6. Start writing letters to your children, your spouse, your parents or anyone of significance

6. Start writing letters to your children, your spouse, your parents or anyone of significance (birthday letters especially)

Does anybody write anymore? The obvious answer is yes of course. But most of the time the writing is done with the use of email or texting, and that’s okay really. We are in the communication era so the use of computers, phones, texting, and emails is all right with me. But, when birthdays and important holidays roll around the first thing we do is run out and spend between $5 and $10 on a greeting card that says things that have nothing to do with the relationship that exists between you and the person you are giving the card to. Greeting cards are nothing more than an obligatory expression that communicates to the person that you didn’t forget their birthday or that you were important enough to receive a family greeting card around the holidays; greeting cards from a group of people that you haven’t seen all year or worse yet you might not even like.

My response to all this is to write letters. Oh, I use the computer but it’s my thoughts and my expression of love and appreciation to the people that mean the most to me. My wife and my children are first on that list. I started doing this probably 15 years ago. It never really dawned on me what it meant to the people who received the letter. My list has expanded a bit but rest assured once it starts it won’t stop. You will receive a letter from me on your birthday and during the holiday season. (For me that’s Christmas) I use the letter to my children as a kind of year end summary and recognize their achievement and express my joy for who they are and how they have grown during the year. This has become part of my legacy and is something that I am very proud of; proud not in a

prideful way but in a good way because I know that I have touched the heart and soul of another very significant person in my life.

Sometimes these letters can heal past hurts or just help to get caught up and bring the emotional bank account back from being overdrawn. Whatever the reason we have to realize what we mean to others and the impact that we can have with our words. My dad didn’t write letters but I always remember him filling out a beautiful card that he bought for my mother. The card was of course the most expensive at the time $1. But, he took the time to draw hearts and with arrows and did his best to make my mom feel like his sweetheart. Words can change the world or they can change a life. Below is a short article I wrote titled “Significant Others” I think it truly fits in this chapter.

Significant Others

“It doesn’t mean that much to me to mean that much to you.” Neil Young sang this verse in his song “Old Man.” Significant others; we all have them, and we all have had them: those that have impacted our life in such a way that we can still hear their voice calling us long after they have passed on. My dad was very significant in my life. He was hypercritical, I always sought his approval—it was tough to get. Sometimes I just wanted to give up. I mean, what’s the use in trying? I thought, “Can’t please the old man no matter what I do.” The story is too long to tell here, but after he attended one of my baseball games and saw, I mean really saw the type of baseball player I was, he told me that he was so proud of me and hugged me. I don’t think he had a clue as to what those words and affection meant to me. I forgot all the past criticism and have hung on to those words to this day. He probably changed my life and didn’t even know it. Whether we want to believe it or not, as

adults, we are significant to others right now. It’s time to realize how much we mean to our children, our spouse, and other friends and family members. How much does it really mean to you to mean that much to another person? It doesn’t matter what you have said or done in the past; a life can be changed with the right words at the right time. Often, we allow our past to dictate how we are going to treat others; don’t let it. Start writing those letters now and do it consistently.

7. Avoid multi tasking: stay focused on one thing at a time

For some reason people they believe they can multi task. Well guess what; they can’t. Brain research tells us that we can’t focus on more than one task at a time. Think I’m crazy? Well try singing Amazing Grace while the car in front of you is doing 20 miles an hour on a major highway. You see good and evil can’t occupy the same mind, at least not at the same time. All that really happens is we task switch, we just go from one task to another and think we are multi tasking. All that’s really happening is we are doing two tasks only half as well. So while that car in front of us is going 20 mph there is a constant struggle within us to remain patient and calm or to blow the horn while screaming get the hell out of the way. Slow and easy wins the race. We will get more done by staying focused on one thing and getting it done right than by being overwhelmed with an overly ambitious schedule. Multi tasking is not only bad for our mind but it can be dangerous physically as well. I can still hear my father yelling at me for not paying attention while I was using a tool, or running to get somewhere with my thoughts on where I was going instead of what I was doing. When we grow up with this idea that we can multi task it

can cost us time and money. We can race to get somewhere while we are driving, but we will always be late. We can text and drive, (which we all know is a bad idea) and have a car accident injuring ourselves or others.

The idea here is pay attention to what you are doing and teach your kids to do the same thing. It will all get done safely and thoroughly if you keep your mind on what you are doing. Here is a short article titled “What Are You Paying Attention To” which I wrote many years ago for my book Anti Bullying 101. It fits here and really hammers home the point that we have to stop multi tasking and pay attention to our surroundings.

What Are Your Paying Attention To?

The brain is a wonderful organ and it can be programmed by us and by others. The words that people say to us and the things that are done to us can produce a private logic that can either be believed or stricken from our conscious mind as being just or untrue. Your Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the automatic mechanism inside your brain that brings relevant information to your attention. The RAS is a filter between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. Let’s say you are sitting in your house and in the distance, you hear sirens. Your subconscious mind may say, “Police, fire, first aid.” You are busy concentrating on something else, so your conscious mind focuses on the task at hand. But, then you notice that the sirens were from a fire truck and the truck pulls in front of the your neighbors house. Your RAS immediately kicks in and those sirens that you heard earlier are now relevant to you. If you start to smell smoke well, now it really has your attention. A student may come to school with his/her conscious mind already programmed. He/ she may have let so many negative

thoughts in that they may have become part of his/her belief system. The student may have been bullied at home or punished for small mistakes. His/ her siblings may have picked on him/her to the point that his RAS now allows only negative thoughts in. But worse yet, he/ she now believes them. Negative words and treatment are the things that get his/her attention and they begin to form his/her self-image. His thoughts become actions.

The order of the day is to stay focused on the positive and stop trying to stuff two pounds of baloney into a one pound bag. Something or someone will always suffer or be short changed in some way, shape, or form. In this case you are sure to lose at least a half pound of baloney.