The Risk Within

I have written many posts, at this point, on taking responsibility. My intention is to express to all, what we often find as fault or blame in others, can actually be as a result of a short coming, within ourselves.

I do not blame the victims or believe that anyone who is being mistreated should ever feel it is their fault. I simply want people to question,themselves, why they do tolerate such behavior and to find what changes they can make,to improve their own lives. Too often we never do ask ourselves what it is we can do or need to do, to improve our own lives. It is always easier to blame others than it is to look for or find solutions for ourselves.

As difficult as it is to accept,for some, the truth is that too many times we do become no different from robots, who go about our daily lives never questioning those who are controlling us or ourselves, if we have a strong urgency to control others, who do fine, without our need to control. We can become apathetic,indifferent,a bully, or too complacent or trusting with the people and power of the World that goes on around us, just as we can with ourselves.

If we simply follow routine, that we have slipped into and take programming from others in our lives, we can often wake up to discover, when the relationship ends, that we have taken too many people in our lives for granted or accepted too poor of a treatment,for ourselves.

As long as we insist that we do not care for politics or feel a need to vote, because we incorrectly think both parties are just alike,or we give our vote to another, without thought, we can often end up to discover the party that protects oil companies and big business is the same that allows Democracy to erode. We must always remember, for instance, that oil companies will and do control the politics of States where oil is King, such as Wyoming,Oklahoma and Texas.No different than what tourism is to Disneyland or Disney World.

If our daily life, ends up with our free time being limited by other’s recommendations or dedicated to the inter-net, some television and radio broadcasts that are not concerned with the truth or the news, but instead report slanted views, and we believe the lies that are often spread through the social media and paid ads, we can too often, end up believing lies over truth, not to mention, without having an original thought of our own.

Without educating ourselves, to the reality and truth over perceptions, the knowledge of which party or candidate will do the best job for us and the middle class,will be lost in ignorance or lies, when we do go to the polls and vote. When this happens it is sometimes ourselves, who are the most ill-equipped to vote,not to mention the most dangerous to Democracy.

It is easy to get caught up in our day-to-day habits and routine, to the point that we become lost to ourselves or perform as robots,never questioning the reality of what we are doing or hearing. The longer we do it the more accepting we become of things that do not make sense, when questioned.

It is not something that we are always aware of, in fact most of us do not even have a clue, until we do have trauma take place in our lives, and it forces us into acknowledging what we have accepted as truth, without questioning, a great deal of the time was merely perception, and does not even come close to being the truth.A for instance of that is, we commonly think modern medicine can cure anything until we get seriously ill, and the great majority of us are surprised at how little medicine does know about cause much less cure. Too many times, our own survival will depend on us being more honest and realistic, when dealing with our own lives.

We cannot blame those who we turned over control of our lives to, simply because we were taking comfort in our own lifestyle or stressing over what had very little real significance,in comparison to where our priorities needed to be, in our own lives, much less in the Democracy of America. We need to remain alert to both past and present history, both in ourselves and our own behavior, as well as in the world, that goes on around us.

I doubt, many of us would or could argue, that if we showed as little interests in our jobs or our families, who we have been Blessed with to guide, as we do in the maintenance of Democracy, we would not be at our current job or a reputable member of our family, for long.

Just as we need to stay on our toes, when it comes to the needs of our friends and family, we also need to be aware of how our own behavior affects those we profess to love, as well as, what happens in the World around us. When we fail to keep up with ourselves and our own needs and behavior, we often fail to keep up with the needs of those around us, as well.

We need to be comfortable in the knowledge, we gain, that our own vote just as our own behavior, can and will safeguard the equality as well as the quality of life for all of us, who do embrace freedom. If we fail to appreciate that those we love the most, ourselves included, can be a statistic tomorrow, we often risk the fact that we will deny our own freedom, when others start talking about changing the Constitution to deny others their rights.

It is too easy to think that as long as we are not complaining then those that we love do not have complaints either. If we are busy shopping and hiding the receipts from our spouses, we fail to realize the short high, that we receive, is often the long misery that they receive, when it comes to balancing the budget.

When we constantly sacrifice while our spouse spends or does nothing but argue with us or dismiss our efforts, we are not so content either.Just as we cannot continue to elect politicians who refuse to do anything for the American people, because the other Party may win. We can too many times go back to the fox guarding the hen-house when we refuse to educate ourselves, both in the future needs of our families as well as our Country.

When we all develop the attitude that we, each, are much more than a robot and the risk of both our family as well as American’s Democracy rests on the shoulders of individuals, we will prove we are all reliable to the rest of the World.We owe all those, who look to us for freedom, the responsibility of maintaining Democracy, by putting as much effort into, “Freedom for All”, as we do into our own families.

