1. The following is an attempt to give you a snapshot of my view of the world and how it works. With these words I’m hoping you’ll begin to understand life a little better. Of course, this is what I believe and not necessarily what everyone else believes. The truth of the matter is, no one knows for sure about a lot of this because it can’t be prooved. This is what I have come to know as “my truth”. I believe it with all my heart and believe that it is the key to happiness.
2. Sometimes it’s very difficult to live what we say. Like for example, I really believe that “I’m in control of my emotions”. But sometimes I act as if “you” are in control of my emotions. Intellectually I know no one can “make me mad” but myself. But I continue to say to you, “You make me mad.” Let me give you an example of what I mean. If one of you kids thinks I’m laughing at you and you get hurt by it, did I hurt your feelings or did you hurt your feelings. If you can make someone mad or hurt someone’s feelings without even knowing you’re doing it, are you really doing it?
3. Most of the time when we look at a person, we don’t see the person as they are right then. We look at them and see how they were yesterday or the day before. It’s very important when we look at someone to try to see the person as they are at that exact time. Then we’ll see them as a child of God. If they hurt us yesterday, we may still carry that hurt around inside us. We may treat them badly because they treated us badly. Then, of course, they’ll probably hurt us again and the cycle will continue. If we choose to forgive them, we can start brand new. Then they’ll think, “that person is really nice”. “I’m sorry I hurt them.” And they’ll start being nice back. Niceness brings more niceness.
4. “Trust” is very important between a parent and a child. Sometimes you kids think you should be allowed to do something and I don’t think you should be allowed to do it. Perhaps the reason is that sometimes I have lost my trust in you. If you want to have privileges like staying up late, going over to a friend’s house, playing Sega, watching movies, staying home alone, you have to follow the rules of the house. If you do your best in school, do a good job on your chores, are kind and polite to me, Dad, your brothers and sisters, and do as you’re told, we will think you are a responsible person. We will trust you. The more we trust you, the more good things will happen in your life. We will allow you to do more activities because we know we can trust you. And we really want to do nice things for you. We want to give you things and see you happy.
5. Happiness comes from inside you. Just as anger and hurt are not caused by other people, happiness does not come from other people. If you make the right decisions and follow the rules, you will feel good about yourself. You will be proud of yourself and you will be happy. Your parents will be proud of you too. We want to give you encouragement and support. We want to help you feel good about yourself. But only you can make yourself happy.
6. I think everything that happens in our lives happens for a reason. Most of the time we don’t know what the reasons are. But sometimes we can figure them out. I think we became a family because we needed each other. I needed to learn how to be a better mother. You kids needed to learn how to be better children. Dad and I needed to learn how to be good partners. Sometimes a family is about learning to share. Sometimes it’s about putting the needs of others before our own. Sometimes it’s about learning to give up something to get something more. But basically, we’re all lucky. We have the opportunity right here. You kids want to learn to be better kids. I want to be a better mother. I want to try my best because there’s a lot I can learn from you guys. I want to be open to learn what you have to teach me.
7. “I like myself.” That is a powerful affirmation. You might think that it’s silly to say this because everyone likes him or herself. But that isn’t so. Some people deep down don’t like themselves very well. These people behave so that other people won’t like them either. They’re rude and angry people. It’s difficult for other people to like rude and angry people. On the other hand, if you like yourself you will have lots of friends. You won’t feel like you have to compete with everyone else because you will have a deep down feeling that you are good and nice. You will know that you are good and nice and everyone else will know it too because that’s how you will behave. Everyone likes good and nice people.
8. The most important thing in your life is God. Everything else is really not important because everything else comes and goes. Only God stays and he stays with you always. He never leaves you no matter how bad you think you are. God always knows that you are good and worthy of his love for you. That’s how parents should be too although not all parents are. Good parents always love their kids no matter how much they misbehave. Sometimes they’re angry at their children but they still love them. There’s no price tag we could put on any of you kids. We wouldn’t sell you for ten million trillion dollars.
9. This life and this body we have now aren’t that important. Our bodies are only temporary. We are really “incredible beings of light” stuck inside our bodies. When we are born, we decide which mother and father to be born to. In our spirit form we can see everything and so we can make the decision that is right for us. We all choose to be rich or poor, smart or dumb, pretty or ugly. So we can’t blame our parents for any of it. We chose the parents who can help us learn what we need to know. Nothing happens by chance. It’s all planned by our spirits ahead of time.
10. We have probably known each other before in other lifetimes. Perhaps in that other life, you were the parents and I was the child. You might wonder why you don’t remember it. But we don’t even remember most of what happened to us a few years ago. Why would we remember what happened a lifetime ago. But something inside us does remember. It remembers everything from every lifetime. It stores up all the experiences we’ve ever had. And hopefully it helps us know things about our life now that can help us. We are the sum total of all our experiences.
11. Karma is our way of learning from our experiences. If we are good and kind to someone, someone will be good and kind to us. If we give a man on the street corner a dollar, someone will give us ten dollars. That’s the law of “reaping what we sow”. If you plant the seeds for wheat, wheat will grow. If you plant the seeds of goodness, you will get goodness in return. If you don’t plant any seeds, nothing will grow except weeds. That’s what you will get for not giving of yourself. So you see that’s why when you do something for someone else, you’re really doing it for yourself too. And you feel good about yourself when you do something for someone else.
12. Jesus said to turn the other cheek. When someone does something mean to you, you’re not supposed to do something mean back. That’s really hard to do. But if you look at it in another way, it’s not as hard. When people are mean to you, it means they don’t love themselves. They don’t feel good about themselves and they want you to reinforce that feeling. But by walking away or sending them love back, you help yourself and them both. You feel good about yourself and you help them feel good about themselves too. You show them that they really are deserving of love. You show them that you “don’t buy it” that they’re bad. You show them that you love them as God loves them.
13. Money really isn’t that important. Some people have a lot of money and they’re still not happy. Money doesn’t make you happy because that comes from inside yourself. Sometimes money even makes it harder for you to be happy. Some people who have money are so afraid of losing it that they can’t enjoy it. They also put a lot of emphasis on their possessions--their cars, houses, trips, etc. They think so much about material things that they forget about what’s really important--the spiritual things. Some people who are rich, however, don’t do that. If you have a lot of money, you don’t have to worry about anything material. So you have time to spend studying about spiritual things and growing spiritually.
14. Sometimes we don’t realize how many choices we have. We have a million choices a day. Some of our choices have to do with choosing to be happy or sad. When it rains, we can be sad and chose to think about what we can’t do because of the rain or we can be happy and think about how good the rain is for the flowers. It also makes things smell so fresh after it’s over. We have control over our emotions. We can chose to get angry about something someone says or we can chose to laugh about it. When we feel tired or stressed out, sometimes it’s harder to chose to laugh about it. But no matter what our choice, we can choose to do the opposite next time.
15. If we do something that doesn’t make us feel good about ourselves, we can dwell on it or we can let it go. When Dad and I yell at you guys, we don’t feel very good about ourselves for that. If we think about it a lot, we usually feel worse. That doesn’t do anybody any good. It works better if we just try to let it go and try harder in the future. The same goes for you guys. If we tell you that you haven’t followed the rules, make an effort to try harder next time. But try not to feel bad about yourself. We still love you and we want you to love yourself. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Nobody’s perfect. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes.
16. Did you guys know that what you think about a lot is what is most likely to happen. We create our life by our thoughts. If we think we’re good and worthy, we’ll draw good and worthy people to us. If we think we’re bad and worthless, we’re not likely to have a lot of good happen to us. There’s really no such thing as “luck”. You make your own luck. If you think you’re lucky, you will be because you will bring the luck to yourself. That’s why we say affirmations like “riches of every sort are drawn to us”. The more we think about good things happening to us, the more they will happen to us.
17. One of the reasons we shouldn’t say “I can’t do it” is because our words are even more powerful than our thoughts. If we think we can’t do something and then we say we can’t do it, what chance do we have of doing it. At least if we think we can’t do something but we say “I can do it”, we have a lot better chance of doing it. If we say “I can do it” a hundred times, we have an even better chance. That’s what the story “The Little Engine That Could” is about. He kept saying, “I think I can, I think I can” and so he did it.
18. There are really two different kinds of pride--the good kind and the not so good kind. When you guys say someone you know thinks they’re “all that”, you’re not paying them a compliment. But when Dad and I say, “we’re proud of you” or “you should be proud of yourself”, that’s the good kind of pride. That kind of pride is a good feeling inside yourself. You don’t have to go bragging about how great you are. You just feel it deep inside and it makes you feel good. It makes Dad and I feel good too.
19. We can pray to the Holy Spirit to help us here on earth. He hears us every time we pray. He may not always answer us in the way we would like to be answered, but he answers us in the way that’s best for us. We may not see this at the time but after awhile we may realize it. Before I met Dad, I was going out with someone else. I really wanted him to love me. I prayed to God that he would. I thought God didn’t answer me, but I was wrong. He knew that you guys needed me more. Now I can see that it worked out for the best for everyone. Now I can see that my prayer was answered much more than I hoped. God wants what is best for us.
20. We say in church that “we are one”. Do you know what that means. If we are one, why would we want to hurt each other. That is the same as hurting ourselves. And it really is because when we hurt someone else we don’t feel good about ourselves. So we’re hurt the most. We are all one body. We are called “the Son of God”. It’s as if we are an ocean. We are all drops in the ocean. You can separate one drop from the rest, but together we make up the ocean. Something that happens to one drop is felt by all the others. That’s the way it is with us. All of us are joined together. That’s why what happens to a little child in Russia affects us here in the United States.
21. We are one as a family too. When one of the members of the family is having a hard time, we need to pull together and help that person. We shouldn’t try to make the person feel worse. They probably feel pretty bad enough already and that’s why their behavior is not good. Have you ever heard the expression, “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch”? Unfortunately, that’s what happens. One apple goes bad and affects all the others around it. When one child behaves badly, everyone is affected. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We’re not apples, we’re people. We can choose to see the person’s behavior as a “call for love”. We can feel sorry that the person doesn’t realize they are a beloved child of God. If they knew that, they would feel so good about themselves, they couldn’t misbehave.
22. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be rich and famous. If you feel like you are worthwhile and deserving of everything good because you are loved by your Father, God, you will cause wealth and fame to be attracted to you. However, if you need wealth and fame to feel special, that’s not so good. You are special and loved just the way you are. You don’t have to prove to God that you’re worthy. He already knows it.
23. Do you know it really doesn’t matter what other people think of you. In fact to judge another person because of the way they look or act is not for us to decide. So if someone is mean to you, makes fun of you or calls you dumb, does that make it so? It’s just one person’s opinion and it really doesn’t matter. And if you act mean back, you won’t feel good about yourself. What does matter is what God thinks of you--and he thinks you’re wonderful. You are his child and he loves you no matter how you look or act. That’s what’s important, not what somebody else says about you.
24. Our bodies and souls give off a kind of light that surrounds us. It’s called our aura. That’s why when you see pictures of Jesus, Mary or one of the saints, many times there’s light drawn around them. People are affected by other people’s auras. They can be affected in a good way or a bad way. If you’re around someone who is always complaining and always feeling bad about themselves, sometimes you’ll start to feel that way too. That’s one of the reasons it’s important to surround yourself with friends who are good and positive. It will rub off on you and you will rub off on them too.
