is to struggle for a sense if identity. My thoughts have also been assimilated to be like her.
        Adjustment in thinking plays a big role in my life. I personally think that every individual has the motivation and ability to change and that the individual is the person best qualified to decide on the direction that such change should take. How an individual perceived one self is vital. This perceived self, in turn, influences both the person's perception of the world and his or her behavior (Carl Rogers).
        One of the adjustments in my thinking is between purity and impurity. After graduated from school, I have seen many things, my social circle has widened a lot, I saw people have premarital sex, smoking, eating drugs etc. My thought have been polluted and which I don't like. Thus, after finishing part of my studies in college, I went to my secondary school to teach, mixing with unpolluted-minded persons, hoping that it could brought back my past "pure mind". I do not want to adjust to become an impured person. I like my life to have childlike dreams, which can make me happier.
        Another thing is between absolutism and relativism. I have struggle in absolute and relative things, which I have, spend many time adjusting and thinking. To think that the world has absolute thing can bring us to view the world more positives. Everyday, we are struggle in adjusting to the changes. And I think that adjustment is a never-ending process.
        Lastly, I would like to ask an enlightening question. Why do we need adjustment? Is adjustment for striving happiness or truth? Which is more important? For me, I would rather adjust for truth for truth brings me more happiness. If we adjust for truth, we would aware of what we are doing or done and we will be very clear of our motives and if this works, adjustment is not important for a truth has strongly developed inside you.
        To put it in a nutshell, I myself think that adjustment has more to do with will; the will to change. If a person is aware and not willing to adjust, he or she will suffer more pain because knowing a change is stressing. Thus, experience saying, I often used my mind to adjust to the changes. Frankly saying, I did not for I do not like to follow society flow.
        Last question, who or what are we adjusting for? Are we often adjusting for others or for you? Will you adjust for any kind of changes? If you are talking with a different personality person, will you adjust for the person or adjust to not adjust? This is your decision. I think that adjustment has false and right. False adjustment does not go with will while right adjustment goes with a person's will.

Dennis Yap Tsong Hsih