11 posts tagged “hope”

Some of these quotes have attributions, some are from that famous philosopher and observer of life, Anonymous. A few are my own that came to me as I piloted my way through life today.
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Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future.
Faith is having the courage to dance to it today.
- Dr. Peter Kuzmic, theologian, Slovenian-born, citizen of Croatia

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.
- Dennis Wholey, American television host and producer (b. 1939)

Laughter is a smile with the volume turned up.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

People laugh because I'm different, I laugh because they're all the same.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

No amount of darkness can hide a spark of light.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

Be like the flower that perfumes the very hand that crushes it.
- Anonymous (Google's best guess)

Last night I watched a movie that was so difficult to understand that I couldn't figure it out until the very end. Then I had to return it to the store. It reminded me of life.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

You don't have to win at life. Life is not about winning. Life is about playing the game and trying to influence others so that they win.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

They say you can't go back to your childhood, that the places you remember will have changed. Even if they haven't, you will have changed so that the you of long ago wouldn't recognize the you of today.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

When your heart breaks, it changes your life. But you had a chance to avoid the hurt. When a child's heart breaks, the child has no defences, no preparation, no means to recover. The reassembled life has no possibility to achieve it's former potential.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

If you hear a great piece of music and your day is not better for it, the problem is not that the music is deficient.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

No matter how much technology you have at your command and friends in your social networking site, there is no substitute for the gentle touch of another live human, for the feel of their breath on your neck, for soft whisper from their lips into your ear.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

Don't think you're ugly. Everyone is beautiful sometimes, always when they smile. Don't think you're beautiful. Everyone is ugly sometimes. The difference is attitude and confidence. Even movie stars are pretty plain looking without makeup. They believe they're beautiful, so that's what they become.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

We're all working on the mysteries of life without any clues. If we knew already, we'd be somewhere else. If we don't learn, we are no better than the simplest animals. If we learn but do nothing with it, we are no better than most larger animals. At least they teach their young thoroughly. Learn and do, or get out of the way and let those who want to be what they can.
- Bill Allin, stalwart pilgrim of life, http://billallin.com

Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who believe that every child should be taught the important lessons of life from the best possible sources.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

As people used to be wrong about the motion of the sun, so they are still wrong about the motion of the future. The future stands still; it is we who move in infinite space.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet (1875-1926)

This quote struck me because it turns backwards our thinking about the future.

The way we think of the future, most of us believe that it must bounce around as if trying to avoid us and detection. To many of us, the future is unknown, a mystery that will unfold in some fashion in ways we can't imagine at this time.

Not so. Rilke says it's not that way at all.

We are the ones who bounce around, not knowing where we are going.

Our governments seldom have long term plans for the future. As they are elected for relatively short terms, they focus on the duration of their terms, plus a couple of years more. Most give little thought to what they want for their country 25 or 50 years in the future.

They can't set policies to prepare for a future 50 years hence because they don't think about it. They only set policies they hope will get them elected next time.

Businesses, especially large ones, set long term objectives. They want to think their way into the future to be prepared for what they will face then. However, their long term plans can turn on a dime when their financial fortunes hit rough patches. In effect, they plan for the long term future, but act in their own best interests in the immediate future. Profit today, not prospects tomorrow, are what counts for them.

As individuals, most of us go through our lives as if we don't know what to expect of tomorrow, let alone what our lives might be like in ten or 20 years time. Planning might come in the form of retirement investments.

As of this writing, I recently passed my 65th birthday. I have reached the age when traditionally, in western countries, people retire. Then, going by historical records, I could be expected to die within the next decade. But it's highly unlikely that will happen.

I could easily live for another 30 or 40 years, as my ancestors lived well past the age when their own peers were dying off. I eat healthy, try to exercise enough. I make long term plans because I expect to be able to fulfill them.

Should a person of 65 years have plans for what they might be doing at age 90 or 95? To a younger person, that might seem silly. But unless my peers and I make plans for our future, we may find ourselves in wheelchairs, sitting in hallways of nursing homes for our final two decades of life. That's not my idea of Golden Years.