25. You can extend your light to others by just thinking about it. If someone is not feeling well, many times a group of people will get together and send the sick person healing energy. You can do that by just thinking about it. It’s really like praying. Or you can think of white light coming into your own body and making you feel better. Another thing we can do it think of white light covering the whole earth. That way everybody will feel better.
26. When a group of people think about something it has a better chance of happening than if just one person thinks about it. The more people pray for something to happen the better because our thoughts are very powerful. Everything starts with a thought. Have you seen the bumper stickers that say “Think World Peace”? Isn’t that a good thing for everybody to think about? It’s easy to understand that if everyone wants peace, it will happen because no one will fight.
27. Did you know that it takes two people to fight. If there were only one person in the world or in a family that wanted to fight, there wouldn’t be a fight. People who don’t believe in fighting or in war are called pacifists. A lot of the hippies of my generation were pacifists. They had a motto, “Make love, not war.” If we were all pacifists, there would be no war. It’s the same with an argument. You can’t have an argument with just one person. If one person wants to argue and the other person refuses to argue or just walks away, there’s no argument. Right?
28. I think there’s a whole lot going on in the world that we don’t see. Even when we think we’re alone, I don’t think we’re really alone. I think everyone has a guardian angel and spirit guides to help them make the right decisions. These angels and guides don’t have bodies like we do. That’s why we can’t see them. But they are connected with our minds. When our bodies die, our spirits are still living. That’s why we can pray to people we know who have died and they can help us.
29. Some people say there’s a veil between those that live in bodies and those that live in spirit. Do you know what a veil is? It is very thin and transparent. Those on the side of the veil that we’re on don’t see what’s on the other side. But the spirits on the other side can see everything that goes on over here. That is why we say even though someone has crossed over to the other side of the veil (or died) they are still with us. They’re just in a different form.
30. Have you ever heard of Albert Einstein. He discovered a truth and that’s why he is so famous. He discovered the truth that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. That means that even though we think we have destroyed something, it is not destroyed. It has merely changed form. If we burn paper, is the matter that makes up the paper destroyed. No, it is just changed into ashes that are then scattered or blown away. But they still exist. It’s the same with everything, including people. When we die, we discard our bodies. They are changed into dust. But we are still our souls, the part of us that never dies.
31. I like the motto, “It’s not how GOOD you are, it’s how BAD you want it”. That means if you put a lot of thought and effort into something, you’re more likely to be successful at it. That’s why I always say to give it your best effort. It’s easy to do something half way. Then if you don’t succeed you can always say to yourself, “I didn’t accomplish my goal because I didn’t try very hard”. But it’s better to put everything you have into something. Then if you don’t succeed, you can still feel good about doing your best.
32. It’s always good to take a few minutes throughout the day to pause and listen to your inner voice. Deep inside yourself, you know the answers to all your questions. If you get in the habit of sitting quietly and thinking about your goals and your affirmations, you’ve taken the first step to accomplishing them. People have done research and discovered that if you close your eyes and try to be real calm, your body reaches a state when your brain waves are different than when you’re awake with your eyes open. When you think in this quiet state, it works better than when you think with your eyes open. Thinking in this way is called dynamic meditation.
33. Do you know what a motive is? A motive is the reason someone does something. If you tell a lie, there can be many reasons for telling it. You could tell a lie because you’re afraid of getting into trouble. Or you could tell a lie because you want to get someone else in trouble. Neither of these is a very good motive for telling a lie. However, you could tell a lie because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. Maybe you say you like someone’s hair or dress when you really don’t. That is a much better motive for telling a lie. We shouldn’t judge another person’s actions because we never know what their motive may be.
34. If you don’t need or want much, it’s easy to be happy. The more you want or need the harder it is to be happy. If you need a fancy car or a big, expensive house to be happy, you may have a hard time getting these things. You may have to put a lot of time and energy into meeting these needs. You may have to give up a lot of things, like time spent with your family or time spent on your hobbies, to accomplish your goals. If you want a nice but inexpensive car and a small house, you may not have to sacrifice as much of yourself to get them.
35. Life isn’t fair on the outside. Some people are born rich and some poor. Some are born blind and some can see. But we’re judging those born poor and blind as the unfortunate ones. How do we know they are unfortunate. Jesus said it is easier for a poor man to find his way to heaven than a rich man. A rich man has many distractions in the things he can buy with his wealth. A man who can see has more distractions than a man who is blind. It is not for us to judge what is fair and what is not.
36. Life really is fair even though it may not look like it to us. We may think because someone gets to go somewhere we can’t go, it’s not fair. However, because of karma, life is totally fair. We get back what we give in life. If we try to see the best in everything and everybody, we will be truly blessed. If we always think we’re getting the short end of the stick, that’s what we’ll get. If we focus on everything we have instead of on everything we don’t have, we’ll realize how lucky we are.
37. Why is it so difficult to be nice to each other? Why is it so difficult to treat other people the way we would like to be treated? Every time we open our mouths and say something, we should think about how the person will feel who is hearing it. Will it make them feel good about themselves? However, sometimes we need to tell people things they don’t want to hear. Then we have to be very careful of the tone of our voice. Speak softly and nicely. That way the person will listen to what you’re saying. If you speak loudly and angrily, all they will hear is the tone of your voice.
38. Some people are very negative. Do you know what that means? They’re grumpy and glum and always expect the worst. They say things like, “I never win” and they act mean and angry so people tend to stay away from them. They’re right, they never will win. Why? Because they’re too busy grumbling to put any energy into winning. All their energy in spent on expecting to lose. It’s best to stay away from people like that. Negative energy is catching. If you hang around with people like that, you might pick up their bad habits.
39. If someone teases you, resist getting angry. That’s what they want. They want to prove to themselves they have power over you. They say to themselves, I can make that person mad any time I want. They think that makes them feel good and powerful; but in the long run, it really doesn’t. Don’t let them think they can control you. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Don’t give away your power. Walk away or laugh or better yet, bless them.
40. Did you ever hear someone say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff”. That means don’t get all upset over something little and petty. Don’t get all worked up over things that really don’t matter. But then remember, it’s all small stuff. When you think about it, everything that happens in this life is unimportant because this life passes away. The only things that really matter are God and your relationship to Him. When you’re angry or upset about something, say to yourself, “Will this matter in five years?”
41. Because everything, including our bodies and our minds, is made of energy, we are constantly changing. Nothing about us stays the same for very long. When we’re children, our bodies seem to change very fast because we’re growing. But when we’re adults, our bodies are still constantly changing because we’re getting older. Our minds are changing even quicker than our bodies. Every time we hear a new thought or learn a new thing, our minds change. That’s why it’s so important to be openminded. That means we listen to new thoughts and ideas with an open mind instead of a closed mind. Having an open mind means not thinking that we know everything, but instead thinking that we can learn something new from every situation.
42. It’s very helpful to think of change as good because it’s inevitable. That means it’s going to happen whether we want it to or not. Sometimes we get very comfortable with our lives the way they are and we don’t want anything to change. If something changes, we may be fearful that we won’t like it or won’t be able to handle it. But it’s this fear that makes change so difficult. If we look at change as a good thing, as a challenge instead of a problem, we can feel good about the way we handle the change. And changes we go through may make our lives easier and happier.
43. It’s always good to set goals for yourself. That way you can feel good about your accomplishments. You can set goals like, “I’ll read ten books before the end of the year”. Then you get the benefit of reading the books and also the benefit of feeling good about accomplishing your goal. You can also set goals like, “Today I will stop and count to ten instead of getting mad just one time.” That’s a start and you have to start somewhere. If you set goals like, “I will read more or I will not get mad anymore”, that would be too difficult. You might fail and get discouraged. Set small goals first. That way you can feel good about yourself after each little accomplishment. Before you know it, you’ll be able to achieve anything you decide to achieve.
44. Always look for the best in everyone. If you see the best in someone and expect the best from them, they will try to live up to your expectation. The problem is we tend to look for the worst in people and then point that out. So then the person tries to live up to that expectation. If we’re always saying he doesn’t know how to behave, of course he’s not going to know how to behave. If we’re always saying I expect the best from you and then we compliment the person on their behavior when it’s good, their behavior should get better. But, of course, the person has to feel good about themselves on the inside. If they think they don’t deserve praise and love, they will act so as not to get it.
45. Nobody can make us happy but ourselves. Sometimes we think if only I had a Sony Playstation or a Corvette or a certain person in my life, I would be happy. But it never works out that way. A lot of times we think we want something really badly, but when we get it we realize we want something else really badly. It continues like that until we realize that happiness doesn’t come from outside ourselves. It doesn’t come from things out in the world. It has to come from inside ourselves--from the good feeling of knowing that God loves us now and forever.
46. We are as God created us. We haven’t done anything to change that. We aren’t guilty sinners; we’re beloved children. God loves us no matter what. God doesn’t judge us. He doesn’t say, “You’re bad; you need to be punished”. We’re the ones who say that. We punish ourselves. If we do something (like for example kill someone), we know deep in our hearts that we shouldn’t have done that. We feel bad and punish ourselves by not loving ourselves. God still loves us and will welcome us home when we decide we deserve it. That’s why we need to be loving and kind.
47. Everything is really very simple. Be good and follow God’s commandments. Treat each other with respect, and you will be treated with respect. See the best in everyone and they will see the best in you. You’re in charge of your own happiness. See the best in every experience. Everything that happens to you can teach you something if you let it. See situations as challenges instead of problems. Then give yourself a pat on the back when you’ve done your best.
48. Life is difficult. It’s supposed to be. It’s where we learn and grow. If everything is always given to us without us having to work for it, we never learn how to get things for ourselves. If a parent always does everything for a child, how can the child ever learn to be independent. How will the child ever feel good about his own accomplishments? That’s why it’s important to learn to do things for ourselves even if we think we can’t do them. Maybe the first 10 times we try to do something, we fail. But if we succeed on the 11th try, were the first 10 really failures. Weren’t they learning experiences?
49. If we see ourselves doing something in our mind’s eye, it helps us actually do it. This is called visualizing. If we’re shy or afraid to approach someone, we can visualize the scene actually happening. We can see in our mind what we will say when we are talking to the person. We can imagine what they will say back to us. Then when we actually confront the person, it will be easier because we have rehearsed it. It’s the same with playing a sport or giving a speech or doing anything we think is difficult. Visualize a good outcome and you’ll be assured of one.
50. I guess you know that a lot of teenagers and young people do drugs. Do you know how drugs make you feel? Some drugs make you feel calm and in control. Some make you feel like you’re “king of the world” and you can do anything. Some make you feel like you have endless energy and never have to sleep. Some make you feel like everything you say is the funniest thing anybody ever said. The problem with drugs is they put you in an “altered state”. They make you feel differently than you do normally. And that feeling or “altered state” only lasts as long as the drug lasts--often only a few hours. Then you’re back looking at your real self. And if you don’t like what you see, that’s when you go back looking for the drug again. And you get hooked.