It needs to be both our goal as well as our priority to know the differences between each candidate and party,including the Tea Party, before we vote. Democracy as well as the survival of our government,of “We the People,” in America and around the World, depends on it.

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Setting Standards In Our Life

To leave out any confusion, for those who scoff at placing rules in our homes, and maybe are confused otherwise; Setting standards in our family, that we will all live by as well as expect our children to live by, are setting rules in our homes.

By being consistent with the enforcement of the rules we establish harmony in our homes, as well as eliminate confusion over what we expect of our child or children because we ask no less of ourselves. The rules or standards, are not unjust,too lenient, or too strict. We do the same when we set the standards in all of our lives, and that is why we know how to set them, and where to draw the line.

Too many times we set standards for ourselves and others that are simply too high to accomplish or do the reverse and set the bar too low. When we are looking for a job, someone to commit to, planning to provide for our children’s future, or what we will do to contribute to Society, we need to be realistic.

Many times we will blame life for not giving us the break it gave everyone else, when in truth, we did have the opportunity that everyone else gets but because we doubted or over-rated our own ability to perform, that of our child’s or spouse’s or felt it was beneath us, we passed on opportunity when it was right in front of our own noses.

If we are self-employed and constantly set the bids too high because our standard of living needs more, we often price ourselves out of what could have been a lucrative future if we had been more realistic about the competition we would be competing against. When we are willing to let the Company hiring, indicate what they feel is fair, and we take the lost income now, we will many times find that our exposure to others,while doing that job, can many times lead to meeting the people who will give us the break, if not finding it in the Company, where we currently work.

Although Companies are slower to show loyalty themselves, they still look for it in people, who give them loyalty. Many times they will remember we were willing to work for less and reward us accordingly,the longer we stay with them. Other times they will keep us on, when the next layoffs come around.It will never be the concern of Companies to make certain we can maintain our own standards of living, but instead, our responsibility to lower our own costs by eliminating wasteful spending.

If we understand that all people age and change their appearance and our only criteria in looking for a spouse is appearance, we are going to end up with something quite different, once we are married for a few years. Their character as well as their potential to adapt to their surroundings over trying to control it or us, along with the level of communication they exert, will offer us far more in the future, when life does become difficult.

Those who are continually angry or teary eyed or bitchy now, will not improve with age or commitment. The person that says,”I fell in love with them because they liked what I liked,” is often more in love with themselves than they are with us. We need to realize that the dating period is as phony as we are, since we both are on our best behavior. He or she are trying to impress us, as much as, we are them. Many times when they are rushing the courtship it is because they know they will not be able to fake it,for long.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that we cannot force people to think as we do anymore than we can force loyalty out of others or make them love us. If we see things, while dating, that are throwing up warning signals we need to listen to our common sense and pay attention to what we are sensing is a problem. The lies and behavior, we are picking up on now, will be part of our own hell, later, when we refuse to listen to those warnings now.

For those who are confused as to the saying, “The wedding cake is the most dangerous food of all,”I will explain what it means here. We are never so vulnerable as we are when we fall in love. We will do things unimaginable for the person that we have fallen in love with. Many will lower their own standards and the most honest of people can become liars. Many times jealousy or the inability to hang onto our spouses’ fidelity will lead to murder or criminal behavior on the part of those who would never have believed it years earlier.

2500 pregnant women who are mostly married, will be killed yearly by their spouses who professed to want children. When we telly the record of battered people in a marriage who are killed or injured and add the number who marry us for both our income or life insurance, those numbers go through the roof.

We need to sit standards before we fall in love and stand by them once we do. If we fail to marry character, but instead marry the bad boys or the wild girls, we will become part of what is bad and wild about them. We will not fix or change them and that we can take to the bank and bank on it.It maybe the only thing bankable in the entire relationship. As soon as they become bored,which is frequently, we will become history and hope that we still have our lives intact. Even though they may not want us, they often, make certain no one else will get us either.

I have written enough on children to make us open our own eyes to what direction we need to take in my previous posts but I would also like to add, that average intelligent children, do not make straight A’s unless our own pressure forces them into cheating or we hire tutors to help them.

When cheating happens we need to make certain that they are doing their own homework at home because they will rarely be caught by their teachers. Most of us would not be able to figure out their systems either. If we have average intelligence in our children, they obviously will not be getting 4 year full paid scholarships.

We need to make it both our child’s priority by having them earn income as well as our own savings will need to go into that pursuit.Lower income scholarships,not based on grades, statistically go to those living below the poverty line. Middle class students with average ability and average intelligence, who do not live below poverty, will get the least in both scholarships and loans. Buying a car when they turn 16, obviously will not be part of the plan, if education comes first.