The future begins tomorrow. The future 25 or 50 years from now will depend entirely on what you and I and others around us plan tomorrow. We will meet the future knowing what it's like because we will have planned it. If we plan it.

My wife and I will move to a different home in a different Canadian province within the next two months. Everything will be new to us, except our citizenship. One of the first tasks we plan for our new property will be to plant trees where we want them.

We will plant spindly young trees no taller than ourselves. We plan to sit in their shade for years after they have reached their full height.

Will we do little more than to sit in the shade on a summer's day? Not at all. Chances are we will plan how to take the world by storm with our new ideas on those future days. As usual, those ideas will be rejected by the majority of people when posed, then be adopted heartily by the same people a few years later when they realize they are better than what they have.

We make our own future by building it, day by day, thought by thought, one daringly new action after another.

The future is nothing to be frightened about. We will build it ourselves, by our actions and sometimes by our inaction.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach their children how to prepare for the future, how to cope with it and to build it to their own satisfaction instead of just surviving it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.
- Thomas A Kempis, German ecclesiastic (1380-1471)

Let him that would move the world first move himself.
- Socrates, Ancient Athenian philosopher (470-399 BC)

Many people claim they wish they could change the world, but they can't. Yet they would find it difficult to change themselves, even offensive if someone else suggested it.

Changing the world isn't hard. It simply can't be done by one person. Because they know they can't do it alone, many fail to make any attempt. Rather than working to gather others who will spread the same message, they do nothing, often ignoring the advice they would give to the world as to how to achieve new objectives and goals.

"If you can't beat them, join them." As common as that saying is, it identifies its users as guilty of something, and as quitters, if not as losers.

Starting with the ancient Jew we know as Abraham, the Semites began to spread the word among the other tribes they met about how to live a good life. Jesus of Nazareth picked up the theme about 550 years later. The Muslim Prophet Mohammed continued the theme with his own religion. In about 2500 years, around half the world believes the same precepts about living a good life.

Mind you, not every one of those people adheres to the rules. Generally speaking, the Jews are fairly peaceful people, except as they must defend themselves against those who would annihilate them in the Middle East. A large majority of Christians and Muslims are peaceful people, I believe. In fact, most of the people who belong to non-Abrahamic religions have similar beliefs about how to live a good life.

Considering how incredibly brutal the world was up until 600 years ago (and how brutal it still is in pockets around the world), we have come a long way. We probably have six times as many people on earth today as 600 years ago, which means that even more than in the past we humans have changed to a more peaceful and helpful life style.

We have no trouble hearing about those who violate our norms. The media ensure that we hear as much that's bad among us as they can get their hands on, and they make up some of what they tell us as it is. But the vast majority of people on the planet live good lives, healthier and longer than ever before in history.

Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed spread their words, others paid attention and passed them on. The same can be said of The Buddha and the originators of Hinduism, Taoism and other religions.

These people believed that their words would eventually spread around the world. They were right. They didn't give up because it couldn't happen within their lifetimes.

What does that make us, the good people of today who don't believe we can make a difference? Short-sighted, at the least.

Changing our own attitudes about what effect we could have on the future of our world could make such a difference in decades, centuries and millennia to come.

It's not so hard to tell others about the values we hold, so long as we don't try to convert them to a particular religion or ask them for donations. They will listen and, in time, they too will spread the word.

You can make a difference, if you believe in yourself.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to make a big difference in the world of the future by teaching children what they need to know to operate it with integrity and with honour.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself.
- Barbara De Angelis, relationships coach

The first part of the quotation sounds like the basic material of any relationships coach. The second part, the part that most omit from the equation, allows the whole thing to make sense. It drives home the part about loving yourself.

I relate to most of the quotes I use because they conform so well to my own experience, either personally or through observation of others. This one describes much of my life.

My childhood was totally without love. It was without hate or rancor too. It could better be described as a business arrangement between my parents. One set of grandparents--the ones I saw often--exemplified the same business arrangement. My other grandmother, a widow, loved her children and grandchildren, but lacked the means or skill to express her love, so it went largely unnoticed.

