Resource: the website Ask, Listen and Learn has great material about how to start a conversation about the dangers of under-age drinking. asklistenlearn.org
9
The Paradoxical Commandments by Keith Kent: 1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centred. Love them anyway. 2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. 3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. 4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. 5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. 6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. 7. People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway. 8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. 9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway. 10. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.
14, 17, 21
Always have a 5 year plan. Be thinking of goals you want to work towards, however big or small. What inspires you? What drives you? What do you want to accomplish or cure or solve?
15, 17, 21
Spend time with people you admire, in person and biographies, documentaries, novels and movies.
14-17, 21
Quoting Sarah Bessel: “One of the best things Jen Hatmaker has taught me about raising big kids: if they get on the roller coaster of Big Emotions, my main first job is to stay on the platform. I am NOT to get in the car and ride up
12
Motivation: Just start. Two minutes. You don’t need to feel good to get going, you need to get going to give yourself a chance to feel good.
16
Do something that feeds your soul every day. Experience or create joy, even if just a small spark of it.
17
Be extra careful when you’re parking or pulling out of a driveway. It’s hard to see little kids or pets.
16
Get book “Talk to Me First: Everything You Need to Know to Become Your Kids'Go-To Person about Sex.” by Deborah Roffman.
7
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.
14, 17, 20
The Buddhists say “life is suffering.” I think struggle might be a better word. Struggle is unavoidable, and it would do us good to stop expecting otherwise. And yes, everybody experiences pain and loss, etc. but I don’t believe we should expect our lives to be full of suffering.
17, 21
If you don’t have anything intelligent to say on a subject it’s fine (encouraged) to say nothing. Listen. Learn.
20
“Distraction is the death of art. But boredom is the birth place of it.” (Forgot who said this)
12, 15, 21
Never take friendships for granted. Show up. Reach out. Be there when they need you. Friends are gifts; tend to those relationships with love.
15, 20
Mom’s scrambled eggs: Use fresh eggs. Scramble vigorously. Don’t add water or milk, just cook in copious amount of butter. Add salt and pepper.
12
I forget who said it but I love it: “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” Paper and pen. Write. Keep it or burn it whatever you like. Journal or make a list or bullet points or narrative…whatever. Just write.
15, 21
“Racism is real, even if you aren’t a racist. White privilege is real, even if you don’t feel it. Police brutality is real, even if the cop you know is kind. Your world isn’t the world. Everything is not about you.” -Mohamed Safa
16, 21
Forget perfection. Nothing is perfect. No relationship, job, house, or day is perfect. Let go of expectations, be open to the mess.
18
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
No need to over communicate. Brief, simple succinct when conveying instructions or important information. Applies across the board personal/professional etc.
14, 17, 21
Stand up (or sit up) straight in photos. Don’t slouch or lean. (You can touch or be close but don’t lean in.)
12, 14, 21