51. If you get hooked on drugs, you have to have them no matter what. You’ll lie, cheat and steal to get the money for the drugs. And with drugs you usually have to use more and more of them to get the same good feeling back. And after the drugs wear off, you’ll feel worse and worse. And you’ll go broke in the process and may even lose your life. The reason young people usually start using drugs is to fit in. Maybe their “friends” tell them to try them if they want to be cool. The trouble is, once you try them, you might get hooked. You have to feel good enough about yourself to tell your “friends” you don’t need drugs to be cool.
52. Sometimes young people think their lives are so messed up they’re not worth living. They think getting a bad grade or losing a boyfriend or girlfriend is something they cannot get over. They can’t see the fact that time heals everything and that everything happens for a reason. They can’t see past tomorrow. So they commit suicide and think all their problems are gone. However, because death is not the end of life, the only thing they’re leaving behind is that particular set of problems. You can be assured that in their next life they will have to face the same challenge again and again and again--until they get it right.
53. Problems are very persistent. If we try to sweep them under the rug, we’ll only get a big, lumpy rug. That means you can only avoid your problems for so long. If you have a problem expressing yourself, you can only ignore that problem for so long. You may realize you’re having to give up more and more because you’re not telling people how you feel or what you want in an appropriate way. Unless you confront the problem (or face your fear) and begin to try to express your thoughts and feelings honestly and without anger, you’ll never be able to feel good about overcoming your fear. And feeling good about yourself and feeling you deserve to be happy and have a happy life will get it for you.
54. The parents have to be the boss. Children think they know a lot more than they do sometimes. They think they know what’s best for them. But it takes living awhile before you get the hang of what’s going on. And sometimes even then you don’t. But the older you get the more you realize that what your parents told you when you were young, is really true. It wasn’t until I had my first child and I heard myself saying the very words my mother used to say to me that I realized how right she was. I think this has been going on for generations. Kids always think they know best and parents always shake their heads.
55. God is like your parent too. He knows what’s best for you. Sometimes when you pray and you think he doesn’t answer you, it’s because he knows that what you’re praying for isn’t good for you. Sometimes you ask you parents for something but they don’t give you what you ask for. Maybe they realize that what you think you want you wouldn’t be happy with if you got it. Maybe they buy you something and later you realize it’s really better than what you thought you wanted.
56. Usually when you get to be a teenager you think you know what’s best for you even more than when you’re a child. You’re almost an adult and you want to be treated like one. Teenagers are usually in a big hurry to get all the privileges that adults have. But the problem is sometimes they don’t want to accept the responsibilities. If you’re still living in your parents’ house, then you still have to follow their rules no matter how much you disagree with them. Of course that goes even more so when you’re a child. You’re not capable of making good decisions about a lot of things because you don’t have all the facts.
57. Experience and learning comes with time. You can’t expect a baby to know very much because they haven’t experienced very much. They don’t know what it’s like to do anything for themselves. But as you grow and experience things, you learn. Hopefully you learn the easy way. Learning the easy way is learning from the first experience of something. If you stick your hand on the stove when you’re a baby and it burns you, hopefully you won’t stick your hand on the stove again. But if you keep sticking your hand on the stove until you’ve burned yourself a hundred times, that’s learning the hard way.
58. With most experiences in life, learning the hard way is not as apparent as the example of sticking your hand on the stove a hundred times. But it’s really just the same. If you’re angry and talk back to your mother or father and they put you in time out, isn’t that the same as burning your hand on the stove. How many times does it take before you learn--I don’t like time out. If I talk back to my parents, I get time out. I’m not going to talk back to my parents anymore. Learning the easy way is learning it the first time. Learning the hard way is doing it 100 times before you learn.
59. Learning from our experiences is not always that easy. That is the reason for reincarnation. If we learned everything the first time we were in a body on the earth, there wouldn’t be any need to come back and live again. However, it seems like there are many lessons. In reality there is only one. The lesson is to learn that God loves us no matter what and that he has never left us. We cannot be separate from God. If we could really learn that, we wouldn’t have any need to keep going through the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
60. “Above all else, I want the peace of God.” This is the best goal. All other goals are temporary. The peace of God is forever. It can’t be taken from you. To have the peace of God means that whatever happens in your life, you will still be happy. If you can accept the fact that everything happens for a reason, you don’t have to be angry when something doesn’t go the way you want it to. If you accept that “Everything’s working out perfectly”, your life will be happy and fulfilling.
61. It makes us feel really good to do something for someone else. When we see someone standing on the street corner asking for money, we feel sorry for them. When we give them some money, it makes us feel good because we’re helping them out. One of the reasons it makes us feel so good is that the person we are helping is a part of us. They are a part of the human race to which we also belong. We get a good feeling when we know we’re all in this thing called “life” together. We’re not standing alone and lonely. We are a part of something and we can never really be alone. We’re all brothers and sisters, members of the same family--the human race.
62. Just as we can’t really be alone because we are a part of the human race, we can’t really be alone because God is always with us. We cannot be separate from him. We can think that he has abandoned us or that he doesn’t love us. We can feel like we’re alone. But just because we think and feel these things, doesn’t make it so. God never leaves us. He is always a part of us. He’s so close to us that we can talk to him with our mind and he can hear us. He knows every thought we have and he loves us no matter what we think.
63. We have to accept that there are certain things in life we can’t control. Like the weather, for example. We can’t say we want it to be a sunny day and know it will be a sunny day. However, we can control our “social weather”. Our “social weather” is our attitude or our state of mind. We can say to ourselves whether it is a sunny day or a cloudy day, I can choose to be happy. I am in control of my emotions. Nothing outside of me that I can’t control can have control over me.
64. We should never settle for staying the same. We should always try to get better and better everyday. If we have a problem or a challenge with something, we should work on solving the problem or meeting the challenge. If, for example, we get irritable easily when things don’t go our way, we could work on how we can change our reaction. We could teach ourselves to pause a second before we react. During that pause we can then use our minds to decide whether it’s really worth getting upset about. Instead of just reacting the way we’ve always reacted, we pause to make a choice.
65. Why is it so difficult to make changes? In a way we are like computers. Once we’re programmed to react a certain way, it becomes automatic. To change an automatic behavior requires constant effort. We must work and work and work at it until the new behavior becomes automatic. But it’s worth the effort. What we get in the end is a more productive, more fulfilling and happier life. We step onto the continuous spiral of growth, change and continuous improvement.
66. We must learn to make good choices. Sometimes even grown-ups haven’t learned to make good choices. President Clinton made a very bad choice when he fooled around with Monica Lewinsky in his office. He could have even lost his job for the choice he made. What happens to you when you make bad choices are difficult consequences. President Clinton had to deal with the consequences of his actions. It was not an easy time for him or for the country. If he realizes that no one was responsible for what happened to him but himself, maybe he will learn to make better choices. If he continues to say that it was all someone else’s fault, he won’t learn to make better choices. The same is true for everyone.
67. We are individuals with free wills. That means we are free to make our own choices. We can make our own choices but we cannot choose the consequences. If we eat or drink a whole lot, chances are we will get sick. We would like to be able to eat and drink and not get sick, but that’s not the way it works. If we choose to disobey our parents, there will be a consequence. That’s called “picking up both ends of the stick”. You do one thing, and the other goes with it. You can’t just pick up one end of a stick and not the other.
68. There’s really no such thing as a mistakes. Everything is just a learning experience. Is it a mistake to spell a word wrong if we learn from the experience how to spell the word right? When a baby is learning to walk, it falls hundreds of times. Can we call those mistakes? No, they’re learning experience because by falling the baby learns to walk. It’s the same for us in life. By falling (or failing) we learn to get back up (or succeed).
69. People who are great or who are heroes have passion. Having passion for something means wanting it with all your heart. I like to read biographies of people who were great at something because it gives me an insight into how to be great myself. In reading or learning about great dancers, painters and writers, we learn about their passion to express themselves. They put their whole heart and soul into their work. If you want to be great, do everything full out. Do everything with passion.
70. There’s a song we sing in church that has some really beautiful words. It says, “It’s in giving that we receive, and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.” So things aren’t always what they seem. When we give something away it actually returns to us tenfold or even 100 fold. This means that when we give unselfishly of ourselves, our energies, our money, etc., we will be rewarded. This is the law of karma. We get back even more abundantly what we give. Also when someone dies we may be sad. But we have to remember we can only have eternal life in our spirit form. Our bodies don’t live forever, but our spirits do.
71. People always want to be around cheerful people. When you smile and are happy, your mood spreads. Other people pick up your vibrations. They want to be around you because when they’re with you, they feel better themselves. They feel like smiling too. You’re kind of like the sunshine. But when you’re grumpy and angry, people don’t want to be around you. It makes them feel bad. You’re like a rainy day. They’ll want to leave you and get back into the sunshine.
72. It’s not always easy to be cheerful. Sometimes we’re tired, or sick or irritable. That’s when we really have to work at it. That’s also when affirmations come in handy. We can say to ourselves, “I’m cheerful and optimistic”, even when we don’t feel like either one of them. But in saying that to ourselves, or even better out loud, we can change a bad mood into a good one. After all, we’re in control of our emotions.
73. Friends and family are very important. Family helps you feel a part of something and that you’re not alone. Your family provides companionship and unconditional love. That means your family will love you no matter what so you can be freer to explore different aspects of yourself. Your friends can also teach you a lot about yourself. Friends you’ve had a long time are most valuable as they can help you see how you’ve changed over the years--for the good or bad.
74. Have you ever heard of psychics? That’s a modern word for fortune tellers or people who can tell you the future. Some psychics are just fakes or frauds. They just pretend to know things about you. But in reality, we’re all psychic. We’re getting information all the time about ourselves and our future, but most of us are too busy to listen. When we are quiet and meditate, we can hear our inner voice. It might be telling us to make some changes. It’s best to listen.
75. A lot of people fill their lives with busyness so they won’t have to listen to their inner voice. They’re constantly involved with projects and people, and they hate to be alone. When they’re alone, they feel uncomfortable because it’s harder to ignore their inner voice when by themselves. If you find yourself not wanting to be by yourself and alone with your thoughts, you probably have this problem. Take time out to listen to yourself. You’re smarter and you know more than you think because you have the Holy Spirit as your guide.
76. When you feel sick, try not to think about it. Don’t think sickness; think wellness. If you keep saying to yourself, “I feel awful”, is it any wonder that you do. Say, “I’m getting better and better with every breath”. That will allow that thought to grow in your mind. That’s why I don’t like to hear about how bad you kids feel. I don’t want to dwell on that. I want you to think about getting better not about how sick you feel. Also, take responsibility for getting well. Think what can I do to get better.
77. Prayer is the answer to all your problems. If you’re having trouble with anything, prayer will help. When I have problems dealing with my bosses, kids, co-workers, anything; if I pray about it, I usually feel better. I may not get an answer at all, but I will get help. I’ll feel like I’m not alone. Answers often don’t come overnight—they come with time. Dealing with problems is ongoing—so is the help we get in dealing with them. All we need do is ask.
78. Challenges make us stronger. When I feel like I’ve had a really difficult day, I’m tired. But a lot of times I feel really good because I’ve succeeded in making it through. I’m sure the same is true for you kids when you’ve had difficult workouts. Challenges are like conditioning. You need them to get stronger. They feel bad and hurt at the time you’re trying to meet them. But you feel stronger and better after you’ve conquered them.