When I married the first time, I made the best business decision I knew how to make, based on my experience growing up. My wife, who left me and our two children a decade later so that she could further her career, succeeded in the teaching profession, reaching the position of school principal before she died of cancer caused by excessive and persistent overwork.

Not long after her death, my new wife and I suffered a huge financial loss, so were unable to provide my now-twentyish kids with what their mother had led them to believe they deserved from me, in the sense of financial benefits. In turn, they made the best business decision they could, they dissociated themselves from me totally. I have not seen them for 15 years, or my grandchildren ever.

Working my way through my grief at being alienated (albeit illegally and by lying to their own kids about my being dead) I learned a very important lesson, how to love myself. That lesson showed me that I have value and worth as a human being, something I had not recognized before as everyone who knew me treated me as a business contact. That's how it works, people who treat others like business associates gather friends who treat them the same way.

Knowing how to love and respect myself gave me the insight to be able to love others. Lo and behold, I no longer resented others because of the love they withheld from me. They wanted to love me because I loved them.

What's more, the more love I gave to others, the more I received back. It was the goose that laid the golden eggs. Only the gold turned out to be love, not financial wealth.

My conclusion is that the resentment I had for others I should love--perhaps including my own children, but I'm not certain--vanished when I learned to love myself. I thought I loved them but maybe they sensed resentment. I certainly didn't know how to show them love very well then.

As a side benefit to my new life, I no longer feel lonely, even when I am alone for a long period of time. As another benefit, people come to me with their offerings of love because they know what they will get in return. It's a good deal both ways.

Now I see a world of lonely people who have business arrangements as relationships, who don't know how to give or receive love fully, who have troubled children even though they tried their best to raise them well, who can't keep a marriage or "significant other" relationship for long because "the business" changes.

Money is the most important thing in their lives, though they tend to think of it in terms of possessions--"he who has the most toys when he dies, wins." They think I'm simple because I'm happy without being rich. They don't even appreciate that they are rich without being happy.

I don't know how to explain it to them.

No one should have to go through hell to get to heaven, as I did.

There are important lessons to learn and we need to teach them. Those of us who know. We may fail with some, but we will succeed with many if we keep trying to teach them. We will regret our failures, but only until we consider our successes, those we love and who love us in return because of what they have learned and received from us.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow happy, loved and successful children into happy, loved and successful adults and parents of their own children.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal.
- Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993)

It's almost too simple to imagine that we live in a world we create for ourselves within our own mind. But it's a fact.

Few would disagree that there are real things in the real world, stuff made of matter and energy. The more scientifically savvy might say that we should include dark matter and dark energy. Fair enough.

How do we know so well that these things exist? We see, hear, taste, touch or smell them, or we see evidence of their existence such as we do when we detect that gamma rays have been somewhere we have a detector.

How do all these senses and cognitive processes work together? They're all conduits of information for the brain. The brain, in turn, acts on some of them by sending out messages through the same conduits to nerves and muscles so they will act according to the brain's wishes.

Work with me here while we try an analogy. Let's say that we substitute NASA's Mars Rover staff for the brain and the rovers themselves for the senses. We accept that the rovers are mechanical robots of sorts. They sense light and have other equipment that performs similar functions to our own senses.

The NASA staff act like the brain for the rover robots, receiving messages from the robots and sending messages back to the robots to act according to NASA's wishes.

What do the NASA people know about current conditions on Mars if the rovers refuse to send or receive signals? Nothing. What does your brain know about the real world around it if your senses refuse to send to or receive signals from your brain? Nothing. In the absence of input and the ability to send signals to their remote slaves, neither the brain nor the NASA staff know a thing.

Do you remember when the first rover landed on Mars and began to send signals back? Pretty exciting, as I recall. Not long after signals began to be exchanged, the rover captured an image that looked as if there was some sort of life form or manufactured object in the form of a face. Everyone at NASA and many who watched from home on their TV sets had a guess of what the "face" might be.

People had all sorts of guesses, including speculation about alien life on Mars, either then or in the past. You may have had an opinion as well because that's what our brain does, draw conclusions based on input. Using the same "sensory" input, or reality, many brains reached many different conclusions. Some of them were outright fanciful, if not borderline crazy.

