Choosing to Celebrate Family

Happy Mother’s Day! I know it can be a somewhat controversial or challenging holiday for some, but like so many other things I believe that Mother’s Day is a choice. Sometimes God’s plan for you isn’t the one that you most desire most and you have to decide if you’re going to accept the plan He has for you or choose to be miserable. I’ve worked with hundreds of families in various capacities and it’s nothing like having your own children but even just working with children fills a child-spaced hole inside my heart, and that’s only one of the many options that are available including adoption and fostering or becoming like an extra parent to a sibling or best friend’s kids.

Family is definitely what you make of it. Not all of the years of being a family will be sunshine and rainbows, there will be some hard times and difficult decisions, things that you wish you didn’t have to expose your child to (like pandemics and financial struggles) but the best thing we can do sometimes is just keep going and show our kids how to be resilient and make sure a day never goes by that they don’t know we love them.

As the adult in the relationship we have a choice in how we approach things and the effort and affection we put towards our kids and their comfort in a situation. They won’t love everything, but if we have the opportunity to make something that might be challenging more exciting or like an adventure, or find a happy medium between bringing all of their favorite things and letting them choose just one or two, or help them easily see and accomplish rewards that they can earn for trying hard things, at least they’ll have some positive experiences when it comes to challenging things in their lives and know that at least some of the time they will be rewarded for working hard.

Maybe most important of all: when you have a chance to celebrate you should. Days like Christmas, Mother’s Day and birthdays don’t come around every day, most days aren’t a holiday. But when you’ve got an opportunity to stop or at least slow down and appreciate those you love, celebrate their life or recognize all the good you have in your life, you should. And even when it’s a hard thing to celebrate because that person isn’t with you anymore, it’s still an opportunity for you to remember the good times and share those memories with those you love who didn’t know them so that they can know them too.

Team Earth (Day)

The word that I’ve been coming back to time and again when I’ve thought about this year’s Earth Day is teamwork. It’s really the choice we’ll have to make if we want to save our planet from the possibility of the dire warnings scientists are making about what the future could look like. And what better example to illustrate the topic of teamwork than professional sports like basketball, baseball, hockey, football, and soccer. They have the players who are out there doing their thing, they’ve got the umpires who are supposed to be team neutral while making sure everyone follows the rules, the people who train and coach the players, the people who own the team, the people who manage the stadium, the people who make the balls and other gear, and of course the fans who watch and attend games. In one way or another all of those people are part of the team, whether they realize it or not. The “team” isn’t just the people on the field, it’s everyone who makes the game possible.

And while it’s highly unlikely that a fan would some day be on the field with the team playing along, the same isn’t true about the other areas of our lives that we’re part of a team in. Sometimes we’ll be the player on the field, sometimes we’ll be in the stadium, sometimes we’ll be the responsible owners, sometimes we’ll be the umpires, it depends on the situation and often changes so rarely are we always on the sidelines or always playing on the field or whatever position of the team you think of. Sometimes it’s about who is on location, who has the money, or who has the knowledge, but other times it’s not about anything except who steps up to put in the effort.

Earth Day is one of those days that how we step up may change over the years. As kids we may be dropping a few seeds in the ground to give the bees flowers or helping plant an Arbor Day tree on the grounds of our school, but the same could be true for adults or even seniors. Some years you may not “do” anything to help our Earth on Earth Day like plant or pick up garbage, but you may get out there and enjoy nature to be reminded why Earth Day is important. And other years you’ll be in a position to really make very Earth-conscious choices about your resources and buy products or services that have a better footprint on our planet or support organizations that are caring for our planet or undoing some of the damage that has been done over the years.

By the very fact that you’re living on this planet, you’re part of the team that must choose to either save it or lose it. You don’t have a choice in that since you’re here and space travel and life isn’t an option yet. So what team are you on this Earth Day, and what team are you teaching your kids to belong to this Earth Day?

A Year of Purpose

As we stand at the end of another year and look ahead to the new one the biggest emotion I’m feeling today is thanks. I’m grateful we’ve made it this far and so many of us are still here together, and I’m grateful for all that those who have passed on have taught us and the role that they played in our lives, however short it may have been. I can remember back in 2019 looking ahead to 2020 (and feeling really sick while doing it!) and having absolutely no clue how much would go on in those few short years and the challenges we would face as a nation and a world, but really hoping for something better than the “challenging” couple of years before 2019. I didn’t get my hope for those years, but we certainly have learned a lot about our world, each other and ourselves since 2020 and this decade began. So no, I don’t have insider knowledge about what the new year ahead holds, and I’m not planning a word for the year ahead (at this time), but as I was reading a devotional which spoke to the new year ahead I was reminded that one of the best things we can do in the new year (or anytime) is to live with purpose.

