You're Eighteen

Below is a poem I wrote for my daughter's 18th birthday, which is today. I wanted to share it with you all because I felt that it may help others express how they feel about their kids turning 18. Please share this with anyone you feel may help them during this transitional time in their and their children's lives. Of course if it is for a boy, you will want to change the line about "your wings" ;-). Blessings!

You’re Eighteen!

You’re eighteen but what does that mean?
They say you’re an adult but also a teen.
You feel so grown up it’s like a dream.
But where do you go from here, the future is unseen.
Just yesterday you were told what to do.
Now you have to choose what is right for you.
Life is no longer black & white, there are grey hues too.
And it can seem like there is no more support for you.
But take this advice if you dare.
From your dad who really does care.
Life is a journey filled with responsibility to bear.
But there is fun, love and new adventures everywhere.
So spread your wings my girl of eighteen.
Your future is bright and you create the scenes.
I will always help build your self esteem.
And be there when you fulfill your dreams!

With All My Love, your Daddy, July 11, 2008

Soon to be an Empty Nester.

My daughter turns 18 today and will be heading off to college in the fall. I was asked at her graduation party how I felt and I have to say that then and now I feel excited for both of us. We will both be beginning new journeys. I am ready for her to take that next step in life and I am ready to start living my new life.

Don't get me wrong I will miss her to death and I sometimes cannot believe that 18 years have gone by so fast. However, I know that I have done my best in raising and preparing her for life. Was it perfect? No way. As we all know kids do not come with manuals but she has grown into a wonderful young lady and now it is time for her to fly solo.

Of course I will always be there to give advice when asked, at least I will do my best to only give it when asked. But who am I kidding, I am a Dad so I will more than likely give it quite often even when not asked. What she will have to get used to is me giving advice and no longer telling her what to do. She will have to accept responsibility for all her choices and I will not always be there to help her out if things do not work out. I will have to learn that I cannot always be there to help and I will not always be able to fix things.

I have to say that there is no sadness in this moment, so any any tears I will probably shed will be ones of happiness. My little girl is growing up and there is nothing I can do about it. I have to say that it has been a most interesting ride and one that I will cherish forever. We are both turning the page on new chapters in our lives and I am looking forward to what we write next in the journey book of our lives.

I know that I am indeed a better person for having raised a child and it has taught me a lot about myself and life. Now, I am ready to do my thing and allow her to do hers. I am very proud of my little girl and I know she can do great things with her life, after all she has shown me that by being a father I have already done great things with mine!

Be Thankful

Below is a posting I found on one of my friends' MySpace blogs and I thought it was worth sharing as it is another eloquent way to talk about thankfulness and how it can affect your daily life. I hope you enjoy it.

BE THANKFUL By Author Unknown

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire. If you did, what would there be to look forward to?
Be thankful when you don't know something, for it gives you the opportunity to learn. Be thankful for the difficult times. During those times you grow.
Be thankful for your limitations, because they give you opportunities for improvement.
Be thankful for each new challenge, because it will build your strength and character.
Be thankful for your mistakes. They will teach you valuable lessons.
Be thankful when you're tired and weary, because it means you've made a difference.
It's easy to be thankful for the good things. A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are also thankful for the setbacks.
Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive. Find a way to be thankful for your troubles, and they can become your blessings.

Children Learn What They Live

Here is a great poem from Dorothy Law Nolte. It really does sum up what parents desperately need to know about raising children and what we as a society need to know about being a part of the process. As was said in the past it takes a village to raise a child, so we all need to understand the fundamanetal truths in Nolte's poem below.

Children Learn What They Live

If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerence, he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world!

-Dorothy Law Nolte

A Life Well Lived!

My wife's Grandmother transitioned this past Sunday, she was 95 years old and really saw and experienced a lot of changes in her time. Even if she spent her whole life in West Virginia and did not travel out of the area much, she was witness to massive changes that have taken place in the last 50 years.

She was born in 1912, lived through two world wars, the Depression, the 50's, 60's, '70s, '80s, '90s and almost an entire decade in the new millenium. Unfortunately for me, I really did not get to know her as well as I would have liked. There are so many questions I wanted to ask her and so many answers that I will never get to hear. It is my loss and one that I wish I had taken the time to experience. Boy time really is relentless, so one lesson here is to take more time to seek out and talk with the elderly family members as they will one day leave us. Not to get off the subject but quite frankly a similar thing happened when my Dad passed away suddenly, almost ten years ago. There was too much unspoken between us. So, I for one am going to do better and take more time to visit with the ones I love!

One other thing about this story is truly tragic. Grandma Cutright was one of 13 children, a very large family that is virtually unheard of in the U.S. these days and had 5 children of her own. The tragedy is that her children do nothing but bicker and fight. They do not realize what a gem they had in their mother and what that woman did for them. Now it is too late, she is gone and they can never get the time back that they wasted disagreeing over material things. Quite frankly I do not know everything about Grandma Cutright and how she treated her children but that really does not matter nor is it the point.