Every time you see, hear, taste, touch or smell something, your brain reaches a conclusion about what's out there in the world around it. Other people's brains, given the exact same input, could easily reach different conclusions. What, then, is real?

"Real," to us, is what our brain says it is. Our brain doesn't give a whit what other brains think, it stays with its own conclusions. What it "saw" through its senses and concluded from the input is what is real to the brain.

That applies to many things in our lives. In truth, to almost everything. No two brains see the same reality. So what's real?

What's real is what your brain says is real. So why not, as Dr. Peale suggested, have your brain sense a bright and happy world?

That's not reality, you say. Some bad stuff goes on in the world. Just read a daily newspaper or watch television news to see some of it. Fair enough. But what is your source for good news, for happy and bright events that would more than counterbalance the bad stuff we get fed constantly? Most of us don't have that source for positive input or feedback.

So our feeble brains reach the only conclusion they can, based on what they have to work with. The world must be a terrible place with lots or dreadful stuff going on. Who could blame a brain for thinking that way?

With that as a starting point each day, what's to stop your brain from going deeper, from making more dire conclusions and predictions based on the same input day after day? Surely life would become depressing.

Some people couldn't cope with that level of depression, from constant, unrelenting negative input. They might turn to alcohol or drugs. They might fight with and kill a spouse. They might rob a convenience store when they need money to pay off bad debts or drug dealers. They might adopt any of numerous emotional illnesses we commonly call neurological disorders. They might commit suicide.

Who could blame a brain for that? It acts on what input it receives. If the input is all bad, constantly, maybe it eventually loses control. Maybe it causes its slave senses to turn a car into a lethal weapon or to rage at other drivers, co-workers or children.

You can see how this works. Fill your brain with what you want it to conclude about your world (it's world) and your brain will respond accordingly. It's that simple.

Fill it with good and helpful thoughts and the world will be good and helpful. You know how it works now. It's not deception. It's working with what you have around you.

A brighter and happier you will make those around you happier as well. Bonus. As they get happier, others they meet will be happier too and eventually it will spread farther. Around the world maybe. Another bonus.

But there's more. Call within the next 15 minutes and you can have your brain give itself a dose of feel-good neurotransmitters, like dopamine and serotonin.

All for the same low price. The time you took to read this.

Act now. Before you get to a newspaper or television.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to have bright and happy children grow into happy and healthy adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

If you think well of others, you will also speak well of others and to others. If your heart is full of love, you will speak of love.
- Mother Teresa

The world is not made up of you, the people you know and people like you, people with your biases and prejudices, your tastes and preferences, your standards of ethics and morals.

It's made up of nearly seven billion people you have never met, whose lives you know nothing about, whose cultures you know little about, whose backgrounds, fears, family values and daily struggles you can't comprehend based on your experience.

Do not assume that because you and your friends believe something or that because you can justify to yourselves some line of thinking or point of view that you can speak for them. They don't want you to speak on their behalf any more than you would want them to act for you.

Men and women around the world have many characteristics in common. However, what most of us think life is like for us relates to our culture, not to those common characteristics.

We all want to experience happiness. It would be a shameful experience to calculate how little time and effort we devote to those who lack more experience with happiness because they're too busy finding food for themselves and their families, some way to earn money so they can buy something with which to shelter themselves or simply a way to avoid being killed in the night.

We all experience fear. Many fears. Everyone has them, though we try to cover them up and pretend otherwise. What do we do to help relieve the causes of fear and risk in countries where it dominates the lives of most citizens? In some cases, we engage in war to "liberate" them. So, how do you think that has worked out?

We all need love, as Mother Teresa suggested. How can we offer love to people we have never met? People whose lives we know nothing about?

Love has two basic components. One is security. Think about the people you love. Don't you want to protect them when you can? Think about those who love you. Surely they try, in their own ways, to provide some security and dependability for your life.

Touch is the other component of love. We don't think of love that way usually. We think of love as something mysterious that either happens or it doesn't. That's not because love doesn't have common characteristics, but because we aren't familiar with the physical characteristics of love. Other than the physical component of sex, which is but one small part of the totality of love.