79. Challenges are also like running marathons. Running marathons is really hard. You get out of breath. Your legs get rubbery. You feel like you can’t go on. You push and push yourself harder and harder. But after you’ve completed a marathon, you feel exhilirated. You feel like there’s nothing you can’t do—no challenge you can’t meet. I guess maybe that’s why so many people like to run them. You want to prove to yourself that you can meet the challenge. I feel sorry for people who never try anything really difficult, or try to face their challenges, because they’ll never get that wonderful feeling of succeeding.
80. God never gives us challenges that we can’t handle because he gives us the grace to meet our challenges. Grace is a special gift from God. All we need to do is ask for it and he gives it to us. If we’re feeling sad, we can ask God for grace to see us through our sadness. If we’re feeling mad, we can ask God for grace to use our anger to teach us something. Grace is like a blessing. God gives it to us and says, “Bless you and I’ll love you forever”.
81. When we’re born into a body, we think we’re separate from everyone else. We spend our lives finding out who we are. If we’re rich, we define ourselves as being rich. If we’re smart or good at gymnastics or baseball, we define ourselves that way. The way we define ourselves changes constantly. For awhile we’re children, then we’re teenagers, then adults and then old people. But in reality, all this defining ourselves is nonsense. In reality, we’re as God created us. We’re never-changing and all perfect beings who cannot sin or be separate from each other or from God.
82. I’ve been reading a book, “Daily Reflections For Highly Effective People”. In it the writer describes a lot of methods we should try to make habits. Habits are things we do without even thinking about them. One of the habits is called, “Sharpen the Saw”. To do this, everyday we make it a habit to promise to ourselves to do our best. In the morning, we think and meditate on those things we want to work on during the day. In the evening, we look back and see how we did. Even if we didn’t do everything that we wanted to do, we worked on it. It will become easier with time.
83. One of the other methods we should try to make a habit is “Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood”. This means that we listen with open ears when someone is telling us something. We don’t automatically think that we know what the person is going to say. We don’t automatically think that what they’re going to say doesn’t apply to us. And we don’t automatically think that we don’t want to hear it. We try to listen and hear what they’re saying first. Then, and only then, can we say what’s on our minds.
84. Another of the methods to become an effective person is to “Put First Things First”. So often we put things off that are most important because they’re unpleasant. But doing things first is a good way to become a disciplined person. It’s also called delaying gratification. If we can do the unpleasant but necessary tasks first and leave the fun for later, we can delay gratification. This is a sign of maturity and is absolutely necessary to becoming an effective person.
85. Don’t take life so seriously. Learn to laugh at yourself. If you learn to look at the light side of things, you’ll be happier. If you do something embarassing or if someone criticizes you, make a joke out of it. If you get angry, that may make the person want to tease you all the more. If someone laughs at you, laugh along with them. If you cry, you’ve given them what they want—power over you. Have you ever heard the saying, “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone.”
86. Your ego is the part of you that thinks you’re an individual. It trys to protect itself by building a wall around itself. That wall is your body. In reality, your ego doesn’t exist because all of us are ONE. So, in reality, your body doesn’t exist. It is made by the ego to keep you separate. Our belief in our separateness causes us a lot of pain. It makes us think we have something to protect from something else. In reality we don’t need to protect or defend ourselves from anything. Our ONENESS with each other and with God makes us safe forever.
87. Death isn’t real because it’s only our body that dies. Our body isn’t real anyway because it was “thought up” by our ego to make us believe we’re separate. So death isn’t so scary. When we die we just go back into our more pure, spirit form. When we think we’re in our body, we can use our time on earth constructively or destructively. We can be angry and sad and see everyone else as our enemy, or we can be happy and at peace and realize we are ONE with everyone. It’s our choice.
88. Everything is a choice. We can chose to follow rules or chose to disregard them. We can chose to be happy or chose to be sad. We can chose to have close friends or chose to be alone. We can chose to have a good job or chose not to work at all. But in making those choices we also take the consequences of those choices. If we don’t follow the rules of society, we may be put in jail. If we chose to be alone, we will probably be sad and lonely. If we chose not to work, we probably will not have a nice house or nice things. That’s why it’s important when we’re children to listen to our parents and teachers. Their job is to help us learn to make the right choices.
89. Everyone has feelings. Feelings are neither good nor bad. If we feel sad or angry, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s only when we act on our feelings that we can make mistakes. If we’re angry, we may say unkind words to try to hurt someone. When we’re angry, we can use our fists to try to hurt someone. Either way, we’re acting on our feelings in a negative way instead of trying to deal with them positively. A positive way to deal with our feelings is to talk about how we feel. Talking about our feelings with teachers, parents and counselors is a positive way to deal with them.
90. One of the things parents need to do is help their children learn to make good choices. Good choices make children feel good about themselves. Bad choices don’t. A child may think that making a choice to eat a candy bar that they’re not supposed to eat will make them feel good. They think about how good the candy will taste and they think that good taste will make them feel good. However, after the candy bar is gone and the child has had that few minutes of feeling good, they start to feel bad about their choice. They realize that candy is not good for them and that they shouldn’t have made the choice to eat the candy bar.
91. Maybe the child who ate the candy bar feels bad because he knows he went against his parent’s wishes. It’s good to want to please your parents. But it’s best to want to make good choices because of the way it makes you feel. You choose to eat the candy; you feel bad about yourself. You choose not to eat the candy; you feel good about yourself. It’s just that simple. The choice is yours to make.
92. Sometimes we think making the choice to fool or lie to our parents or friends makes us feel good. It makes us feel like we got something over on someone. It makes us feel like we have power. However, that feeling doesn’t last. What is left in its place is a bad feeling. Because we’re children of God, we know deep inside what’s right and what’s wrong. That’s why when we make the wrong choice—to fool or lie—we always feel bad in the end.
93. In order for parents to help kids make good choices, they must be consistent. Being consistent means following through every time with predetermined consequences. If the consequence of lying is writing “I’m truthful and sincere 100 times”; then every time the child is caught lying, that is the consequence. Then the child knows for sure—if he’s caught lying, he will have to write. So in making the choice of whether to lie or not, the child is making the choice of lying and having to write or telling the truth and not having to write. Then the child realizes that it’s not the parent who is “punishing” the child. It is the child who is making the choice.
94. I really think everyone is doing the best they can with what they know. That’s why it’s not constructive to get angry with someone. Anger doesn’t help. But sometimes it’s difficult not to get angry even though we know that. I have to try really hard not to get angry because my Dad always got angry when my brothers were disrespectful or rude. So in realizing that my anger is a learned response, something I learned by watching my father get angry, I also realize I can change that response. That’s what I’m working on.
95. So if everyone is doing the best they can with what they know, what’s the point? The point for me is to try to show my children a better way. If I can teach you that you have choices and that you choose to feel a certain way, then you will feel empowered. You won’t think that someone can make you angry or unhappy. You will realize that it’s your choice to feel that way or not. Hopefully, you will make the good choices—the ones that may you happy.
96. It has been proven that if children get good grades in school, they feel better about themselves. If children don’t get good grades, they don’t feel as good. Getting good grades and doing homework may seem like a waste of time. But it teaches you more than just the subject you’re studying. It teaches you to manage your time wisely. It teaches you to feel good when you get your work done. It teaches you discipline and to delay gratification. All these things are what makes doing your homework so important.
97. I read something in the paper a few days ago. It had some “Tips for a Happy Life”. One of them said “Seeking to please is a perilous trap”. Do you know why? When I first read that I wasn’t sure I understood it. Because a lot of times “seeking to please” is good. But then I started thinking about it. Who it is we’re trying to please makes the difference. If we act up in class because we’re “seeking to please” our friends, is that good?
98. Even “seeking to please” our parents isn’t always good. At times you have to risk not pleasing your parents in order to do what you believe is right in your heart. That takes a lot of guts. It also takes guts to stand up to your peers and tell them “no” you won’t go with them to smoke cigarettes, light matches, go down by the creek, or whatever it is your parents asked you not to do. Then your parents will be proud of you and you’ll feel good about yourself.
99. On a handout I got recently, I saw a lot of good points worth going into. “People are going to act the way they want to, not they way I want” is a good one to keep in mind. Since we can’t control the way someone else acts, it only frustrates us to try. We can control the way we act, however. That’s what we need to focus on. That’s why we say, “I’m in control of my emotions.”
100. The handout was called “Self Talk”. Self talk is the same as affirmations only you say the self talk to yourself instead of out loud. You say it when you’re feeling threatened, angry or out-of-control. One good one is, “I don’t need to feel threatened here. I can relax and stay cool”. If we say that to ourselves, or out loud, when we’re feeling threatened, it can help us change the reactions that sometimes we feel we have no control over. In that way we can teach ourselves that reactions are things we can control. They don’t have to control us.
101. Another good one is, “My anger is a signal. Time to talk to myself and relax”. We can teach ourselves that everytime we start to get angry, we can take a minute to calm ourselves down. With constant and vigilant practice, we can change our behavior. Just think how good we’ll feel about ourselves when other people can’t cause us to become angry. That’s a good kind of control to strive for—control of ourselves, not others.
102. Everyone has things that cause him or her to become angry. These things are different for everyone. For example, Dad gets more upset at traffic than I do. For some reason, traffic doesn’t bother me. But traffic is a button that, when pushed, makes Dad angry. My buttons have more to do with a messy house or something one of you guys do that causes more work for me. Some kids try to find the buttons that make their parents or brothers and sisters the most angry. And then they push them. By doing this, they feel like they have some control over their parents or siblings. So it makes them feel important. When it’s spelled out like this, you can see why “pushing other people’s buttons” is really not a nice thing to do.
103. It matters more what we’re like on the inside than on the outside. That just means we don’t have to put on a “show” to get people to like us. We don’t have to pretend that we “have it all together” or that we know everything. Actually, people like people more when they’re just themselves and they don’t try to impress. That’s why you guys say you don’t like people who think they’re “all that”. I like it when people tell me about something that embarrassed them, and they can laugh about it. That tells me that they don’t take the ego part of themselves too seriously.
104. It’s really important to be able to talk about your feelings. Some people aren’t in touch with their feelings. They talk about the weather or about what they did yesterday or the day before yesterday, but they never talk about their feelings. In order to have a close relationship with someone, you need to be able to share who you are with the other person. By sharing your feelings, you develop what is called intimacy. Developing intimacy with another human being can be very helpful as you live your life. Then you never feel like you’re alone.
105. In order to be able to share your feelings with another person, you need to be able to identify them to yourself. It’s also helpful to try to figure out “why” you feel a certain way. If you feel bad but you don’t know why you feel bad, you can’t help yourself feel better and neither can anyone else. Sometimes it helps to remember another time when you felt the same way. In that way you can see the patterns of feelings you create and so you can better understand how to free yourself from feelings you no longer want.
106. Anger is a feeling that comes upon us sometimes and we don’t know why. We usually get angry when we feel threatened. Maybe someone is saying something about us that we don’t want to hear. Maybe it’s the truth and maybe it’s not—it really doesn’t matter. Feeling threatened tells us that we feel powerless. We feel powerless because we’re not recognizing who we really are. As perfect children of a God who loves us above everything, there’s never a good reason to feel powerless. We have the power of God behind us.