Sometimes, we just don't do enough to look for the good in others. We keep ourselves trapped in the past by reliving all the transgressions, perceived or real, someone has done to us. One can neither live for the present nor even plan for the future if they are stuck in the past. It puts us in a holding pattern of sorts, takes away our power of choice & creativity and robs us of our time. We need to do a better job of forgiving others, so that we may live our own life, on our terms!

So, if you are one of those people, please take the time to review your own life and see if you are possibly doing the same thing. I know, life is busy but one day we too will have a "Grandma Cutright" or a parent that we wished we had spent more time with and it will be too late!

Saturday, we will say goodbye to Grandma Cutright and hopefully, her family can also say goodbye to all the hurt, fighting and seperateness. Maybe they can finally forgive and come together once more as FAMILY! Only time will tell!

It's a Matter of Perspective

Today I was driving out of the parking lot of my local library when a lady pulled out in front of me and then gave me an indignant look like I was the one doing something wrong. I simply smiled because you see I have found out that it is in fact a matter of perspective.
In that moment it did not matter who was right or wrong, well maybe not to me, but it certainly did to her. Now, I could have laid on the horn, gave a gesture and yelled but what would that have accomplished really? Some of you will say it would have made me feel better! But would it have, really? When we allow someone to get us so upset that we feel that we have to retaliate it really does us way more harm than good.

Physically it raises our blood pressure, stress level and brain activity by releasing the hormones that cause our flight or fight syndrome, none of which are good for us. Emotionally it causes all kinds of possibly harmful feelings, like hate and anger, which in the long run does not make us, feel very good and can cause us to not think clearly and possibly cause an accident ourselves.
No, I choose to smile and move on and not just for the reasons I stated above. I try to live my life in such a way that 1.) I only concern myself with things that I can directly control and 2.) I try to look at things from the other persons’ perspective.

1.I only concern myself with things that I can directly control!

With that in mind since I do not control 90% of what happens to me I do not worry about most things, in fact, I do not worry anyway. I definitely give that 10% my attention but in a positive, what can I do to affect this manner, mostly with a clear head and thoughts so that I can come up with a rational solution.

Now, the only thing I control about the other 90% is how am I going to react to what just happened. Of course I have two choices; I can react either positively or negatively. I choose positively as often as I can because I like peace and harmony. Don’t you? Mentally, emotionally and physically those are the better places to be and spiritually it lifts me up! I like that!

2.I try to look at things from the other persons’ perspective.

Even though I really may not know exactly what’s going on in that persons’ life at that particular moment, I try to at least say to myself, hey, they may be having a bad day, got some bad news, are late for an appointment, etc. And even if they just are the type of person who is ticked off most of the time that can only have an effect on me if I allow it too. In fact in most situations where someone else is being what I might consider rude or inconsiderate, I just try and smile for two reasons.

First of all, I feel better (You can call that selfish, I call it maintaining my health!) and secondly, maybe just maybe I may help them to relax and brighten their day. You see if I give into their negativity, it will certainly grow because I am feeding it. But, if I throw something positive at that negativity, I may just diffuse it or at least lessen it some.

I can really sum this up by repeating a wonderfu saying I saw on a t-shirt today, “I am too blessed to be stressed!”

Beggars can't be choosers!

Even though some of you may not find this to be spiritual, in fact everything we do has a spiritual aspect to it. In my book, Rare Sense, I talk about giving and receiving and how hard a lot of us have with receiving anything. Then I was told a story about a couple and a foodbank and it got me wondering about the old adage reflected in the title of this blog. Beggars can't be choosers.

The story (and it's true) goes like this. For the first time in their lives a couple was facing the reality that they had to look for assistance to help feed their family due to financial challenges, so they turned to a local food bank for help. Upon arriving @ the foodbank, to their obvious dismay, they were given generic brand food. They actually refused to accept the food because it was generic. Perhaps this is the mind set that has gotten them in the financial mess that they are in today. If the thought process is I can only accept help if it is brand name help, then they have much deeper problems than just a financial. They are spiritually out of balance.

You see, if you have a material mindset and those material things are the most important thing to you, then you may actually, like this couple did, refuse help to feed your family because what was offered was not good enough. If you have that type of mindset then I suggest you reevaluate your life and start actually looking for the good "non" material things in your life, like love, compassion and acceptance. Understand that those things are more important and look for the good in the everyday things and you will see that other things like financial concerns will eventually go away. However, if you have the mindset that "generic" food is not good enough then you will continue to chase the material things and just continue having financial concerns.

It also goes back to not being able to receive. That couple was looking for assistance and it was provided to them and they refused it because it was not good enough. That is not only insane, it is irresponsible. I am sure given their mindset that it was hard enough to go to the foodbank in the first place but then to compound the problem by not accepting the help makes no sense. This is why I call it rare sense because common sense would have had them accept the help no matter whether it was generic or not!