Touch is a critical component of love for those closest to us. The more two people who love each other share their love with touch, the more secure they feel. That applies to parents and children as well as to lovers. We even tend to measure the love that another has for us by the amount and the kind of touch they offer to us. Yes, touch is a "love meter."

When children grow up and separate from parents, often by long distances in this modern world of international economy, what the distant kin remember--what holds them together as "loved ones"--is their memory of how they used to show their love for each other through touch. They may not consciously think of it as touching each other, but touch will be a component of almost every good memory they have of sharing love.

A smile is the closest we can come to showing love for someone without actually touching them. A smile is sort of "love by proxy." That's why everyone appreciates having a smile from others they know and even from strangers. We show our love for other members of our species--even to our pets--with smiles. Somehow our pets understand that kind of love, though they, like us, would prefer to receive it through touch.

Most of us find it hard to ease the fears of people we never see and to better their lives with loving touch and smiles. But it can be done.

Next time you watch one of those television commercials that asks you to donate a dollar a day to help orphaned children in Africa or people in some war-torn, poverty-stricken part of the world, note how often those making the appeal touch those needing your help. They do for strangers what you can't do. These organizations usually have lots of people who would like to work in such situations, but they can't afford to send more than they can support with food, shelter and defence.

Do you travel to other countries on vacation? If you look, you will find treasures as valuable in poor countries as in wealthier ones that can afford to advertise to attract your tourist money. You can actually see more, meet more people and learn about them, travel cheaper and give the cash you saved to those who need it in poorer countries. With your smiles and your casual touch you can share your love with them.

You will find yourself thinking that if you lived in similar circumstances you would likely do the same sorts of things they do to survive. That empathy will demonstrate to you how much of the truly important parts of life we all have in common.

To accomplish these suggestions, you will have to defy the advertising that those with money throw your way to get you to spend lavishly in their countries.

Then your choice will be whether money or love is more important to you.

Mother Teresa had millions of people who loved her. She had no money to spend on them. What she had to share was a smile, a touch. They loved her back for the love she gave to them. Her cost: nothing. Her rewards: priceless.

Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents, grandparents and teachers who want to grow socially and emotionally healthy children, not just intellectually and physically healthy ones.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

"Cancer isn't about dying, it's realizing that life is worth living."
- Adrian Welsh

How could one young man have touched so many lives so deeply, have garnered the love of everyone he knew?

Adrian Welsh died after a four year battle with cancer on March 13, 2008. He had celebrated his twenty-third birthday just a few days before.

One week after his death hundreds of people jammed into the community centre in the hamlet where he lived for a Celebration of Life. The double auditorium filled with chairs, dozens of people had to stand through the entire service. They did so willingly, without a thought for their discomfort.

They came not out of curiosity, as is often the case with funerals or memorial services, especially of one so young or someone who died in a tragic event. They came out of love, first of all, and secondly out of respect.

Adrian Welsh was special.

Many of the comments given in person and in the souvenir program for the event noted that he died before he had a chance to live his life. They were wrong. Adrian lived more life in 23 years than most people do in 80.

He wasn't wild and crazy. He was daring, refusing to give in to fears and doubts.

Adrian believed that life is about having fun with whatever you do. Everyone wants that, but few manage it. His desire for fun was different.

He believed that for him to have fun doing whatever he was doing, the people he was with had to enjoy themselves too. That was his prime objective in life. He put the welfare and enjoyment of those he was with ahead of his own.

For a guy who was basically shy, Adrian made a huge number of friends, a few of them very close and special friends. He accomplished this by helping everyone to enjoy their life, whatever they were doing.

Nine years ago, at age 14, he began his first job as a part time dishwasher in the restaurant of a resort. He gained an interest in cooking by watching the chefs who prepared meals in fine dining styles. Two years ago, at age 21, Adrian became the head chef for that restaurant.

The daily newspaper in the city nearest where Adrian lived posted two pictures with the half page feature celebrating the life of this young man, a rare tribute to anyone. One of those photos showed him and a friend paddling a canoe, the feeding tube through the front wall of his abdomen visible on his bare chest.

Adrian never allowed circumstances to prevent him from enjoying himself and from having fun with whoever he was with.