When it comes time for all of us to give back to Society, we will need to look at our own strengths and weaknesses and decide for ourselves, where we will be able to contribute the most,in the best way that we can. If we have been doing nothing but taking or even if we are not always being paid for what we do, we have a responsibility to offer our thanks for the gifts of freedom and Democracy, we all enjoy.We need to educate ourselves in the way we will vote, that will protect both our freedoms and Democracy, and understand voting is the responsibility of all of us.

We find our own niche in life, by first finding maturity and character in ourselves and then in our spouse, by raising children who will make a positive difference in Society because they learned from our own example, as well as the guidance we instilled in them, and by giving back to America. When we set standards high enough for all to reach but not so high they or we, are bound to fail, we take responsibility for our own successes of life.

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Successful Families

I have written about families who do not succeed, as obviously families who do and have been successful,clearly know and understand the value of taking responsibility for their own lives, and will continue doing just fine without the financial or moral advice of others, as long as other family members understand that they still need and want as much acceptance as the other member or members of the family, who do or does not achieve,at the same rate.

Successful families will spend as much time offering genuine congratulations as they will sympathy.They gain hope for themselves through the success of the other members who have made it, if that is their goal. If they know and are honest with themselves, that they will never achieve the same, because they have different goals or priorities,not to mention spending habits, they do not begrudge the success of their siblings. Money will never pass the hands of the adult members unless it is given of the free will and clear thinking of a family member in form of a Birthday or Christmas gift.

If we do give money or help, it is because we want to and not because we feel manipulated into doing so,but we do it with the acceptance of everyone involved. It needs to be money given freely that will not lead to our own hardships, later,if we do find we need the money. Families will help out when a member of the family has an emergency, due to a car breaking down, illness,moving,fires, or once in a life-time or extremely rare layoff,etc., when they are able to help, as long as, it does not take their life savings.

I haven’t come close to even skimming the surface, of truly painful dysfunctions in families, who do not even rate on the scale of remote acceptance, when it comes to family values. These family members have no regard for anyone beyond where they are going to get their next fix and how they will find the money to do so,even when it comes to stealing from family members or prostituting out their own spouse or children or themselves. Yet parents will blindly aid and abet them at a price or lost to the entire family. They will only get better,many times when they are arrested or sent to rehabilitation. At the other end of the spectrum are those who are so greedy they would sell their own mother, if they could make a profit on it. Instead I have pretty much stayed with what has been common in families over the generations, when families fail to last.

Where no member feels justified or entitled to borrow money, or money never enters the picture because of manipulation or guilt,much less where borrowing becomes habit,families eliminate the number one cause of families failing. The number two cause of failure is finding fault and passing blame and making assumptions based on the sense of entitlement. When families fail to understand that Mom and Dad do not owe us money for our childhood nor do we owe them money for it,unless a formal loan was made by word of mouth or contract, and parents do not make their children compete for their time and attention through the use of failure, while success goes unrewarded,families do work out and last.

The reason I have expressed taking responsibility for ourselves, when we become adults and it is time to move on, is because many times it is the child that fails in doing so, that parents feel most protective of defending. We parents do wear blinders, many times, in not understanding the damage we do to our own families when we feel the need to make the weak member of the household ,our favorites. To express that this child is and has always been our favorite, only adds flame to the fire, when the other children have never asked anything of us, but instead have only offered to help us when we needed help.

Successful families do not have a parent or child in it that is lying, in order to get attention or sympathy, in order to come out as the most favored child or sibling,they do not disown or exclude a member of the family from family gatherings,or lie to buy drugs, or lie to cover for the fact they have a spending problem,to cover for their gambling,or because they simply fail to work long enough and hard enough to reach their own goals through saving,etc. Successful families do not use their failures or claim to be the most unfortunate member of the family, in order to blackmail their parents or to play on their parents guilt.

Successful families are not made responsible for the sibling who fails to live within the boundaries of the income they earn. Successful families are accepting of our differences, over being critical of them. Successful families understand that we will each be tested in our own range of life and our tests of life do not need to be compared with theirs.

It is not uncommon that those who are tested the most severe, are often the most grateful amongst us as well as the last to complain about their hardship. They can and do appreciate the lesson that has been taught them and the value of having learned the lesson. Successful families will make room for the spouses of each family member, to express their own minds.Successful families are those who if they choose to marry, will understand that the wife deals with the issues in her family while the husband deals with the issues in his family but they come first, when it comes to communicating between the two, if and when problems arise.

I could go on forever, and not touch all the reasons why families fail or succeed, but for the most part when assumptions are made by us and other members of the family fail to live up to our expectations or demands, and we end up disappointed as a result of our own erroneous ideas, and when we place conditions on our love, then our families will enter the danger zone that does lead to failure.

