Your good name is the most important credential you’ll ever have.
Act with integrity in all things, that ben if it means short-term pain.
Build a reputation for honesty, dependability and trustworthiness.
There’s one thing I’ve noticed that makes the difference between an adult and someone who is over 18: That person’s proclivity for reading. Books make you smarter, yes but they also make you kinder, funnier, more empathetic and more tolerant of opposing viewpoints. Travel has a similar effect but is a lot more expensive! If you want to be a genuine grownup, read (or listen to) everything you can get your hands on.
Work on developing a “no shortcuts” mode. Looking for a faster/easier/bare-minimum option isn’t always bad. People get paid a lot of money for creating efficacy. But there are times when that approach is wrong. Anything you want to grow from (relationships, school, work, wealth, health, knowledge, etc.) those things deserve your full effort, focus and dedication. Play. Definitely play! But don’t f*ck around.
If you get comfortable telling little lies it will be easier to tell big lies.
Tell the truth, even on small matters.
(Except if your friends ask if they look fat. Then it’s okay to lie!)
“There’s a hole in the side of a boat.
It can’t be fixed, it’s never going away, and you can’t get a new boat.
This is your boat.
What u have to do is bail water out faster than it’s coming in.”
-Aaron Sorkin (Newsroom season 3 episode 6.)
Talk about what patterns of abuse look like. Teach them to recognize red flags like love-bombing, isolating from friends and family, controlling behavior and threats of violence and/or self-harm.
Sometimes you have to disconnect the “doing” from the “feeling.” Not so much that you’re disconnected from your feelings but that you’re able to tell them to get in the backseat while you take the wheel. It’s a skill. Practice makes you better at it.
“You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.” -Mr. Rogers
With toddlers (or teens), first acknowledge the emotion. Then deal with the behavior.
Validate their feelings. Once everyone is calm, address the behavior and discuss consequences if appropriate.
Sometimes I think the best way to take care of them is to teach them to take care of others: Littler kids, sick or disabled, those who’ve been left out.
Tube first 2 or 3 years of your life I would sing to you after bath time as I was getting you in your jammies. Two songs: Oh Shenandoah and Danny Boy. Rubbing your tiny little feet with baby lotion while singing to you is one of the happiest memories of my life.
Turn on the closed captions on tv. Reading them is almost unconscious. Even better, set the audio to a language other than English and turn on English captions.
“In the middle of the pain you didn’t cause, the change you didn’t want, the reality you didn’t know was coming . . . your life can still be beautiful.” Lysa TerKeurst