What does that mean? First I think it means that we should live, period. Yes, there will be rejections and failures and you won’t get to do everything or be everything for everyone, but I think it’s time that maybe we think less about the issues and make fewer complaints and instead start working in the situations we have and go from there. In other words (to use a recent example), just because there’s a pandemic happening, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still have adventures, learn new things, do fun things, or meet new people, you just have to get creative about how you do it and exactly what those things look like.

Second, living with purpose has to do with making lots of decisions. I know, cue the groans, but in all seriousness, the more intentional you are with your decision making (which means you proactively decide things and don’t just let them slide hoping they’ll magically take care of themselves or a better answer might fall into your lap), the more likely you are to be happy with your life and the more likely you are to have a life that fulfills you and let you do what you want. When you’re active with your decision making you are the one with the power and you get to choose many more of the twists and turns that your life takes, and you’ll have more power even during those moments that are really hard or when there are many unknowns because you’re used to making decisions and have gotten really good at finding and evaluating information and understanding and trusting your gut.

Finally, I think it means that you get to know yourself really well and accept yourself for who you are. Accepting yourself doesn’t mean that you don’t make changes or that you don’t have any growing to do, because often what you come to accept is that you’re really imperfect and have lots to work on and will do so at the pace that works for you (a snail’s pace isn’t an option). Choosing to live with purpose is about making decisions that are right for you and who you are and not about what’s cool or trendy or what insert name here thinks you should do because they think you’re ruining your life living as you are (and no one else agrees with them). And a hard part of accepting ourselves sometimes is in accepting that we’re adults and have to make decisions or things will go downhill (often faster than we can imagine). So we can either choose to do it how it works for us, or we can choose to miss out on a lot of awesome life that is out there for us to live.

I’m not saying I’m hoping for a good year (of course I would love that) but I am saying I haven’t given up yet on what the year ahead could be, maybe even because of how we’ve worked through the past few years. I hope you’ll join me for a new year of decision making, being an adult, doing good in the world, and living with purpose.

Making Choices for Holidays and Success

The holiday season has arrived and with it we have to make an important decision: how much can we add to our lives before we go crazy, get overwhelmed or can’t keep up with it all? I know, each year someone says they’d like a nice, quiet Christmas, and yet somehow while they may steal a couple of quiet moments they still have tons of events and meetings on their to-do list. It’s almost like a tradition, that we say we’re going to not do much and end up doing exactly the opposite. Going back to the question, the good thing is that we don’t have to make just one decision about whether we’re going to try for a overbooked holiday season or we’re going to try to tone it down some, we can make those decisions throughout the month of December.

Lately I’ve been noticing my use of the words “and” and “but” in both my writing and speaking. They’re interesting words because sometimes we can use them almost interchangeably, but usually one of them is more appropriate or better conveys the message than the other. While it may not matter in some situations, in others it definitely does because it may mean that you’re adding things to your plate or limiting what’s on your plate. Depending on the success expert you talk with, they’ll either recommend that you say “yes” to everything (a version of the “and” we’ve been talking about), or to be very selective using your “yes” (a version of “but” (I’d love to help you but…)). Of course I’m in between both of those, that I recognize that you can’t make progress without saying “yes” and “and”, but at the same time have never subscribed to the idea that you have to be everything for everyone and jump on every opportunity or idea just because it pops up in your life.

Going back to our holiday example, do I believe we can say “yes” and “and” this holiday season and still emerge on January 2 with brain cells and energy? Yes, I believe we can say “yes” to a whole lot of holiday fun and “yes” to ourselves and our sanity and knowing our limits: “Yes, I’m going to attend that party on Thursday night and I’m going to stay home and watch a holiday movie on Friday night with a hot beverage.” Or: “Yes, I’d love to get together with you this month, but do you think we could do lunch one day instead of going into the city for a whole evening?”

