If A Dog Were Your Teacher

If a dog were your teacher
These are some of the lessons you might learn...

When loved ones come home, always run to greet them
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face
to be pure ecstasy

When it's in your best interest
practice obedience
Let others know when they've invaded your territory
Take naps and stretch before rising
Run romp and play daily

Thrive on attention and let people touch you
Avoid biting, when a simple growl will do
On warm days stop to lie on your back on the grass
On hot days drink lots of water and lay under a shady tree
When you're happy dance around and wag your entire body

No matter how often you're scolded
don't buy into the guilt thing and pout
run right back and make friends

Delight in the simple joy of a long walk
Eat with gusto and enthusiasm
Stop when you have had enough
Be loyal
Never pretend to be something you're not

If what you want lies buried
dig until you find it
When someone is having a bad day
be silent .....
...sit close by.

...and nuzzle them gently.

by Author Unknown

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.  

Proverbs 17:17       

Habits-Good and Bad

Zig Ziglar remarked, "People often say to me that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing...that's why we recommend it daily."

I had lunch today with a group of women.  Let me just say that there were two of us in the room younger than 60.  The majority of the room was closer to seventy-five or eighty years old.  The two honorees were twins who will be one hundred on Sunday.  These were two of the cutest people I've ever met!  One of the sisters does most of the speaking--only because the other can't get started quickly enough.  When asked if they lived together, the quiet sister quickly said, "No." 

I hope, when I get to be their age, I am just as spry and quick-witted as these gals.  They are an inspiration to us all.  As the other girls around the table were asking their secrets to a long life, we were surprised that there really weren't any.  They eat whatever they want to eat.  They don't necessarily exercise a lot.  They each have been married and have children.  They each have lost children and their spouses. 

What impressed me more than anything was their attitude.  They just take each day as it comes.  There isn't worry about what might be or what was.  They make the choice, every day, to accept the world as it comes to them, good or bad.  It is what it is, you deal with it and then you move on.  No big secret here, they said in various ways.  Every day is a new day, a do-over, a fresh start.  Use it!

These ladies have developed the habit of a positive attitude.  Habits are made of knowledge, attitude and skill.  They are learned over time.  Negative attitudes are just as dangerous to your health as smoking cigarettes and overeating because complaining, criticizing, comparing, competing and contending only lead to misery.  These are just symptoms of something much deeper happening.  People need to feel understood.  When they feel understood they don't have to be judge and critic, of themselves or anyone else.

These women understand that life is going to have its ups and downs.  Days like today are the times to relish and feel the joy.  They know that times will come when they will need to draw on these memories to get past the pain.  And they have chosen to view their world as more good than bad. 

One of the women at the luncheon asked me if I always had a smile on my face.  She said she'd never seen me without one.  I told her that I tried to.  I'm only a little over half the birthday girls' age but I have learned in that time that the smile is my choice.  Certainly there are days when the world is just too hard.  There are the days when it takes every ounce of energy I have to paste that smile on my face and head out, but I have made it a habit to put it on, along with my makeup, every morning.  And what I've discovered is that when I do this, my day is better.  It forces me to set aside whatever is not 'right' about my day, and focus on others.  I don't need to share my worries or fears with anyone else.  They have enough of their own.  So when I go out my door, the smile is in place and my goal is to make everyone's day a little brighter, even if it's just with a smile.

Attitude, positive or negative, is a habit that you develop.  Some of us have developed a habit of looking for the bad things and they will surely come, if that's what you're looking for.  Others have developed a habit of looking for, reaching for, the good things and we pull them to us like life vests.  These two beautiful women are such wonderful examples for all of us.  When I grow up, I want to be just like them!

Happy Birthday, Girls!

The Seven Powers for Self Control

Lesson 3:  The Power of Attention

What you focus on you get more of.

This is a hard concept to understand well.  After all, we are taught in this society, that if we focus and work hard for something, we can make it happen.  Our understanding of this is simply that if we want something we just work for it and if we work hard enough, it will happen.   The part that very few seem to understand is that it also works in reverse.  When we focus on bad stuff, we get more bad stuff.  It’s as simple as that.

Whether you think you can or can't, either way you are right.