107. There is a good reason we should “love our enemies”. Our enemies are the ones who teach us the most about patience and tolerance. It’s easy to love our friends. If they’re good friends, they support us and help us feel better about ourselves. But our enemies can also help us feel better about ourselves. They present us with challenges like learning to control our temper or hold our tongue. In order to become successful members of society, you must master these lessons. Then when you succeed in achieving that self-control your enemy’s force you to gain, you get a feeling of satisfaction. So “love your enemies”—and thank them too.
108. Some people think of themselves as the center of the universe. They think that everything revolves around them. If it rains, they think God did it to spoil their picnic. If someone accidentally steps on their foot, they see it as something very personal. They walk around with an attitude and weigh everything that happens to see if they’re being treated fairly. The unfortunate thing about that is the “chip on their shoulder” alienates them from everyone else. If you’re the center, you can’t be part of the group. And being part of the group gives you the feeling that you’re not alone. We can take comfort in others instead of pushing them away.
109. Patience and tolerance and empathy and compassion are all qualities to cultivate in ourselves. Patience and tolerance we learn from our enemies. Empathy and compassion come from putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Working on these qualities will help with anger. But the key is “working on”. These virtues will not come without work, just as our anger will not leave without work. We must continually strive to find the good in others. And praying to God to help never hurts.
110. Being honest with yourself is very important in learning self-control. When you aren’t honest with yourself, it’s called “denial”. Being “in denial” means you refuse to listen to others when they tell you about what is going on with you. Being “in denial” means thinking you know best even though all signs point otherwise. Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to admit you don’t know everything. Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to admit someone else is right.
111. A lot of times kids are “in denial” about drugs. They think they can try drugs just once. They think they can control themselves. They think they can stop doing drugs whenever they want. They don’t listen to their parents or their teachers. They want to prove they’re right. So they try drugs and get hooked. Even then they won’t admit they made a mistake. They still try to convince themselves and everyone around them that they can quit anytime. They’re “in denial” about needing help.
112. What do you do when someone gives you a compliment? What you should do is say, “Thank you”. Many people have a hard time accepting compliments because they don’t feel like they deserve them. They think if someone gives them a compliment for being a good kid; and they know in their heart that they’re not a good kid all the time, they should ignore the compliment. Maybe the person giving the compliment sees something you don’t see. Maybe they’re right.
113. Everyone has times in their life when they think life is so difficult they feel powerless and unable to go on. They hope that tomorrow never comes because they think they can’t survive the next day or hour or minute. But somehow they do get through it and usually it is a very important learning experience for them. I have had many such experiences and these are the things that I remember. I remember that I felt hopeless and helpless—but I’m here to tell about it. I got through it, I survived it, and now I’m a better person for it. Look at difficult experiences like this and you’ll see that it’s true—everything happens for a reason. And usually the reason is to help you learn to take the next step to becoming a happier, healthier person.
114. Much of the time we go about our day-to-day lives on auto-pilot. We may feel like we’re not really living; we may feel like we’re just going through the motions. We button and unbutton everyday; and if we don’t think about the purpose of all of it, we can remain much the same day after day. I think the object of all of this is to become “aware” or “fully conscious”. To be “fully conscious” means to understand the meaning behind everything that’s happening to us here on earth. When we’re “fully conscious”, we realize that we’re not just alive on the physical plane but on the spiritual plane as well.
115. A “fully conscious” human being realizes that they are connected to the whole human race. They realize that, as members of the human family, they have a responsibility to be of service to others. They start to think about others before themselves because they realize that in giving to others they are feeding themselves. They understand the phrase, “Peace and joy I give to you so I may have God’s peace and joy as mine”. They understand that it is in giving that we receive.
116. Becoming able to meet the challenges of life is what it’s all about. We must interact with others to become fully human and fully alive. A person who chooses to spend his days by himself, not interacting or becoming intimate with another, is “standing outside the fire”. He’s taking the easy way out. He’s sticking his nose in a book or becoming a coach potato in order to avoid the difficulties that come with human interaction. Relationships are difficult but also rewarding. The risk of “hurting” is great but the reward of “loving” is greater.
117. The book I’m reading now is by the Dalai Lama. Do you know who he is? We’re Catholic and we have the Pope as our spiritual leader. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of the Buddhists. He is a very wise man. He was chosen at birth because he remembered things from his past life that had prepared him to be the Dalai Lama. When one Dalai Lama dies, a search is made for the next one. The child who can answer all the questions that are asked of every Dalai Lama, then becomes the new Dalai Lama. Once he is appointed, he is the Dalai Lama until he dies.
118. Buddhists believe in reincarnation. They believe that everyone or almost everyone we know in this lifetime, we also knew in a previous lifetime. But we usually had a different relationship to them. Perhaps the person who is our mother in this lifetime was our child in the last one. There are a lot of things we need to work out with the people who are in our lives now. Nothing is by accident. It’s all for a reason.
119. Buddhists also believe that to want something too much causes us pain. They think that the reason we’re here on this earth is teach ourselves to be happy. If we want something that we can’t have, we won’t be happy. Therefore, the secret is don’t “want” anything. Also don’t “not want” anything. Take, for instance, thunderstorms. If you’re upset every time there is a thunderstorm, you will not be happy when it’s raining. If you adopt the attitude that you like the weather whether it’s rainy or sunny, then a thunderstorm won’t take away your peace.
120. So be determined to be happy if you get that dress or game you want, or if you don’t get that dress or game you want. Be determined to be happy if the weather is rainy or if the weather is sunny. Be determined to be happy if your children are nice and respectful, or if they’re not. Everything happens for a reason. Everything’s working out perfectly. Maybe we don’t understand now why we don’t get something or why we don’t win or why our car breaks down. We just have to know—it’s not by accident.
121. The Dalai Lama says in the book that there is a difference between pleasure and happiness. If we search for pleasure, perhaps we’ll make a choice that gives us pleasure for the moment; but in the long run, it doesn’t make us happy. We may choose the pleasure we get from eating something that is bad for us, but ultimately we’re not choosing happiness. Sooner or later we realize that the choices we’re making for pleasure don’t last. Sooner or later we realize that making the choices that make us happy sometimes require us to forego pleasure.
122. The Dalai Lama says a big part of learning to be happy is to develop compassion and empathy with all beings. Compassion and empathy mean to feel someone else’s pain—to feel sorry for them. A good way to learn to feel someone else’s pain is to put yourself in their shoes. Think about how it would feel to be them and experience the kind of pain they’re going through. When you’re thinking about others, feeling compassionate and empathetic, you forget about your own pain—whether physical or emotional.
123. Remember Patch Adams. He was in a mental hospital because he felt like killing himself. He helped his roommate conquer the imaginary animals that were tormenting him. Once Patch realized he could help people with his humor, he forgot about his own problems. He poured his heart and soul into helping others and his life became meaningful and happy. He became a compassionate and empathetic person.
124. Sometimes we think our problems are really big. We think that no one has problems like we do and so no one can understand us and help us. But actually most people’s problems are very similar. And most problems can be solved by just changing our thinking about the problem. If we start to think about our problems as things that move us in the direction we’re supposed to be going, it might help us learn to deal with them.
125. If something causes us pain, we usually try to avoid the circumstance that is causing us the pain. If we touch a hot stove and it burns us, we don’t put our hand on the stove again. But life isn’t so easy sometimes. Sometimes we’re forced to deal with difficult situations. Sometimes we can’t just avoid the thing that is causing us the pain. So learning to look at it in a different way, as a learning experience, can be another way to deal with the pain. Learning to look at the problem as a thought that can be changed can also be a very productive way to deal with a problem.
126. Our thoughts are the key to learning to solve our problems. The “Course in Miracles” says, “Don’t seek to change the world; seek to change your mind about the world”. That means we don’t have to “do” anything. We don’t have to give up everything and dedicate our lives to God. We merely have to work on ourselves, on our thoughts. If we work on becoming the most joyous person we can be, that joy will spread and we will have changed the world.
127. The world is a place where we learn. If we are to learn, we must be presented with challenges. When we’re babies, our parents do everything for us. But if our parents continue to do everything for us as we grow older, we won’t learn to do anything for ourselves. Each thing we learn along the way prepares us for bigger challenges. We start with learning simple things like learning to feed ourselves or tie our shoes. Next we learn how to clothe and groom ourselves. Eventually, we know most of what we need to know to take care of our physical bodies. But that’s only the beginning. We also need to learn to make good choices and set proper priorities. Our spiritual growth and development starts when we’re babies and lasts a lifetime.
128. So everything you learn prepares you for the next step in learning. That’s why even when “bad” things happen to us, we should look at them as learning experiences—opportunities for growth. That’s why it’s important to deal with the “bad” things that happen to you when they happen. If you don’t deal with them then, you can be assured there will come a time when you’ll be forced to deal with them. And usually you’ll go through a lot of pain before the time when you can run no longer.
129. We need to realize that life is full of suffering—it’s supposed to be. If it were easy, we wouldn’t learn anything. If our father, God, did everything for us and made everything easy so we wouldn’t suffer, we wouldn’t learn anything. That’s the reason for suffering and challenges. Life also isn’t fair. It’s not supposed to be fair. If it were fair, there would be no suffering. If there were no suffering, we wouldn’t learn anything. The thing we can do to help make all this suffering easier is to accept that “this is life”. It’s supposed to be this way.
130. So what is it that we’re supposed to learn? We’re supposed to learn that we’re children of God, our Father who loves us. He doesn’t want us to suffer. He wants us to be happy and at home with him. We decided we wanted to experience the world of matter. We decided we wanted to experience ourselves in physical bodies. But the “real part of us” is not our physical body. The real part of us is our spiritual body. That’s the part that lives forever.
131. One of the things we need to learn in life is that nothing lasts forever. Everything on this earth is constantly changing so we might as well accept change. Change is a natural part of life. A good thing to remember is, “This too shall pass”. That means, even when you feel really bad, remember that the bad feeling or bad circumstance won’t last forever. Just like everything in this life—the suffering will pass away. You have to take the good with the bad—just like in a marriage where the partners promise to love, “in sickness and in health”.
132. The Buddhists put the idea that, “This too shall pass”, another way. They say, “suffering comes and suffering goes”. When you are in the middle of your suffering, it’s hard to remember that it won’t last forever. That’s the reason some young people take their own lives. They think they will always feel as bad as they do right then. But life is hills and valleys and mountains and chasms. “Going with the flow” is accepting everything life has to offer—whether easy or hard.
133. I like to think of life as a good book—an adventure book. I never know what’s going to happen next. Sometimes I can hardly wait to turn the next page. At other times, I look fondly back on the pages I’ve already read. I know when I die I will be sad to be finished with the book I’ve been reading but anxious to see what I’ll read next. Death is an ending but also a new beginning.
134. Sometimes when I get frustrated with my life or feel like I’ve failed in something, I sit and think about all my accomplishments. I remind myself how far I’ve come. I think about all that I have learned in this school called life. I remember when I was young like you are and how confusing and difficult everything seemed. I know I’ve come a long way in understanding, but I know I still have a long way to go. All of us here on earth still have a lot to learn—otherwise we wouldn’t be here.
135. As human beings our decisions are made with our hearts, our heads or a combination of our hearts and heads. If we think about something a long time before we make a decision, we’re using mostly our heads. If we do something on the spur of the moment, we’re using mostly our hearts. That’s why your parents sometimes tell you, “You didn’t think”. It’s not good to only use your heart just as it’s not good to only use your head. We must learn to find a balance between the two.
