We’re taking Thanksgiving week off, so we’ve selected some appropriate posts from the archives to re-publish this week. We hope you enjoy them.
Could we create more resilient families with something so simple? What family meal traditions do you remember, or better still, continue?
I come from a large family. And once upon a time we all sat down and ate dinner together. Family style, and, as they say in Basque restaurants “please pass the peas.” Dinner time was sacrosanct – even if you were going out on a date, you first sat down to dinner with the family!
Now a-days that happens maybe on Thanksgiving or Christmas. But the rest of the year, it’s catch as catch can. Every man and child for themselves. And often we have what my sis’ calls “CORN” for dinner – as in Clean Out Refrigerator Night! I think we miss out the best parts of living with this short-order, take it and run lifestyle.
Continue reading » Please Pass the Peas
Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.
— Nicholas M. Butler
Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Well, it seems we all are. In Love Beyond Reason, John Ortberg goes all the way back to the story of the Three Little Pigs to make a point. I know you remember the story, but just in case you want to watch the Disney version, you can see it here. Ortberg points out that every life has its Big Bad Wolves. No matter what we do, the Big Bad Wolf (BBW) comes to visit us many times throughout our lives. We never know what form he will take and there is no way to avoid him. In life, there are Big Bad Wolves and we need to deal with them. (Sometimes several of them gang up on us all at the same time — after all, wolves run in packs.)
What to Do About All That Huffing and Puffing
No matter what form the BBW takes, his focus is to huff and puff and blow your house down. The question is what have we done to Continue reading » Are You Ready for the Big Bad Wolf?
Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm.
— Anonymous
Recently, it was brought home to me how quickly things can change. It seems that a columnist from the Times in London, Melanie Reid, who had been riding horses competitively for 30 years, fell off while doing some cross-country jumps and broke her neck. In the amount of time it took her to fly through the air and land on her face in the dirt, her life changed drastically.
More Than You Can Handle
It is a measure of how important writing is to her that despite the fact that she can’t physically write or type she is still Continue reading » The Path to Serenity
Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.
— George Bernard Shaw
Halderol, Depakote, Aricept, Lexapro – these are the new words that I’m learning these days. Never did I think that I would be increasing my vocabulary so quickly. Welcome to the wonderful world of pharmaceutical mood enhancement.
To be fair, I had heard of all these drugs before because my friend May has a son who is bipolar and these drugs had been prescribed for him as they were trying to help him with his OCD and bipolar disorder. The thing is, I had never really understood what each one did – I didn’t need to.
What has caused my newfound knowledge of all these meds is that my father went on a 4-day Continue reading » Doing What Must Be Done
What do you think: Can we change people’s behavior for the better by making whatever they need to do fun?
The problem with the designated driver program, it’s not a desirable job, but if you ever get sucked into doing it, have fun with it. At the end of the night, drop them off at the wrong house.
— Jeff Foxworthy
Recently I’ve found it necessary, in order to get my “steps” counted, to change my walking routine – I’ve had to hit the gym’s treadmill. And I gotta say, BORING! Until I remembered “the fun theory” which asks the question: Can you change people’s behavior for the better if you make whatever they need to do fun?
Well, I’m happy to report that the answer to this question is a resounding YES! And for those of us interested in resilience and persistence that’s GOOD NEWS! Why you ask? Because it offers new ways for us to stick with something that becomes tedious on the way to being done.
And because, if you can get people to do things because they’re fun, well then, you have a recipe for Continue reading » Are We Having Fun Yet?
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