Everyone who knew Adrian Welsh has their own special memories of him. There is one memory that each one of them shares.

Adrian had an infectious smile. He smiled at everyone, whether he knew them or not. Everyone within the range of his smiles felt immediately comfortable, at home, no matter where they were.

More than anything else, Adrian's smile and his caring attention to those around him will be a legacy that will last for a very long time.

He passed that legacy to me, as one who barely knew him.

Now that you know how, you can build your own legacy in the same way. It won't cost you a thing. Thanks to Adrian.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want their children to grow to be happy, confident and lovable adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

"In life you can never be too kind or too fair; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy load. When you go through your day expressing kindness and courtesy to all you meet, you leave behind a feeling of warmth and good cheer, and you help alleviate the burdens everyone is struggling with."
- Brian Tracy

Some will always think you a sucker for being so nice. They may even criticize you and try to take advantage of you.

Too bad. Jealousy will do that to people.

They hate to see others who do good works, who do charitable acts without expectation of reward, who try to help others, because it doesn't conform to their miserable and depressing viewpoint of humanity.

They are so focussed on themselves and the dirty tricks and misfortunes fate has played on them that they can't look at the world from anyone else's point of view.

If you can't think what life must be like inside someone else's skin, you can't appreciate the hardships that others endure. Those who can and do look at life from another's point of view usually (in my experience, always) find that they wouldn't trade their life and their troubles for those of anyone else.

That's a strange phenomenon. When we only look at our own problems and consider how hard life is on us, we seem to have the worst problems in the world. When we seriously think about the problems that others must endure--really learn what they are and how other people struggle to cope with them--we never want to trade ours for theirs.

Think of any famous person you know, especially someone whose life you may have studied to some extent. Not just the good stuff, but the bumps, potholes and sinkholes of that person's life as well. The more you learn about the real life--the inside story that the public doesn't usually learn--the more likely you will be to be thankful you don't have that person's problems.

Look at the people you meet every day, the people closest to you, with the same eyes. Every one of them struggles with problems and almost every one will hide them so that you learn nothing. Everyone wants you to think they are fearless, until proven otherwise. Everyone wants you to believe they never make mistakes, until they are caught.

Everyone wants you to believe that they can make it on their own, no matter what their problems and no matter how little help they have with them, until they break down.

Sometimes that breakdown is emotional. Sometimes it shows up as an addiction. Often it appears as unusual or antisocial behaviour, though this is usually done away from the eyes of others these people know. Sometimes we learn about that person's problems as a result of suicide or murder, or both.

If you are only thinking about your own problems and not those of others around you, when they go over the edge you may not be prepared. You may not be able to help.

You may miss the signs and live to regret it for years afterward.

Other people have it worse than you. If you dig deep enough, you may find that everyone else does. Be gentle. Cut them some slack. Forgive. Offer a shoulder, or some time to listen.

You may save a life. You will certainly enrich your own in the process.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for people who want to teach others, especially children, how to cope with life's problems and how to help them understand the vulnerability of others they know.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Better to light a candle than to rant against darkness.
- Confucius, Chinese philosopher (circa 551-478 BC)

Yet we do rant against darkness. Often while refusing to let others provide a light.

We complain that many parents do a poor job of bringing up and tending to the needs of their kids. But, although you can find birthing classes in every city and town, classes to teach young adults the knowledge and skills of parenting are almost nowhere to be found.

We complain that teachers don't do a good enough job teaching what kids need. But we also complain that education taxes that go to hire more and better teachers, to outfit classrooms with usable up-to-date resources and to build curriculum that addresses social and psychological needs of children rather than "the basics" are much too high.

We complain about the evils of consumerism, about how Christ is no longer more than a few letters in the word Christmas and Santa Claus has become the real hero of the spending season. But we spend more time buying more useless gifts for more ungrateful people with each passing year.

We complain that we must buy more locks and pay for security services for our homes because of rising crime rates. But we continue to give people with severe problems more reason to need to turn to theft to satisfy their needs.

We complain that drugs have become a part of daily life for so many people. But we withhold information about the effects drugs have on the wrecked lives of addicts from children before they are exposed to drugs on the streets where their schools are located because we desperately want to keep them "innocent" for as long as possible.