136. If we use only our hearts in our decision making, it can get us in trouble. For example, if someone asks us for money because they’re out of work, we might give them everything we have. Then later we might remember that money we gave them was for groceries for our own family. So we have to think before we act. But if we think too much, we may never help anyone. There’s always some reason we could think of not to give our money away. So again, we have to develop that balance.
137. If we use only our heads in our decision making, we might as well be robots. Robots don’t have any feelings so they do only what they’re programmed to do. Some people become like robots. They don’t let anyone touch their heart. They talk only about facts, not feelings. They make jokes about everything. They shut down their hearts. These are very sad people because they’re missing out on so much of what life is about.
138. Win/win situations are the best. This type of interaction is cooperative not competitive. If we learn to cooperate with another instead of competing against the other, we both win. Learning to work together as siblings or as a family means wanting the best for everyone in the family. When you want the best for everyone, you compliment each other and try to help each other. You don’t tattle unless it’s for the other person’s own good. If you tell your parents something about another sibling with the purpose of getting your brother or sister in trouble, that’s competitive behavior. If you tell you parents something about another sibling so they can help your brother or sister, that’s cooperative behavior.
139. It’s not good to be competitive in any relationship if it involves disliking the other person if they win. You can play a game of tennis or cards and really want to beat your opponent, but you needn’t dislike them. That’s why it’s good to have kids shake hands after sports games. It’s very important to be a good sport. That way everyone gets the most out of the experience. Let your opponent know you enjoyed the opportunity to play the game, whether you won or lost.
140. To lie means to intentionally decieve. You may not say anything and yet still tell a lie. If your mother asks “Who broke the glass?” and you don’t say anything even though you know it was you, that’s a lie. So by not saying anything, you’re not being truthful. It’s very important to be truthful all the time. Sometimes it’s OK if someone asks you if you like their dress or hair to say, “Yes”, even if you don’t. It might not serve any purpose to tell the person the truth. It might only hurt the person’s feelings. But each situation has to be judged separately. You can’t just say it’s OK to tell little white lies.
141. I like to take you kids to plays and different places to enlarge your view of the world. The more we experience, the better chance we have of making good choices. If we lived in a cave and never went outside, we wouldn’t know very much about the world. By experiencing different things we learn about life and how we fit into the scheme of things. We couldn’t have many different experiences living in a cave. Also unless we see people or programs about people more well off and less well off than we are, we might think everyone has the same opportunities and material possessions that we have. Seeing starving children in Africa might make us realize how grateful we should be for the things we have.
142. You kids know I have been listening to tapes in my car by Ram Dass. Do you know why I like to listen to those tapes so much. Because Ram Dass keeps reminding me that the life we see is not the only life there is. He says that this reality is only relatively real. That means it’s real on one plane—we know that because we see it. But that one plane is not all there is. The plane we see is the one of the material world and our bodies. Another plane is the world of spirit. In the world of spirit we can see behind the things that are happening with our bodies. We can know the reason our lives are unfolding as they are.
143. Ram Dass is a man from the West (America) who studied a lot about religion in the East (India). Eastern religions believe in reincarnation and believe the way to God is through meditation. Meditation is much like prayer so we are not so different in that regard. In medication you learn to quiet your thoughts. You learn not to concentrate on any one thing. When you are not concentrating on any one, specific thing, you learn to experience the oneness of all things. It is because we separate and differentiate one thing from another that we forget that everything is one.
144. Another important thing we can learn in meditation is to look at our thoughts and recognize they aren’t real. That way we can learn to see they have no control over us. Ram Dass says in order to mediatate you must learn to concentrate on your breath as it goes in and out. When a thought enters into your head, you look at it. You recognize it as a thought and nothing more. Then you dismiss it. In this way we learn that we can literally change our minds. We learn to look at things in a different way. Thoughts that were causing us problems need no longer be a problem.
145. Eastern religions also teach that desires and aversions cause pain. A desire is something we want. If we want things that we don’t get, we are not happy. Therefore, we are in pain. An aversion is something we don’t want. If we don’t want things that happen to us, we are also in pain. Learning to have no desires helps relieve pain. If we don’t want anything, if we’re happy with what we have, we will be happy. Learning to have no aversions also relieves pain. Learning not to judge anything that happens to us as good or bad, also helps us achieve happiness.
146. Learning to be “with what is” means to accept everything that happens to us whether we consider it good or bad. Some things we might consider good might actually be bad and the other way around. When we only see this world, we know we want a big, beautiful house with a swimming pool. But maybe that wouldn’t be good for us. Maybe that would make us self-centered and lazy. If we had that house, maybe we wouldn’t do the kind of work we need to do on ourselves to learn to be truly happen and content.
147. Content is a word we hardly ever use. I think that’s because most people are not content. To be content means to not want anything more. If we’re content, we’re happy with what we have. We realize amassing more and more things won’t make us any happier. We stop trying to find our happiness here on earth. When we’re content, we have the peace of God. That kind of contentment cannot be taken from us by anything.
148. When we learn to not differentiate one experience from another, we also learn not to see the differences in people. We learn to look at everyone as a child of God or as our brother. We see the similarities in people we meet instead of the differences. We don’t see black/white, fat/skinny, beautiful/ugly. We recognize that there is no “us” and “them”. It’s all “us”. That reminds me of the song Bette Middler sings called “From A Distance”. The song tells us that if we look at the earth “from a distance”, we realize we really are all in this together.
149. In seeing the similarities in all people, we learn to look at the person behind their role. Everyone has a role—as a son, daughter, teacher, doctor, judge, or priest. People sometimes get caught in their roles and think just because they are, say for instance, a doctor that they have to know everything. A lot of people say doctors have “God complexes” because they hold peoples lives in their hands. But if people learn to look at the being behind the role, they become more compassionate and understanding. To look at the being behind the role, a doctor doesn’t see himself as the doctor and the other person as the patient. He sees two beings coming together to help each other.
150. Sometimes helping each other involves more than the physical plane. A doctor can help heal a man’s heart in the physical sense, but can also help heal his heart in the emotional sense. If a patient is treated with respect by a doctor, it can help his physical as well as his emotional health. We are learning in science and medicine that the mind and the body go hand-in-hand. Many people believe cancer is caused by holding onto anger or bad feelings. Just the same, compassionate, loving thoughts can keep your body well.
151. In fact, a woman named, Louise Hay, has a little book that describes in one column all the different diseases a body can have. Then in another column is a list of emotions or experiences that can cause that disease. For instance, if a person has problems with his back, he may have money problems. He may have trouble “supporting” himself. The backbone is what supports the body. That’s the reason that is the portion of the body that is weakened by the mind. Most likely people with chronic back aches, worry a lot about money.
152. Getting back to Ram Dass, he believes that when we help others, we are actually helping ourselves. Giving and receiving are one in the same. When we feed others by our compassionate actions, we are fed ourselves. We “get a lot out of” giving. You kids know that when you give your allowance to someone asking for money at the side of the road, you feel really good about that. You are fed by your giving. On the other hand, if you’re stingy and selfish, you don’t feel good. Realizing that when we’re giving to others, we’re also giving to ourselves also keeps us from being resentful and angry about having to give.
153. Ram Dass is a founding member of the SEVA Foundation. This group of people goes all over the world to help people learn to help themselves. Seva is a sanskrit word meaning “to serve”. However, there are a lot of ways to serve. Some people serve because they feel guilty if they don’t. Other people may serve others for money. Some people serve because they know that helping another is the same as helping yourself. That’s what seva is. Only people who recognize that all people are one serve in this way.
154. There’s a clown in SEVA whose name is Wavy Gravy. He believes that laughter is the best medicine. If someone in SEVA gets too serious, Wavy Gravy makes him put on those funny glasses that have the big nose. It’s pretty hard to be serious with those funny glasses on. He also says, “Unless you have a sense of humor, it just isn’t funny”. Learning to find the humor in everything can keep us from being too hard on ourselves. If we can laugh at ourselves, we won’t get so angry when everything doesn’t go our way.
155. “Actions speak louder than words.” I don’t know who first said that, but it’s a good saying. You can talk and talk about how much you do for other people; but unless you put your actions behind your words, it will be just empty boasting. It won’t make you feel good about yourself either, because deep down you’ll know you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Remember even Jesus told people to do good quietly. He warned against doing good to get attention.
156. Making excuses doesn’t help anyone. Complaining also doesn’t help. If you want something, go out and get it. What good does it do to sit around feeling sorry for yourself because something didn’t go just the way you wanted. It doesn’t do anyone any good. Work hard to make things happen. Working hard can involve lots of things. It may involve praying to make something happen. When getting something you want involves other people, sometimes that’s the only thing you can do.
157. If you believe something here on this earth can make you happy, you’ll continually be disappointed. A lot of people believe if they just made more money, they would be happy. But when you talk to people who make more money, they think even more money will make them happy. It’s an endless cycle. Happiness has to come from within yourself not from without. Looking for something outside of yourself—possessions, money, a person—cannot make you happy. You have to be happy with yourself first. Then whether you have these things or not, you will be happy. That’s true happiness—a happiness that doesn’t come and go depending on the people or things in your life.
158. Everybody looks forward to things. We look forward to going on trips. On Monday, we look forward to Friday. During the school year, we look forward to summer vacation. During summer vacation, we look forward to going back to school. When we’re young, we look forward to growing up, driving a car, becoming financially independent. When we’re going somewhere, we look forward to getting there. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could learn to live in the moment. Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy each minute of every day instead of saying, “I can’t wait until we get there” or “ I can’t wait until we leave”. Now that’s something to think about.
159. A lot of people don’t ever think about what makes them happy. They just blindly go on with their lives listenting to advertising. They hear—buy this car and you’ll feel like a kid again. Chew this gum or wear these jeans and people will be attracted to you. Lose weight and you’ll love yourself. The only problem with all this is, it’s all transitory. Transitory means these things change. The car will get old and cost you lots of money to get fixed. You may put on weight again and end up hating yourself. Focus on things that aren’t transitory—things that are forever. Focus on God and the eternal life he offers you.
160. If you invest most of your time and energy in the physical/material world, you’re going to suffer. If you spend countless hours on your hair, makeup and wardrobe; what you look like and what people think of you will be really important. You’ll end up thinking that your physical appearance is YOU. If you think of yourself as only your body, you’ll suffer when your body grows old and dies. However, if you recognize that you are a soul as well as a body, you’ll be better able to handle the changes in your life. You’ll recognize that the soul part of you is the important part. That’s the part that never grows old and dies.
161. It’s really important to focus on the positive when raising kids. If you kids are always hearing the negative, you may get discouraged and give up trying. Everyone responds to positive messages. Wouldn’t you rather hear, “I’m so pleased with the way you kept the house clean today”, than “It’s about time you kids learned to clean up the house”. So even though I’m basically saying the same thing, I can say it in a positive or negative way. You can focus on the positive when you talk to your brothers and sisters and friends too. People really like positive people because those people make them feel good about themselves.