I would say the success lesson here is knowing your limits or the limits to which you’re willing to push yourself. Over-the-top can be fun, but not usually all the time, so wisely choose which over-the-top, balls-to-the-wall, 20-hour-days you commit yourself to both in this season and in general. You don’t want to come out of the holiday season or success journey saying “I think it went well, but it could have been so much more…” or “That was way too much and I wish we had slowed down/reconsidered…” It’s not about a balancing act specifically, but about being present in the moment and learning to trust your judgement and experience on when to say “yes, and…” and when to say “yes, but…” even if it means sometimes backtracking and (within reason) changing or updating plans. What things help you realize when to say “yes, and…” or “yes, but…” or even “no thanks!”?

Family is a Choice

Did you know that some dogs make great moms and others are more about, shall we say, biology? It’s true. Some moms spend lots of time with their puppies as they grow through their first months of life, actively engaging them and teaching them how to become a good dog, while others pretty much check out as soon as the puppies can be switched from milk to food feeling as though they’ve done their duty and now they’re done. I don’t think this in any way indicates the dog’s intelligence (or lack thereof) or the nature of the puppies when they grow up, but it’s certainly interesting to discover when you’re working with a first time dog mom. One of the reasons I was thinking about this is because this week in an email someone shared about the choice they made as a parent to clean up their kid’s room because they knew their kid was feeling overwhelmed (and the room was a visual representation of that). It was a difficult choice for them to make because they knew it could just add to the overwhelm and cause more problems. But it turned out to be a really rewarding one for both the parent and child because the child appreciated what the parent did and the parent could see how the “simple” act of cleaning a room gave their child a measure of peace.

Even as smart as dogs are, they don’t make choices in the ways that we do when it comes to how we live our lives and the people we spend time with. You can guess where I’m going with that: with the holidays upon us one of the things that frequently comes up is spending time with family. I don’t know about you, but I would rather be part of the family that engages with each other and wants to spend time with each other than the one that does it because it’s an obligation and “you’re family so of course we have to spend time together.”

Do I believe that with effort, love and forgiveness more biological families could enjoy holidays together? Yes, absolutely. But I also know that some people just don’t ‘click’ regardless of how much love and effort they put into it. That said I don’t think we should completely cut our biological family out of our lives because we don’t click, because often people change as you get older and lives go in different directions and while you may not have enjoyed spending time together as young adults, as older adults or seniors you may very much find that you do click with your family or siblings once again and want to spend time with them.

Each day comes with choices to make about who we’re going to be, what we’re going to do, the things we’re going to worry about, the things we’re going to criticize, the ways we’re going to spend our money, and the people we’re going to spend time with, and the holidays are no different. With the arrival of the 2022 holiday season it’s time to make a choice again: are you going to let the frustrations, the fears, the issues, the pain, or the challenges be the focus of your holiday season or are you going to focus on enjoying it to the best of your ability? I don’t want to spend this special time of year choosing to focus on the issues, I’d much rather focus on the magic and hope of the season.

Life is fuller and more rewarding (and often more hilarious too) when you choose to spend it with family, whether it’s a biological family or a family of the heart. Even if you don’t go all out like you have in past years because you’re concerned about the economy or because of health concerns, I encourage you to choose to be there for your family this holiday season, and let them be there for you too.

Bug Killing and Problem Solving

It’s summer but that doesn’t mean that kids can’t keep learning! I loved the opportunity to be at the library frequently and get tons of books of my choosing and getting lost in a great story that often educated me about relationships and communication and different parts of the world even if I wasn’t necessarily reading the books to learn about those things. But as I was dealing with what is frequently a summer problem for many people, flies, I was thinking about how important it is to teach our kids that there’s always more than one way to do things. Using the fly example, let’s dive into 4 options of how you can deal with them, and other things.

Sometimes, the choice you make is to do nothing. This is when you choose to let the fly go out the door or choose to just wave your hand near it to discourage it from hanging around you. Sometimes that’s absolutely the best and easiest option, that you just give it some encouragement to move on, and it does. It’s also often the right decision to make when you’re outdoors and dealing with critters and can have them rehomed or just leave them alone rather than killing them or negatively impacting their life.

Sometimes the best choice is bug killing spray. Have you discovered a bees nest on your house or in a location that you go near yet this year? It can be a terrifying experiences and the easiest (and safest) thing is to give the nest a couple of sprays of bee killer and then remove the nest late at night. I don’t always encourage using chemicals, but sometimes it’s the way to go.