Unconditional love and acceptance of our differences given freely without strings attached or expectations in return,garnered with respect for each member by all members who have not suffered hardship as a result of the behavior of another, will be behind the reason, families succeed.Pretty simple when we think about it, but if our family has a member in it, who will obsess over the sinfulness of Santa Claus, then we need to make certain our minds are as open as our hearts or understand at what point or level of abuse, will we be justified in walking away.

We need to understand we cannot control others or make decisions for them and each decision we make needs to be an individual decision based on our own thought process and made for ourselves,in an effort to spare our own sanity through truth and in avoidance of denial as well as our own physical well-being,sometimes for the survival of our own marriage or other times for the safeguard of our minor children.

MY hope then is that we all remember when we gather this weekend for an enjoyable Labor Day celebration to Truly celebrate what we love about each other and stay away from assumptions or anything that will divide us, and we will all do fine. The major thing to bear in mind is,”It is a camping trip”. Someone will forget something,someone will not always move at the speed that we would like,children living in close quarters are more apt to argue as are parents,there will be tears and bites but we hope the tears are not coming from the adults, and the number one thing to remember is,”Just think how nice it will be to be back home into the routine we complained about before we left to go camping.” If you are spending it elsewhere, without extended family, then enjoy the last break before the snow or rain flies with the cold. Have a safe but enjoyable trip,everyone!

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Accepting Me Accepting You

Despite the differences in all of us, the only real thing that all children,adults,families,schoolmates,neighbors,co-workers and all people who make up our daily lives are looking for is acceptance.

We often find that people who have lived in a community ,neighborhood or worked at a place longer than the rest feels an entitlement to make certain the new people know how we do things around here. If the new comers refuse to accept our ways of doing things, many times it can turn out to an all out war of the Hatfields and the McCoys. If we have never put up a fence and the outsiders want a privacy fence for their own reasoning the fur sometimes will start flying. If the new employee has learned a more efficient way of processing information than what we learned and refuse to accept what we are teaching them then the feelings are stepped on to the detriment of harmony in the office many times. We all want acceptance in our lives.

When trouble developes in families,neighborhoods,at school or the work place it can usually be traced back to a group or individual who has tried to force conformity on the rest of the people or population to accept their terms of the way things should be done. Change comes difficult for some and they will fight tooth and nail to make certain that change never happens even when the majority have grown to accept that it is necessary to move on or ahead in order to maintain acceptance of the majority in a Democracy,harmony, or to improve on the past.

Trouble usually begins in large families when siblings marry and start bringing in new ideas that are foreign to the pecking order that the family had established years ago. If big brother or big sister had assumed the role of parenting and became comfortable in dishing out orders or making decisions and little sister or brother feel they have a better way of doing things then problems will arise. The older siblings have grown to accept that they are in charge and how dare they be upstaged by a different way of thinking or doing things. The same is true when parents feel because of their station in life their children are bound to accept their dictates for life and if they do not then they will simply disown them,in some cases.

When couples get married and accept that they will refuse to do everything the same way their parents did but instead will form a relationship based on their own acceptance of what standards they will keep and which they will discard they are behaving in a totally natural and healthy frame of mind. Maturity is all about forming our own boundaries and acceptance of the input into what our marriage will represent and look like to us.

When we refuse any acceptance or imput into the formation of our own marriage from our husbands or wives, because Mom or Dad would never approve or did not do it that way or believe in that political party or religion and a wife or husband instead determine that they will live their lives identical to the way their parents or siblings have always dictated, we leave no room for our partners acceptance into our lives. These marriages are in trouble from day one and indicate an immaturity in the couple that suggest they were not ready for marriage.

Marriages last because of our acceptance of both of our differences as well as our likes.Too many people fail to understand that many of us form the idea that we are what we do or like and when there is no acceptance of our likes or differences we often feel that there is no acceptance of us. When we determine the moral ground that we will choose to conform to in order to maintain who we are or to raise a family we accept each other. We need to be on the same page morally in order for a base of trust to form.

If one of the partners are moral and the other immoral we immediately start forming a crack in the foundation of trust that holds the rest of the body of our marriage together. Make no mistakes about it, immoral includes trying to control or dictate to our spouses through the use of force or abuse how they will live their life. Just as it does in the way we spend money or bankrupt the family, on wants over needs. It is when we can no longer accept each others differences that we quit liking or respecting each other and the marriage divides.The character of a person plays a huge role in whether we will accept each other and whether our marriage will last.

The same is true about raising children. What children really want from their parents is acceptance of who they are and what they enjoy doing. When men want a football or baseball star because they think their son has the aptitude they quite often turn the child into what they want instead of what the child wants. Most sons will go along with their Dads because all children starve for their parents acceptance. It is true when mothers turn their daughters into beauty pageants,send them to dance school or cheerleading.