We complain about the regimented lifestyle that has us following the same routine every working day. But we join the crowd with uniform suits, shoes, coats, accessories and vehicles so that we fit in with the "business ethic" of our employers.

We complain that we find it necessary to embark on exercise programs just to get enough physical activity to stay fit and reduce the anxiety associated with constant stress. Then we drive several times around the parking aisles of shopping malls just to get a parking space that's as close to the entry door as possible.

We complain about the corruption of politicians. But we continue to elect the warriors who frighten us that foreigners want to harm us or that the economy will tank if the other party is elected.

We complain that it's almost impossible to find real meaning in life. But we attach ourselves to religions or political parties whose primary purpose for existing is to give power to a few people who get well paid to feed us dogma that wouldn't make sense to a ten year old child.

We complain that there is so little that is worthwhile on television. But statistics show that televisions are on in most homes for several hours each day, presumably spewing useless pap to people desperate to feel that they know what's going on.

Light a candle. See what you're missing. Get a real life. Help your kids grow into healthy, well balanced adults. Spend the emotional energy you now spend on complaining on investing in effective measures that will correct the problems.

Go to the TIA web site and join the people who want to make a difference.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children what they need to know so that they can avoid leading sheep-like lives as consumer lackeys as adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.
- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

"If I were any better, I'd have to be twins." I suspect my friend who says that regularly may not have "graduated" from grade school. He has never had the luxury of unassigned cash to do with as he liked because he has raised two families of children, much of it on his own as his wives left him. To him, buying a good cup of coffee from a coffee shop is a luxury because he doesn't have to make his own.

Yet that is the reply he usually gives when someone asks him "How's it goin'?"

He won't burden you with his troubles because he knows you have your own. As he can't likely help you with your problems and most people don't care enough to help him with his, he doesn't talk about them.

He talks to God. God, he claims, has been good to him. Though he prays daily--often for others, including me and my wife-- when he is in a particularly big fix he knows he can't handle, he prays extra hard for help. Without fail, something happens and each situation gets resolved. Always.

Now mostly retired (his income is secure), he volunteers at a drop-in centre for teens in the village where he lives. As odd and assorted kids stop by his apartment unexpectedly and consider his home their second and him more of a father than their own, "The Hub" centre is a good fit. He may even take over as its director since he lives closest of the volunteers and the teens (the youngest is 11, but was already on his way to becoming a gangster) act mature and trustworthy when he's around.

His reward is seeing kids turn their lives around. He feels good about it.

Another friend calls several times each week to tell me his problems. He always has more than his share of problems because he repairs computers, usually for big companies whose employees abuse their equipment and fail to protect them with antivirus and antispyware programs regularly. Getting warranty claims resolved positively is almost impossible, people always want their computers back yesterday and some don't want to pay him for months (if ever).

I listen. When he calls to rant, I listen. Sometimes I put my work on hold for an hour or more, but I listen. By the time we hang up, his previously big problems seem nothing more than speed bumps on the highway of life.

Life for this second friend is rocky, filled with ups and downs. The downs don't last long because he feels pretty good when we get off the phone. When it's too early to call me, he exercises, roughly the way an Olympic athlete would exercise, to that level of intensity. Though he will count 65 birthdays as of this year, his brain kicks out the dopamine to make him feel good when he works to his physical limit.

He goes for physical therapy on his hand a couple of times each week and other visits for his bad knee, which has a nasty habit of locking, throwing him headlong onto something that is usually hard. He went through a wooden step in the first place that resulted in his knee being banged up, causing him more pain in a day (he can't sleep longer than four hours) than most people suffer in a year, or ten. Sometimes the locked knee causes him to be thrown down stairs, which is how he wrecked his hand.

But life's pretty good for him.

These two men use their minds to make their lives good, worth living. Wayne Dyer doesn't know them, but if he did he would use them as examples in his speeches and seminars.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how to teach children to approach life positively so that they can lead physically and psychologically healthy adult lives. And to be good mothers and fathers themselves.
Learn more at http://billallin.com