Third, you can get a fantastic fly swatter (or other killing device) and squish the bugs. I am definitely one of those who tests a paint’s ability to be cleaned because I often focus more on killing the bug over protecting the wall. It does take some courage and skill to get to them this way, and it’s the most classic way of bug removal.

Finally, one of my favorite ways to remove some bugs is with the vacuum. It helps to have one that doesn’t have a removable bag, has a great extension arm, and is easy to take from one part of the house to another, but it’s a great way to avoid cleaning up a squished mess and possibly even removing them from your home to the outdoors to live another day. Again, it takes some skill and isn’t great for catching every bug, but it’s an option to consider.

No, the point of this post isn’t really about killing bugs. It’s that there’s always more than one way to tackle a problem or to do something, and while some approaches work better than others depending on the situation, the more we encourage our kids (and ourselves) to explore the options and possibilities, the better we’ll get at problem solving in all areas of our lives, the more we’ll get out of life, and the better we’ll leave our world for future generations.

Kids Sometimes Ask Tough Questions

Kids always ask the tough questions, don’t they?! This weekend you may get a couple of those tough ones, questions that are especially tough to help them understand if you’re not religious (Jewish or Christian) with the events of Passover and Good Friday (both starting or happening on Friday, today) and Easter (Sunday for most of the world). Yes, some of the questions they may ask will have to do with the stories behind the events, which if you’re not familiar with them you can answer with a simple online search. But beyond sharing the basic stories, you may have the opportunity to discuss some deeper topics that help address some of the ‘why’ questions behind these stories and give your kids some application on topics that they hear adults discuss but may have been too young to really start understanding, until now.

Choice: Throughout these two events (Passover and Good Friday/Easter) people had to make decisions. Some of them chose based on their fears, and some chose based on their faith, love and compassion. Just like the people in these stories, we’re given tons of choices to make each day. Sometimes we choose to take action or disregard the information, and face whatever the results or consequences might be. Sometimes we’re too blind to see the right choice or too stubborn to make the right choice. But when we really care about something or someone we’ll make the best choice we possibly can because the result matters to us.

New Life: I know what comes to mind when we talk about ‘new life’ during this time of year are all the baby animals, and that’s certainly a healthy way to talk about new life. But sometimes a new life means starting over or starting fresh as we see in the Passover story, which is something that can help kids who are moving to a new town or state, or even just a new school. Sometimes new life means having an experience that completely changes your perspective or brings you to a level of knowledge and understanding that means you’ll never look at life again in the way that you used to as we see in the story of Good Friday/Easter, and kids experience as they learn the truth about Santa and others like him or interact with someone who is homeless. As we see in nature, new life definitely can be a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come with growing pains.

Hope: Our third topic could have been death because it’s relevant to both events, but as important as it is to come to terms with the concept of death, I think it’s more important to teach your kids about hope. Why is hope so important? Because when you make the tough choices and when you have to live through the growing pains of new life, one of the best supports and encouragements can be the hope you have about your destination and what you’re creating. We don’t work on addressing race conflicts or climate change because it’s as easy to “fix” as it is to make a cup of coffee or lemonade, we do it because we have hope that if we take action now someday the world will be less in crisis mode and instead in the direction of healing and community. So many generations before us have believed in a better world, is that what we’re passing on to the next generation?

Whether you have a time of religious celebration this weekend, gather with family ‘just because’, or it’s just a normal weekend for you, I encourage you to be a little more open and patient with your kids when they ask some of those tough questions, because every question is an opportunity for connection and communication if we’re willing to make it such.

Choices of Success

Who doesn’t love choices, right?! We go to fast food restaurants, or any restaurant for that matter, and there are dozens of items on the menu for us to choose from. Why? Because unlike what some businesses want us to believe, there is no “one size fits all” and no one product or company that everyone can agree on or can truly support everyone to the degree they deserve. And let’s not get started on clothing sizes and how what fits my body or my feet probably won’t fit yours or your cousin’s or your best friend because we’re all different.

But the thing is, as anyone who has ever done an internet search to find something knows, there are literally thousands of choices out there. No, they won’t all work for you or be applicable to you, but even once you’ve narrowed things down to what would work for you, there’s a really good chance that there’s still several hundred if not over a thousand options to wade through.