Although it is fine to expose our children to different forms of possible accomplishments in life too many of us fail to hear the child when they say,”Mom and Dad I would rather do…..” Many times it is a far worse crises for a child to feel that they disappoint their parents than it is to speak out and say they do not want to do what Mom and Dad want because most children will do anything to gain acceptance and to avoid disappointing mom and dad. When they do say they want to quit we need to see ourselves as successful parents who have given them a voice in their own lives.

We need to let go of the idea that if we sign up a child to something that we want because we are choosing to live our lives vicariously through our child, that when our children say they would rather quit and do something different they are not failures.There will be things that all children need to learn in order to safe guard their own safety in the future such as discipline and punishment for bad behavior,taking responsibility for their own actions, swimming, basic first aid course and a good education and these we cannot let them decide that they do want to quit. Raising our children successfully is about what their genetic code is telling them and acceptance of their differences from our own.

Just as our parents raised a child or children who grew up to be nothing that they dreamt we would be and learn to accept that,if it was a functional home,we need to do the same in our homes. It is only when we refuse to accept each other for the path that they choose that families will and do disintegrate and form black sheep. When we all are living a moral life regardless of our differences there should never be a black sheep in the family. None of us get to judge who is living a moral life and who is not because just like people have difference in ideas they also have differences in spiritual beliefs and how and where they will worship.

If we are not breaking God’s law or Man’s law we are moral according to our own right to accept the direction we choose to take. The rhetoric and hate being spewed by the politicians should never be considered as moral in our homes to the point that politics destroy our families the way they are destroying their own party with the voters. Life is about me accepting you and you accepting me. God Bless us all!

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Cont…..But He Is A Good Father

The two biggest arguments that women use when staying in an abusive relationship are:”I still love him,” and “He is a good father.”

If we could get through the message to people who are abused that it takes both people to show and express love and that love does not hurt then perhaps the abused would look at their relationships more realistically. I’m not sure how we do that,myself, as many times the abused have been told so many times “how worthless they are.” many are convinced that they and their children can not survive if they do leave the marriage. All I do know for certain is that telling women that they do have a duty and obligation to go back to the marriage bed and to try harder to work with their husbands and to pray does not work and often leads to tragedy to the entire family.

All the favorite meals,mood lightening, and following detail to the explicit demands of an abuser does nothing towards stopping the abuse, either. One of the other problems of abuse is many times when women do say, “I don’t have time to do what he wants today,” and he does come home and beats her,she will think it is her fault because she did not follow orders. The abused do start believing that they are as dumb,fat, and ugly as they are being told they are by the abuser. They all forgive and promise they will never do it again,of course,but it never last. During the forgiveness period many are that sweet loveable person the women fell in love with and they become convinced they are deeply in love and could never leave, all over again. Living in fear becomes a rush and if it does not become comfortable then it becomes normal for them, the longer it goes on. It becomes easier all the time to deny all of the rest.

Of course, a parent who is thinking clearly, would never say,”He mistreats me but he is a good father.” We all understand that children cannot watch turmoil between their parents and come out with anything but psychological damage as a result of it.We know that whether children are watching abuse take place on others or it being inflicted on themselves, it alters the personality of the person they were meant to be as early as 3 years of age. To cause this kind of damage to a child does not make any of us a good parent when we realize that this type of harm or damage will affect the entire life of our children. They will grow up totally confused as to how to effectively deal with a relationship and many times will abuse themselves.

Other times the children come out just as demoralized as the battered women because just as she has no self-esteem or identity beyond him neither do the children. The sons will often repeat the same disgusting names to both their mother or sisters as are coming out of the mouth of the abuser.Many times he learns that the only value women have is to wait on and look after a man. The sons learn to bully and the daughters learn to withdraw, other times sons will become intimidated and withdraw while daughters become more aggressive and tend to become more sexually active when incest, many times becomes part of the abuse as well. This is typical behavior patterns when the abused are saying.”He is a good father.” no differently than when the children are being beaten as well.

Policemen can pick up the mentally ill and have them hospitalized without family approval in cases of discovery according to the Baker law. The problem is that putting women into shelters under the same circumstances will often times jeopardize the safety of the other abused women who are in hiding. If the victims do not want to go or be there, which is often the case, they will get ahold of their abusers and let them know where they are and once the secret address of the shelter becomes known then the safety it offers for other abused victims no longer exists.

