They’re gonna be pretty mean to you for a few years. Love them, if only to spite them! (ha ha)
11. 12, 13
Imagine a hundred different lives. Try a dozen of them. Fail at most of them. That’s part of what your twenties are for. Challenge yourself. Challenge your assumptions. Change your perspective. Grow.
20
Let’s talk about hungry kids. What can we do to help? Donate? Volunteer? Start a Little Free Pantry?
9
Spend time with people you admire, in person and biographies, documentaries, novels and movies.
14-17, 21
Zero-cost method to reaching your goals (academic, career, fitness and health): Get up an hour earlier. You’ll be amazed how much you can get done and how “on top of it” you feel.
16, 18, 21
Drills (Writing pages of lines, grammar games,etc) Contractions, pronouns, commonly misspelled words, homophones like their and they’re, etc.) Drill drill drill! Written communication is so important and a simple mistake could cost big points at work.)
12
My mom did laundry twice a week: Tuesdays and Saturdays. She separated colors! It never piled up and we all had clean clothes. I do laundry daily, it's never done and we can't find what we need. Ask Grandma what was her secret to the science of laundry. Because it's now your job to do all your own laundry!
14
6 luxuries in life: 1. time 2. health 3. a quiet mind 4. slow mornings 5. ability to travel 6. house full of love -jade bonacolta
15, 21
Don't say anything out loud that you wouldn't want repeated or overheard. Don't email / text, etc. anything that you wouldn't want forwarded.
11-15
Ask “Is your belly full?” Instead of saying “Clean your plate!” Have them stay in touch with hunger/food connection.
3
"Discipline is helping a child solve a problem. Punishment is making a child suffer for having a problem. To raise problem solvers, focus on solutions, not retribution.”- L.R KNost
2-15
“You don’t emerge from $@!#% empty-handed” a friend once told me. Even the worst periods of your life will bring gifts. Be thankful for those gifts, and enjoy them.
19
“Those who cannot change their mind cannot change anything.” -George Bernard Shaw...... As you live and love and learn, your views will evolve. It takes courage to grow.
16
Sometimes you have to put aside how you feel about a person and objectively look at how their actions show how they feel about *you.*
16
On grief: CS Lewis said somewhere that it isn’t just that his friend died, it’s that the part of him that only his friend could bring out would never be brought out again.
17, 21
The problems with pornography: When you’re young and have yet formed a basis for healthy and mutually satisfying sexual relationships, your brain doesn’t know what to do with that input. It becomes part of your brain, imprinted as normal or the way sex should be. When you’re older, the brain can see something that’s outrageous and recognize it and discard it. Also it’s incredibly misogynistic, will do horrible things for the way you see women. While some is fairly harmless and totally normal, even too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Too much of a bad thing is disastrous.
11, 12, 13, 14, 15
“People are in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Pain comes when we try to put them in the wrong category.” - random therapist I never met.
16
Have them sort change, and eventually to count it. It teaches them to gather things that are alike, it's an introduction to money and it occupies them for 15 minutes! Just make sure they're old enough to be past the point of putting coins in their mouth.
3-5
"The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world." - Paul Farmer
15, 21
Work the problem backwards. Start with the solution (desired outcome) and count down from there each step. Some steps will be small, some big. But you’ll get there!
13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
Putting up the Christmas tree the weekend or next after Thanksgiving, then watching Polar Express in the glow of the lights. Maybe the smell of gingerbread cookies baking too.
5-9
Change “I need to” to “this matters because”. Instead of “I need to walk the dog” say “it matters that I walk the dog because he needs exercise and to check p-mail.” (Helps!)
8, 11, 16, 21
Your very existence is a miracle. Countless cosmic events and generations of ancestors had to come together in precisely the right way at precisely the right time for you to be here now. It’s an honor to be who you are. Act accordingly.
13, 15, 18, 20, 21