162. When things aren’t going our way, it’s easy to get upset. Sometimes I get so frustrated I get myself all worked up over silly little things. Then looking back a week, a day, an hour, or sometimes even a minute later, I realize what I got upset over was a small thing. It was so small and trivial that it will very soon be forgotten. It will be forgotten forever. It wasn’t worth losing my peace over. Let’s try not to let little things take away our peace. Our peace is precious and we shouldn’t throw it away on little things.
163. If we really believe that “everything happens for a reason” and “everything’s working out perfectly”, we wouldn’t get upset about anything. Believing it’s all going according to plan is having faith in God. God is always looking after us and making sure everything is all right. God will never abandon us or leave us alone. He’s always there with us. We can talk to him and ask his help if we need it. One thing we can ask for is having more faith in his plan.
164. Sometimes we know right away why some things happen. Sometimes we don’t know the reason until years later. I know I have you as my children to help me learn about being more loving and less selfish. Sometimes we don’t like the lessons we’re given, but we still know they’re good for us. It’s sort of like school work. We may not like to do it, but we know that in doing it, we’re learning discipline and organizational skills as well as the knowledge we gain from the lessons.
165. The Saints are good role models for us but they weren’t perfect people. Father Timothy was talking in church on Sunday about Saint Peter’s failings. St. Peter didn’t have a lot of faith. When Jesus asked him to walk on water, he started to doubt and so he started to drown. But Jesus didn’t condemn Peter for his lack of faith. He helped him through it. He was there for Saint Peter just like he’s there for us. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect any more than he expected his apostles to be perfect.
166. There are a lot of lonely people in the world. Many times people are lonely because they won’t allow people into their lives. They push people away by their words and actions. Lonely people usually don’t like themselves very well and so they expect that other people won’t like them either. So instead of trying to make friends, they push people away. They push people away before people have a chance to push them away. That way they can fool themselves into thinking that they really wanted to alone. They can fool themselves into thinking it was their idea not to have any friends.
167. When we work on liking ourselves, everything else falls into place. If we are likable people, people will like us. If we are friendly and kind, people will want to be around us. If we share and don’t insist on always being right, people will want to be our friends. If we always insist on playing the game we want to play or insist on being the leader instead of the follower, others will get tired of playing with us. They’ll find friends who are cooperative and make sure everyone wins.
168. There’s a really good country western song that I hear on the radio. I think George Strait sings it. There are some words in the song that I really like. It starts with: “Let me tell you a secret about a father’s love. It’s a secret that’s just between us. A father doesn’t love his children every now and then. It’s a love without end. Amen.” In the first verse of the song, the singer’s father tells him the secret. In the second verse, he tells it to his son. In the 3rd verse, the singer dreams he dies and is afraid he won’t get into heaven because he doesn’t believe he deserves to. Then he hears God saying the same words to him. Would we expect God to love us any less than our parents?
169. Sometimes life seems so complicated. It seems like there’s so much to remember and so much to think about. Actually, it’s quite simple. If we follow the two great commandments that Jesus taught us, they cover everything. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. If we love God and treat everyone how we want to be treated, we’ll be good people. That’s all that is required.
170. It’s important to respect our bodies and treat them with care. If we’re careful what foods we put in them and what thoughts we think, they will most likely be healthy. A healthy body and a healthy mind go hand in hand. It’s difficult to learn our lessons here on earth if our bodies need our constant attention because they’re sick. If we eat right and exercise, we will feel good both physically and mentally. If we develop good habits, they will stay with us throughout our lives.
171. You kids are growing up. You’ll be teenagers before you know it. Teens are known for their rebellious nature. When you’re a baby, you rely on your parents for everything. Then when you’re about two to four years old, you start to want to do things for yourself. You don’t want to have everything done for you anymore. Teenages want to think they’re all grown up. They don’t want to be children anymore. Unfortunately, teenagers don’t know everything just like the toddler doesn’t know how to do everything. Teenagers need the advice of older, more mature individuals to make the transition from childhood to adulthood.
172. To complicate matters further, when you’re a teenager, your body goes through all types of changes. These changes are preparing you for adulthood and having children of your own. These hormones produce changes not only in your physical bodies but in your emotions as well. You may feel frustrated that you’re still being treated like a child. You may feel you should have an equal say with your parents on what you should be allowed to do. All of these feelings are perfectly normal and natural. They’re just a part of growing up.
173. Talking to your parents about your feelings is a good way to keep from getting frustrated. Believe it or not, we were teenagers once ourselves. We even remember what it felt like to be a teenager and we know how hard it can be. If you keep the channels of communication open, we may even be able to help with some of the things you’re going through. Sharing thoughts and feelings about difficult subjects will be easier if you start talking to us now about your feelings.
174. One of the difficult subjects I’m talking about is drugs. I want you kids to know that Dad I and are here for you anytime you want to talk about drugs. Do you know what peer pressure is? That’s when kids try to get other kids to do things they shouldn’t do. The kids doing the drugs don’t want to be the only ones doing them, so they try to get all their friends to do them too. They try to get their friends to think doing drugs is cool. The only thing drugs will get you is nowhere. Just remember that.
175. One of the other difficult subjects I’m talking about is sex. A lot of times boys try to put pressure on girls to do things they know they shouldn’t do. That’s another kind of peer pressure. A boy may tell a girl that if she wants him to like her, she has to kiss him or let him do other things. Boys may tell other boys about the girls they’re messing around with and the girl gets what’s called a “bad reputation”. Then other boys may want to go out with her just because she’s easy and goes along with what a boy wants her to do. But think about it. Do you want to have lots of boyfriends because you give boys what they want, or do you want to have lots of boyfriends because you’re a kind and loveable person?
176. The main thing in talking about drugs and sex is that if you respect yourself and love yourself, you’ll be alright. If you respect yourself, you won’t do anything you know you shouldn’t just so you’ll be liked. If you love yourself, you won’t go along with someone who wants you to try drugs or have sex. You’ll know that you’re a child of God and you’ll respect your body and your mind. You’ll also want to be with people who love and respect you and themselves.
177. Everybody wants attention. Sometimes people want attention so much that it doesn’t make any difference what kind of attention they get. You may have heard about someone in the news who does something horrible to someone else just to become famous. That person doesn’t care what kind of attention he gets. But attention, admiration and appreciation for talents and good deeds will make you proud of yourself. They’ll make us proud of you too. Attention for misbehavior, pranks and crimes will make you feel bad and ashamed. You’re in control of what kind of attention you receive and how you feel about it. Chose to feel good.
178. I read the saying on my tea bag the other day, and it really hit home. It said, “Be kind to unkind people because they need it the most.” When we’re in a bad mood and feeling glum, it’s hard to be nice to other people. When we’re thinking about how much homework or housework we have to do, it depresses us. A lot of times we take it out on the people around us. That may make the people around us treat us unkindly. If we learn to stop the cycle of unkindness by being kind instead of mean, it could change the other person’s attitude completely. They could realize that they have a choice to be kind or unkind and that that choice affects their own happiness. When we choose kindness, it makes us feel good. When we choose kindness even when someone is unkind to us, it makes us feel even better.
179. Another tea bag saying is “If you expect nothing, you’ll never be disappointed.” Have you ever noticed that when you have very high expectations of an event, the reality of the event usually doesn’t live up to your expectations? For example, your birthday is coming. You picture 30 or so friends at your party. They’re all giving you great gifts—Sony Playstations, computer games, Pokeman cards, rare beanie babies. The cake is delicious and you’re the center of attention. Then you start talking to your parents about your birthday. You can only invite 8 friends. They bring you small, inexpensive gifts. It’s over before you know it, and you’re disappointed. If you take things as they come, expecting nothing, you’ll be surprised and pleased by everything.
180. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, the game of life. I think it’s helpful to think of life as a game. When you play a game, you have fun. You don’t take it (or shouldn’t take it) too seriously. If you win or lose, it doesn’t matter that much because they’ll always be a next time. You play games with family and friends. You laugh, tease and try to beat each other, but you’re still friends when the game is over. Playing the game together you develop closeness. That’s what life should be like.
181. We should try to make the most of what we have. Another way of saying this is, “You have to play with the hand you’re dealt”. Often people wish for things that are impossible for them to have. They may wish to be shorter or taller or thinner or heavier. They may wish to have a perfect face or a perfect body. But everything about you is a part of who you are. To wish for something different from what we are is useless. Work instead to turn your weaknesses into strengths. Make the most of what you have.
182. Most of life’s important lessons you kids will just have to learn for yourself. Often parents wish they could teach their kids things they learned in life so the kids’ lives will be easier. That’s part of my reason for writing this for you. Unfortunately it doesn’t usually work that way. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about something I know; but until you’ve experienced it as something you know, you probably won’t listen or won’t believe me. And that’s OK. Experience is a great teacher.
183. That’s about it for now. I know there will be more things I have to say as you get older. But these are the important things I have learned in my life that have helped me. I’m hoping these words will help you in your lives. I’m hoping these words will help you realize you have choices. Chose to see the good in yourselves and in others. Chose to be happy and you will be. Chose to make God number one in your life and you’ll have the most powerful ally a person can have. I wish for you all – Love and Happiness.
Love,
MOM
Notes
Numbers 82–84, Stephen R. Covey, Highly Effective People (Simon & Schuster, 1994)
Number 117, 121-122, Dalai Llama & Howard C. Culter, The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living (Riverhead Books, 1998)
Number 126, A Course In Miracles, 2nd Edition (Viking Press, 1996)
Number 142-146, Ram Dass, Path of Service: Here and Now in the ‘90’s (Sounds True, 1992)
Number 148, Julie R. Gold, From a Distance (BMI #448065)
Number 151, Louise Hay, Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness & the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them, 4th Edition (Hay House, 1994)
Number 168, Aaron Barker Gayle, A Love Without End, Amen (BMI #928738)
155. “Actions speak louder than words.” I don’t know who first said that, but it’s a good saying. You can talk and talk about how much you do for other people; but unless you put your actions behind your words, it will be just empty boasting. It won’t make you feel good about yourself either, because deep down you’ll know you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Remember even Jesus told people to do good quietly. He warned against doing good to get attention.
156. Making excuses doesn’t help anyone. Complaining also doesn’t help. If you want something, go out and get it. What good does it do to sit around feeling sorry for yourself because something didn’t go just the way you wanted. It doesn’t do anyone any good. Work hard to make things happen. Working hard can involve lots of things. It may involve praying to make something happen. When getting something you want involves other people, sometimes that’s the only thing you can do.
157. If you believe something here on this earth can make you happy, you’ll continually be disappointed. A lot of people believe if they just made more money, they would be happy. But when you talk to people who make more money, they think even more money will make them happy. It’s an endless cycle. Happiness has to come from within yourself not from without. Looking for something outside of yourself—possessions, money, a person—cannot make you happy. You have to be happy with yourself first. Then whether you have these things or not, you will be happy. That’s true happiness—a happiness that doesn’t come and go depending on the people or things in your life.
158. Everybody looks forward to things. We look forward to going on trips. On Monday, we look forward to Friday. During the school year, we look forward to summer vacation. During summer vacation, we look forward to going back to school. When we’re young, we look forward to growing up, driving a car, becoming financially independent. When we’re going somewhere, we look forward to getting there. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could learn to live in the moment. Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy each minute of every day instead of saying, “I can’t wait until we get there” or “ I can’t wait until we leave”. Now that’s something to think about.