Like all of the problems that do seem unsolvable there are solutions once an entire community of experts put their heads together to come up with different ideas. Sadly that all costs money and time and too many do not have one or the other to offer to the group. I am the first to admit that I do not have much to offer in way of solution,myself. I just understand that as long as we ourselves go into denial when our friends tell us they ran into something that gave them the black eye,because we do not want to embarrass our friend,we do the abused a disservice by not discussing it. Too many are ashamed to talk about it but once confronted by understanding instead of accusations, when the relationship is a close one,many times they will want to talk.

If we educate ourselves on the knowledge available to them like going to see their Doctor or the police and enquire about getting into a shelter or they will only repeat the behavior until it becomes worse, we can help empower them. Offering sympathy will only make them feel better temporary and they will go back to the abuse. Other times they will rely on us for their courage and do nothing else, Many times when the abuser finds out the abused are relying on a confidant they will end the relationship. I repeat, we need to empower them to get help so they do not rely on our hand holding but instead rely on their own ability to seek help.

Currently in some of the States when police are being called to domestic calls, both the abuser and the victim are being arrested and spend the night in jail or at least a couple of hours until things cool down a little. I do not think putting abused victims in jail is right but if we did pass laws that made protecting abuse and abusers illegal in our State, perhaps the abused could be hospitalized and at least kept long enough to try to work with the mental damage that is often done to the entire family by an abuser. I can already see the problems that could come out of that as well, and that is why abuse is such a difficult problem to work with and to solve.

Like everything else that is preventive, we simply need to learn and educate ourselves while we are dating and making lifetime choices for a mate. If he or she strikes or hits us or throws things at us, while dating, he or she will become much worse after marriage. Dating is the time that we are on the best of behavior and any names being thrown at us while dating will go from being cute to vindictive after marriage. Anger that is not part of the grieving process very rarely subsides without being able to release it. Healthy people will talk to someone or get professional help in order to either let go or to work more effectively around it. Others hide it behind alcohol and drugs. If we are doing both with the abusers while dating then we need to understand the hell we will put our children through if we marry them and continue the same recreational behavior.

All parents need to know and understand just how important an education beyond highschool is to all of our children. Both boys and girls. Too many times the number one reason that our children do stay in an abusive situation is because of the fear that they could not financially support their children alone,as well as, they can by staying in the abusive situation. Education does not only give them the out to do that but it also establishes the confidence in our children that often leads to their knowing they deserve better and to get out before any more damage is done to their children or our grandchildren. None of the expensive birthday parties or clothes that we are currently buying them will lead to the success of their lives as an education will. Even though abuse does also exist in the educated, it is considerably less, and nothing empowers our children like an education does.

Whatever lays ahead for abuse I feel it needs to be dealt with,as it lies at the root cause of what Americans should be most ashamed of, as well as, is twin to crime, in America today. To just wash our hands and give up or worse yet to blame the victims and do nothing, when we are so much better as a Nation than that,shows poorly against us all.At the same time I applaud all of you who have dedicated their years and time working towards finding solutions only to find out that the root problem towards solutions does lie in the victims themselves, who have been so deeply brainwashed in fear or have learned to adapt to it,to the point they do refuse help offered to them,too many times.Somewhere there is a bridge that will join the gap that does lead to successful treatment and my faith is in the fact that we will find it. Thanks to all of you who are looking.

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Will We Ever Stop Abusers?

Until we can make women and men understand and realize that the only way we can stop abuse is for adult people, who are being abused, to empower themselves,abuse will always remain.Unless we accept the reality of it happening in one out of every three homes on every block in every town,city or village, and being protected by our Christian-Judeo Society with the power of the right-wing, Tea Party and special interest groups in their corner, abuse will remain the corner-stone of crime in America.

If you have been reading my posts then you understand that I write about taking responsibility for ourselves and teaching our children to do the same. We women cannot get stronger as long as we all hold the hand of the women who are being abused, since in doing so we continue weakening them as well as ourselves. Instead we need to point out to women who will and do protect abuse and abusers what their responsibilities are and help to empower them against such treatment. Sitting in judgment of them or pointing fingers and finding blame, is no better than offering sympathy and doing nothing.

If they do get the courage to leave then we need to be certain that they are kept safe by making laws that will keep them safe as well as providing the necessary support systems that they will need. We have already made good gains in those areas and now we must convince them through our Churches that love does not hurt. Divorce is acceptable when the protection of our families are at stake. As long as abused and neglected children are growing up to become criminals and being put to death, then we need to empower ourselves into knowing and understanding that we cannot be treated like second class citizens or worse, unless we allow ourselves to be treated that way.

We know that anger-management classes that are court ordered for abusive people,whether men or women fail. We know the laws are set up to let men off sometimes in a matter of months when they kill their children and wives and are found guilty of manslaughter. Women will serve much longer if not the full 20 years, when they kill the abusers. We know that rapist and pedophiles are never cured.

