Life isn’t a straight line, it’s so much more complex than that! Good things, bad things, boring or interesting things are all always happening. And always changing. So are you. And that’s good.
17, 21
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.
5-7, 1Infant-12
Surround yourself with people and ideas that inspire you and captivate you. Life is too short for destructive relationships.
13, 18
“Success is liking who you are, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” - Maya Angelou
13, 15, 21
You have yet to meet so many parts of yourself. All kinds of different people, places and experiences will draw those parts out of you.
15, 18, 21
Actions have consequences- so does inaction. Avoiding a problem or decision is not an effective solution.
18
Having an opinion is not the same thing as having an informed opinion. If you don't know enough about a subject to speak intelligently about it, keep quiet and educate yourself.
12, 18
You’re someone’s cup of tea. I don’t mean there is only one person out there for you, I mean someone is waiting to love you exactly how you are. Stop wasting time with fools who want to change you to fit their ideal.
15, 19, 21
Go for walks together as a family before or after dinner. Sometimes we go for distance, sometimes we call them "safaris" and look for as many living creatures as we can find.
4
Purchase the card game CBT 123 on Amazon. (Cognitive Behavior Therapy teaches kids the connection between Thoughts/ feelings/ behavior)
7
Never open someone else's mail, or listen to their conversation, etc. If it's not your business to know, don't snoop.
14-21
Sometimes you don’t know what to do, can’t figure out what’s the right direction for you. That’s okay. Try thinking about what you *don’t* want to do. (See John Cusack career plans speech in 1989 movie “Say Anything.”
11, 16, 19, 21
In social situations it's better to talk too little than too much. Don't over-share with people you're not close to.
15
Kids make fun, it’s not nice but they just do. Just blow it off if kids make fun of you got something silly. They’ll drop it if they don’t get a ride out of you. ... But bullying is different. If kids are being mean, threatening or scary, tell me and your teacher.
7
If you’re going to be wrong about someone, let it be because you believed the best of them. (Give people the benefit of the doubt.) put it this way— I’d rather be wrong about my husband being a moral person who would never cheat, then come to find out he had done, than I would like to be wrong about him being a horrible person only to find out later he was faithful all along.
20, 21
You should feel safe with friends. They shouldn’t try to get you hurt or in trouble. Anyone who makes you feel unsafe is not your friend.
8-15
Blessing for the Brokenhearted: Poem by Jan Richardson ___________ "There is no remedy for love but to love more." – Henry David Thoreau ________________________ ________________________ Let us agree for now that we will not say the breaking makes us stronger or that it is better to have this pain than to have done without this love. __________Let us promise we will not tell ourselves time will heal the wound, when every day our waking opens it anew. ___________Perhaps for now it can be enough to simply marvel at the mystery of how a heart so broken can go on beating, as if it were made for precisely this— as if it knows the only cure for love is more of it, as if it sees the heart’s sole remedy for breaking is to love still, as if it trusts that its own persistent pulse is the rhythm of a blessing we cannot begin to fathom but will save us nonetheless.
20
Career is so important to your life satisfaction. Do what makes you happy. If you’re really at a loss for what you want to do for work, then go where you’re needed.
18, 21