Sometimes our success journey can get bogged down because we’re considering too many choices. I know, it sounds hard to believe, but sometimes there are too many options and we just can’t pick one. It kind of relates to the “to do list” dilemma, wherein people get stuck on their to-do list and nothing ever gets done because they look at the list and there’s just so much on it that they get overwhelmed and decide they can’t possibly ever tackle it all, so they won’t try on any of it.

Do I fully support knowing some of your options and being able to know what your next steps can be if one doesn’t pan out? Absolutely. But you also have to be strong enough and committed enough to your success to make decisions and take action at some point in time, sooner rather than later. I also strongly advocate for being able to think on your feet, being able to be creative and dream up new possibilities, and being willing to explore new things and perspectives, which means that I don’t think you should try to come up with “all the options” because you never know what new and better options you’ll come up with in the future.

Options and choices can be powerful tools for your success if you use them that way rather than letting them hold you back. So go ahead, try some different choices on for size this week when it comes to your success, whether it’s making decisions and taking actions faster than you usually do, or trying new things that you haven’t tried before.

Making Courageous Career and Education Choices

I know a couple of high schoolers who are contemplating what comes next for them as they’re at the age to choose colleges or do something else after they graduate. There is a part of us as adults that wants to or does encourage them towards careers that we know will be reliable sources of income for them, but there’s also a part of us that encourages them to choose what they think will make them happy at least most of the time. Which once again brings us to the opportunity to do our very best in raising them so that we’ve helped them learn or experience as much as possible that will help set them up for success regardless of which path they choose now or in the future.

In many ways I wish we were a little more future-oriented when we all have the conversations about college, and maybe that’s part of what the future looks like: that we do college level schooling more like a graduate or masters degree which typically takes only two years instead of four or five initially, and then years down the road when we’re ready to pursue a different passion or we’ve finally developed and experienced enough to know who we are, we take two more years of schooling.

I like this idea for many reasons: it reinforces the importance of continuing education, it makes acceptable (and even encourages) the changes that we go through in life, and puts less pressure on us when we finish our initial years of schooling to be absolutely right about our next steps in life. Of course, there are some of us who just know right off the bat what we’re supposed to do with our careers and that’s a different set of challenges, but takes courage at that time all the same.

Whatever path they choose they’ll need courage as they step out into a world they’ve never experienced before, one that will keep changing and growing, and hopefully they’ll stay curious and courageous as they navigate it. It’s up to each of us to display the same courage and curiosity when it comes to our lives and our futures. The good news is that even though each of us has to be courageous on our own, everyone in our lives can step up and support us through our courageousness whether it’s words of encouragement, connections, resources, sharing our similar experiences, or moral support. And maybe, when one of us chooses to be courageous, others will be similarly inspired to be courageous when it comes to the careers we choose as well.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” e.e. cummings

Success and Choice

Each week we talk about some of the things that connect, influence, affect, benefit from, learn from or can apply to the topic of success. As I was thinking about my life and some of the things I’ve been working on lately I was reminded of one of the big connections so many people have been more seriously considering since 2020 began: the connection between success and choice. Many more people are evaluating and making decisions about where they work, who they work for and how they work because no longer do they want to be as limited as they feel they have been for many years.

Yes, for many years we were willing to put up with a lot and just let the status quo of our success journeys remain, but 2020 really pushed people to admit how miserable, uncomfortable, unhappy, unappreciated, unmotivated, and/or overworked they were and that they’d really like to have some more choice over how they live their lives, the roles they have at work, and how they support themselves and their family. I get it, it’s why so many people are willing to take the risks to start their own business: because they think (or have experienced) the power of choice that exists when you have control of the work you do.

I don’t think you have to start a business to have more choice in your success journey, but you do have to have at least some of the spine that business owners have to learn to have. You have to be clear on the boundaries you need and things you will and won’t accept in your success journey, and discuss them before you even get hired to a job. Usually there’s some give and take, but there’s nothing wrong with that, especially if you’re able to choose what sacrifices you find acceptable.

And when it comes down to it, each and every day we’re given the choice of how we want to use that day’s 24 hours. How will we choose to define success that day? Will we choose actions that will support those choices and help us accomplish those successes? Even if we have to work on something we don’t absolutely love, will we choose to have a positive attitude about it? What will you choose in your success journey this week?