We know that men have been viewed for centuries as being weak if they cannot control their women.We offer very little in the form of help or understanding for men who are victims of abuse.A real man settles his differences with fist in many parts of our Society.

We know 9 million Morman people believe women cannot go to Heaven unless a man takes them there. We know the many other millions into the billions of women have been brain washed into believing it is their duty to serve their man and make them happy regardless of how they are being treated in return. They do tell the men they must respect their women,wink wink.

Is there any wonder that bullies start out on the playgrounds of school and grow up to bully all their lives? We as a Society are clearly condoning if not promoting the superiority of men in a Christian-Judeo environment. When we add ignorance to power we get abuse.

Unless we women empower ourselves to realize that the only way our children will be safe is for women to be safe, then abuse will never stop.As long as we concern ourselves about abortion then we will never concern ourselves about the real problem and that is our own safety and empowerment.

We know that in families where men and sons are being waited on that the sons will grow up and expect it of their wives. We also know that young girls are growing up being taught that the only future they do have is to serve her man and make babies that they cannot afford to educate if they were not already being taught that education is the damnation of all mankind,anyway.

We know there is more abuse in these families than there is in families that teach equality. We know that Church goers are being taught that people who teach equality in a marriage and home are no good liberals spreading lies in order to defeat religion,such as myself. We know that if men hit they do not stop hitting.The few that do leave women living in fear with the words and anger that continues. We know their sons will grow up and do the same. We also know when mothers abuse their daughters grow up to abuse as well. Both men and women are abused.

We know that when men and women are abused so are the children abused. We know far more women are abused by the cowards who are bigger and stronger than they are and the only defense a woman has against the men is a weapon, unless they are granted all of our Blessings and Dispensations to leave the marriage without making them feel guilt. We know the scars left on children watching mom being beaten or killed will travel hurt and harm through at least three, if not more, of the generations of that family.

We know that if we believe that incest is in low numbers and we keep the real numbers protected, then people will be less concern about young women who are abused and less understanding of the need for abortion. We know if we can keep women’s’ emotions upset over abortion then we can get them to vote for the right-wing and tea party candidates who want to change the Constitution to deny equal rights.

We know that poverty and prostitution is the number one cause of abortion and yet there is a movement under way, that does not seem to concern the religious community, to legalize prostitution. The fact that it has served the pleasure of the superior male species only and has not been considered adultery in past history and existed since the days of the bible makes it acceptable,sadly. Even when it is the number one cause of death in young women either through, disease,murder or addiction.

I have only scratched the surface of why abuse happens and if not smiled on, certainly we are and have been blinding ourselves to the truth of it since the beginning of time. The only way we can stop it is by women taking responsibility for their own poor behavior because men never will give up the place of superiority over women unless we women make it clear that we and our children will no longer tolerate being treated that way. We begin today by educating ourselves.

If he is abusive he is abusive. It is not our fault that he is an inhumane jerk but it is our fault if we put up with it. If we date jerks we will marry jerks. If we marry jerks our children will pay the biggest price of all for the poor choices we make. If we sleep with everyone we meet then we will definitely fall for one of them and it only takes one to destroy the rest of our life along with our children. Divorce does cause pain to our children but it causes less pain than watching their mothers being beaten or cleaning up their blood.

Just as we women and the majority of good descent men, who come from functional homes, want to see our children happy our children want to see their moms and dads happy and the only way we can accomplish that is in equality of the genders. Women need to take the choices they make much more serious than what a man looks like and how he dresses and men need to do the same. Character can be disguised for a while but it can’t be hidden forever and for the sakes of ourselves as well as our children we need to make it our top priority.

No self-respecting human being will want to take control over another adult human being who is family, much less call the mother of their children a whore, bitch,slut and worse.Unless we are a policeman, a member of the Court system, or a jailer we guide and offer help to people, we do not control them. We need to take ownership of our own responsibility and teach our children the same by practicing and teaching equal respect for all the God-given abilities that both genders are given. We begin today.

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Do We Choose Financial Misery?

We have all known them. They are the ones who say,”No matter how hard I tried, I could never catch a break.”,”I just wasn’t lucky like other people were”,”My husband never had the temperament that would have ever allowed us to succeed”,”I could never have done that,” “Or it seems like whatever I did there was always someone out to get me.’

A great deal of the cloud that seems to follow some,at least in their minds, does have to do with their own attitudes. Many do have an opportunity to prove themselves but when they reach the point it is going to mean real effort on their part they quit or fail to put forth the effort it takes to achieve. There are people who are genuinely afraid of success because if they fail at it, they will not be able to blame anyone but themselves nor will they be able to convince others or themselves what a hollowing success they could have been if they were just given the chance to prove themselves. Other times we have such a low self-esteem that we will defeat ourselves before we even get started.