Henry Ford

We all know people who tend to focus on the bad stuff; their glass is always half empty.  I met a woman recently who was this way.  When I remarked at how glad I was that the fog had burned off and the sun had come out, she responded that there was no way the day would be good when it had gotten off to that kind of nasty start.  When I answered her in return that it had to get better from there, her retort was that there was just no way it possibly could be.  I tried one more time, “I hope that you have only good things from here on out today.”  Her response, “Well, there’s just no way; I don’t think that will happen.”  I found myself anxiously trying to move away from her.  I was very happy, after driving in extremely dense fog for four hours, to see the sun and know that I was safe in my destination.  I’m not sure that this woman would ever feel safe.  Maybe she had some devastating news to start her day, I don’t know, but I do know just being with her made me feel bad and she didn’t want it to change.

What a miserable way to live your life!  Remember the Charlie Brown character, Pigpen?  He was always surrounded with a cloud of dirt.  So is this woman, but her ‘dirt’ is of her own making.  She is choosing to focus on the negative things in her life.  And what you focus on you get more of.  Like attracts like, so if you choose to focus all day on the fact that you woke up late so everything will be wrong today, it will.  It’s just as easy to switch your focus to include, “Well, it’s got to be better from here on out.”  It’s a fifty/fifty chance either way, but if you predetermine what will happen by your attitude, there is NO chance of a good day. 

 This is especially true when you are working with children.  I have seen time after time when a teacher or parent is focusing on what they don’t want a child to do, they get exactly that.  Why?  Because they’ve already laid the groundwork for that outcome.  There was a little boy, preschool age, several years ago who loved coming to school.  This was his first educational experience and he was excited about it.  Now, sitting still and listening were not habits he had learned, at all, yet, so his teacher, who had limited experience in a setting such as this, was not comfortable with his behaviors and how to ‘control’ him.  Her form of ‘positive discipline’ was to seat him beside her at all times.  If she moved around the room, she held his wrist and made him follow her.  At the end of the class time, she would meet the parents, sometimes waiting in the street for them, to share the issues of the day.  And there always were issues.  It got so bad, that the parent would greet the child with, “Well, what did you screw up today?”  It’s no wonder this little guy got to the point that he hated school.  He was never allowed to be successful.  They were all set for him to do wrong and he did.  Who wouldn’t under those circumstances?  What they focused on, they got more of.  

Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye, and you will be drawn toward it.

Napoleon Hill

No doubt this young man needed to learn how to be a good listener and how to remain focused in his new environment, but my great fear is that the pattern for his education was set in this first experience and that the rest of his educational life will be colored by the beginning.  I know that his next two years were not much better so the chances of him finding school enjoyable and being successful are probably pretty slim.  You know how teachers love to ‘share’ in the faculty lounge and the word has gotten around that this young man is a problem…therefore, he probably will be.

Why is it that we human beings seem to prefer to focus on the bad things rather than the good ones?  I believe that we have been programmed by very well-meaning people who were trying to protect themselves and us.  The idea that if you don’t set your sights too high then you won’t be hurt, seems to pervade our society, when just the opposite is just as true.  We may well face heartbreaks and failures in anything that we try to do, especially if it is new to us, and if we let those failures stop us from trying again, then we have chosen to limit our future.  It didn’t just happen to us, it happened because of us.  What do you think the chances are for this young man to believe in himself; to find any self-worth there?  While his parents love him immensely, they, as well as the educators, have told him repeatedly that he really isn’t capable of being successful.  He is destined to “screw up.”

I would hope that this young man will happen along someone in his life who will break the pattern and tell this young man just how lovable and capable he really is.  I hope that they look beyond the behaviors that, by now, I’m sure are very much habit, and see the young man who has a remarkable intelligence and sense of humor.  His creativity knows no bounds and when he is challenged, he is more than capable of following the rules and enjoying learning.  I know because I had the young man in summer camp-an educational, creative setting for the summer.  I found him to be a challenge to my teaching skills, merely to stay ahead of him.  He pushed me to my limits in keeping him challenged and occupied.   The difference was, I expected him to do well…and he did.  I greeted his parents with the good things he had done throughout the day.  Unfortunately, this experience only lasted the summer and then he went back to school where the teacher were “ready for him.”

 It’s just as easy to find good things.  Sometimes, for a young man with the history that this one has, you have to look hard at first, but there are positives and the more you focus on the positives, the more you will find.  The more success he had, the more success came.  Parents, child, and teacher focused on the good stuff, not the bad.  It was a choice we all made.  It’s a choice you can make. 



I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

Thomas Edison