159. A lot of people don’t ever think about what makes them happy. They just blindly go on with their lives listenting to advertising. They hear—buy this car and you’ll feel like a kid again. Chew this gum or wear these jeans and people will be attracted to you. Lose weight and you’ll love yourself. The only problem with all this is, it’s all transitory. Transitory means these things change. The car will get old and cost you lots of money to get fixed. You may put on weight again and end up hating yourself. Focus on things that aren’t transitory—things that are forever. Focus on God and the eternal life he offers you.
160. If you invest most of your time and energy in the physical/material world, you’re going to suffer. If you spend countless hours on your hair, makeup and wardrobe; what you look like and what people think of you will be really important. You’ll end up thinking that your physical appearance is YOU. If you think of yourself as only your body, you’ll suffer when your body grows old and dies. However, if you recognize that you are a soul as well as a body, you’ll be better able to handle the changes in your life. You’ll recognize that the soul part of you is the important part. That’s the part that never grows old and dies.
161. It’s really important to focus on the positive when raising kids. If you kids are always hearing the negative, you may get discouraged and give up trying. Everyone responds to positive messages. Wouldn’t you rather hear, “I’m so pleased with the way you kept the house clean today”, than “It’s about time you kids learned to clean up the house”. So even though I’m basically saying the same thing, I can say it in a positive or negative way. You can focus on the positive when you talk to your brothers and sisters and friends too. People really like positive people because those people make them feel good about themselves.
162. When things aren’t going our way, it’s easy to get upset. Sometimes I get so frustrated I get myself all worked up over silly little things. Then looking back a week, a day, an hour, or sometimes even a minute later, I realize what I got upset over was a small thing. It was so small and trivial that it will very soon be forgotten. It will be forgotten forever. It wasn’t worth losing my peace over. Let’s try not to let little things take away our peace. Our peace is precious and we shouldn’t throw it away on little things.
163. If we really believe that “everything happens for a reason” and “everything’s working out perfectly”, we wouldn’t get upset about anything. Believing it’s all going according to plan is having faith in God. God is always looking after us and making sure everything is all right. God will never abandon us or leave us alone. He’s always there with us. We can talk to him and ask his help if we need it. One thing we can ask for is having more faith in his plan.
164. Sometimes we know right away why some things happen. Sometimes we don’t know the reason until years later. I know I have you as my children to help me learn about being more loving and less selfish. Sometimes we don’t like the lessons we’re given, but we still know they’re good for us. It’s sort of like school work. We may not like to do it, but we know that in doing it, we’re learning discipline and organizational skills as well as the knowledge we gain from the lessons.
165. The Saints are good role models for us but they weren’t perfect people. Father Timothy was talking in church on Sunday about Saint Peter’s failings. St. Peter didn’t have a lot of faith. When Jesus asked him to walk on water, he started to doubt and so he started to drown. But Jesus didn’t condemn Peter for his lack of faith. He helped him through it. He was there for Saint Peter just like he’s there for us. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect any more than he expected his apostles to be perfect.
166. There are a lot of lonely people in the world. Many times people are lonely because they won’t allow people into their lives. They push people away by their words and actions. Lonely people usually don’t like themselves very well and so they expect that other people won’t like them either. So instead of trying to make friends, they push people away. They push people away before people have a chance to push them away. That way they can fool themselves into thinking that they really wanted to alone. They can fool themselves into thinking it was their idea not to have any friends.
167. When we work on liking ourselves, everything else falls into place. If we are likable people, people will like us. If we are friendly and kind, people will want to be around us. If we share and don’t insist on always being right, people will want to be our friends. If we always insist on playing the game we want to play or insist on being the leader instead of the follower, others will get tired of playing with us. They’ll find friends who are cooperative and make sure everyone wins.
168. There’s a really good country western song that I hear on the radio. I think George Strait sings it. There are some words in the song that I really like. It starts with: “Let me tell you a secret about a father’s love. It’s a secret that’s just between us. A father doesn’t love his children every now and then. It’s a love without end. Amen.” In the first verse of the song, the singer’s father tells him the secret. In the second verse, he tells it to his son. In the 3rd verse, the singer dreams he dies and is afraid he won’t get into heaven because he doesn’t believe he deserves to. Then he hears God saying the same words to him. Would we expect God to love us any less than our parents?
169. Sometimes life seems so complicated. It seems like there’s so much to remember and so much to think about. Actually, it’s quite simple. If we follow the two great commandments that Jesus taught us, they cover everything. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. If we love God and treat everyone how we want to be treated, we’ll be good people. That’s all that is required.
170. It’s important to respect our bodies and treat them with care. If we’re careful what foods we put in them and what thoughts we think, they will most likely be healthy. A healthy body and a healthy mind go hand in hand. It’s difficult to learn our lessons here on earth if our bodies need our constant attention because they’re sick. If we eat right and exercise, we will feel good both physically and mentally. If we develop good habits, they will stay with us throughout our lives.
171. You kids are growing up. You’ll be teenagers before you know it. Teens are known for their rebellious nature. When you’re a baby, you rely on your parents for everything. Then when you’re about two to four years old, you start to want to do things for yourself. You don’t want to have everything done for you anymore. Teenages want to think they’re all grown up. They don’t want to be children anymore. Unfortunately, teenagers don’t know everything just like the toddler doesn’t know how to do everything. Teenagers need the advice of older, more mature individuals to make the transition from childhood to adulthood.
172. To complicate matters further, when you’re a teenager, your body goes through all types of changes. These changes are preparing you for adulthood and having children of your own. These hormones produce changes not only in your physical bodies but in your emotions as well. You may feel frustrated that you’re still being treated like a child. You may feel you should have an equal say with your parents on what you should be allowed to do. All of these feelings are perfectly normal and natural. They’re just a part of growing up.
173. Talking to your parents about your feelings is a good way to keep from getting frustrated. Believe it or not, we were teenagers once ourselves. We even remember what it felt like to be a teenager and we know how hard it can be. If you keep the channels of communication open, we may even be able to help with some of the things you’re going through. Sharing thoughts and feelings about difficult subjects will be easier if you start talking to us now about your feelings.
174. One of the difficult subjects I’m talking about is drugs. I want you kids to know that Dad I and are here for you anytime you want to talk about drugs. Do you know what peer pressure is? That’s when kids try to get other kids to do things they shouldn’t do. The kids doing the drugs don’t want to be the only ones doing them, so they try to get all their friends to do them too. They try to get their friends to think doing drugs is cool. The only thing drugs will get you is nowhere. Just remember that.
175. One of the other difficult subjects I’m talking about is sex. A lot of times boys try to put pressure on girls to do things they know they shouldn’t do. That’s another kind of peer pressure. A boy may tell a girl that if she wants him to like her, she has to kiss him or let him do other things. Boys may tell other boys about the girls they’re messing around with and the girl gets what’s called a “bad reputation”. Then other boys may want to go out with her just because she’s easy and goes along with what a boy wants her to do. But think about it. Do you want to have lots of boyfriends because you give boys what they want, or do you want to have lots of boyfriends because you’re a kind and loveable person?
176. The main thing in talking about drugs and sex is that if you respect yourself and love yourself, you’ll be alright. If you respect yourself, you won’t do anything you know you shouldn’t just so you’ll be liked. If you love yourself, you won’t go along with someone who wants you to try drugs or have sex. You’ll know that you’re a child of God and you’ll respect your body and your mind. You’ll also want to be with people who love and respect you and themselves.
177. Everybody wants attention. Sometimes people want attention so much that it doesn’t make any difference what kind of attention they get. You may have heard about someone in the news who does something horrible to someone else just to become famous. That person doesn’t care what kind of attention he gets. But attention, admiration and appreciation for talents and good deeds will make you proud of yourself. They’ll make us proud of you too. Attention for misbehavior, pranks and crimes will make you feel bad and ashamed. You’re in control of what kind of attention you receive and how you feel about it. Chose to feel good.
178. I read the saying on my tea bag the other day, and it really hit home. It said, “Be kind to unkind people because they need it the most.” When we’re in a bad mood and feeling glum, it’s hard to be nice to other people. When we’re thinking about how much homework or housework we have to do, it depresses us. A lot of times we take it out on the people around us. That may make the people around us treat us unkindly. If we learn to stop the cycle of unkindness by being kind instead of mean, it could change the other person’s attitude completely. They could realize that they have a choice to be kind or unkind and that that choice affects their own happiness. When we choose kindness, it makes us feel good. When we choose kindness even when someone is unkind to us, it makes us feel even better.
179. Another tea bag saying is “If you expect nothing, you’ll never be disappointed.” Have you ever noticed that when you have very high expectations of an event, the reality of the event usually doesn’t live up to your expectations? For example, your birthday is coming. You picture 30 or so friends at your party. They’re all giving you great gifts—Sony Playstations, computer games, Pokeman cards, rare beanie babies. The cake is delicious and you’re the center of attention. Then you start talking to your parents about your birthday. You can only invite 8 friends. They bring you small, inexpensive gifts. It’s over before you know it, and you’re disappointed. If you take things as they come, expecting nothing, you’ll be surprised and pleased by everything.
180. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, the game of life. I think it’s helpful to think of life as a game. When you play a game, you have fun. You don’t take it (or shouldn’t take it) too seriously. If you win or lose, it doesn’t matter that much because they’ll always be a next time. You play games with family and friends. You laugh, tease and try to beat each other, but you’re still friends when the game is over. Playing the game together you develop closeness. That’s what life should be like.
181. We should try to make the most of what we have. Another way of saying this is, “You have to play with the hand you’re dealt”. Often people wish for things that are impossible for them to have. They may wish to be shorter or taller or thinner or heavier. They may wish to have a perfect face or a perfect body. But everything about you is a part of who you are. To wish for something different from what we are is useless. Work instead to turn your weaknesses into strengths. Make the most of what you have.
182. Most of life’s important lessons you kids will just have to learn for yourself. Often parents wish they could teach their kids things they learned in life so the kids’ lives will be easier. That’s part of my reason for writing this for you. Unfortunately it doesn’t usually work that way. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about something I know; but until you’ve experienced it as something you know, you probably won’t listen or won’t believe me. And that’s OK. Experience is a great teacher.
183. That’s about it for now. I know there will be more things I have to say as you get older. But these are the important things I have learned in my life that have helped me. I’m hoping these words will help you in your lives. I’m hoping these words will help you realize you have choices. Chose to see the good in yourselves and in others. Chose to be happy and you will be. Chose to make God number one in your life and you’ll have the most powerful ally a person can have. I wish for you all – Love and Happiness.
Love,
MOM
Notes
Numbers 82–84, Stephen R. Covey, Highly Effective People (Simon & Schuster, 1994)
Number 117, 121-122, Dalai Llama & Howard C. Culter, The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living (Riverhead Books, 1998)
Number 126, A Course In Miracles, 2nd Edition (Viking Press, 1996)
Number 142-146, Ram Dass, Path of Service: Here and Now in the ‘90’s (Sounds True, 1992)
Number 148, Julie R. Gold, From a Distance (BMI #448065)
Number 151, Louise Hay, Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness & the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them, 4th Edition (Hay House, 1994)
Number 168, Aaron Barker Gayle, A Love Without End, Amen (BMI #928738)
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