Our attitudes play a great role in the signals we give off to future or current employers.Our appearance and how we dress, use to play a bigger role on the job than it does now, but most places still hire on that alone,if we have the youth and education to go along with it. Previous experience will always win out over none. If we argue each time that we cannot put in the extra hours it will not be long before we are slated for heading out of the door. If we always have aches and pains or allergies that interpret to the idea that we are not able to handle the job, we won’t be asked to do it, and we will once more be slated for dismissal.If we are the local loud mouth who knows everything but our performance lags then we also many times will get the pink slips.

There are many times, people who take jobs because they are getting pressure from home and have no intent of holding the job any longer than it takes to leave and draw unemployment,We need to show initiative to get ahead on our own and many times when we don’t we defeat our own ability to make gains in the Company, Others have the attitude that they are better than the 9 to 5 job. They think they are slated for greater things and the 9 to 5 jobs are for losers and slouches but not for them.

Most of us fail to realize that the largest part of our wealth, we will ever gain towards retirement comes from the income that we earn during our productive years. If we never save and spend every penny of it we will never have what others have. We may have a nicer wardrobe or more shoes that go out of style one season to the next but we will not be able to accumulate enough income that will grow towards retirement.If we do not pay bills when they are due then the amount of the fees and interests we pay along with the over-draft fees many times will come to much more than what we spent on the original item in the first place. We all have way more money to spend once we realize how much is going out and make being debt free our first priority. Much of our earned income is often times the only money that we will ever have.

Many investments will and do fail. Too many people will stick whatever they have all in one basket and if the person who runs the Company,Savings and loan, or fund is corrupt or has hired an inept person or people, we will and do lose every penny we did set aside for later. Often the failure will frighten us off to the point that we never invest again. When we do allow failure to frighten ourselves off we can be certain that we will lose even more, in the long run. Every financially successful person has failed a number of times before they did get it right.

Unless we work for family or are able to establish a successful small business of our own, rare is the person who will not be laid off at least once,lose one home and need to move. Even when we do work for ourselves more will fail than succeed. To think we won’t stumble or be forced to start over at some point in our life is somewhat naive. More people will work and retire at 65 when they work for a small business than a large firm. It is almost unheard of today in any large Company or Corporation.

We need to understand the credentials and history of all the top echelon,who are calling all the shots on our investment. We need to beware of diversity and spreading what we are able to save, through various avenues other than putting our earned income all into one basket. As bad as it is to lose part of our investment, it is always better than to lose all of it.

Just because a business has a store front or a past reputation of making money or delivering good advice, does not mean that all people within the network are always capable. Many times Dad and Grandpa will have run a profitable business and the children will run it into the ground, along with board members who are more valued out of friendship than business savvy.

Check on your investments. Don’t just put them in and assume they are safe. Sometimes we will know more or understand the economy better than those hired to protect our investments. If it is too good to be true then it is too good to be true no matter how good of a friend your friend says this guy is. We never pay anyone anything to win or to inherit anything and anyone who tells us that we have won or been left an inheritance that we just have to pay the taxes on are nothing but scam and con artists and in some cases can be quite dangerous if we refuse to pay after we have already made the mistake to pay once.

The reason our grandparents told all of us to set aside a little something for a rainy day is because it was wise advice. When the day comes when we need to replace the roof or buy new appliances we do not want to take out another loan on the house, whatever we or the savings or loan or the banks call the loan, a home improvement loan or a loan by any other name that clears equity in our homes is, nothing more than taking out a second mortgage. It may be that we borrow against another holding or replace one appliance at a time as the need arises. Other times we can save our bonuses and tax returns so that we can do individual rooms at a time, and pay cash as we go.

Refinancing,unless it is for a lower interests rate,is never more than a second mortgage. Second and third mortgages do not only raise our interests rates across the board they make us all more vulnerable as our house will be foreclosed on where the homes with equity in them have other options at the time our lives take drastic changes. When we still have equity in our homes, we will have the option to sell sometimes at a comfortable profit and reinvest in something smaller or to reorganize or refinance, because we will have leverage in equity or cash.

I repeat, people never want to take the equity they gain out of their homes as to do so means we are getting second and third mortgages and making ourselves much more vulnerable when the job decides we have reached 50 and it is time to work us out of the Company because the department we were hired to work in is being phased out or we are being laid off at any age. Too many people fail to realize that no matter how loyal we are to a large Company or Corporation, the company is only interested in profit and that is their bottom line. Their intent is to please the stock holders first. There are no more of the work until your 65 and we will give you the gold watch ceremonies, left in Large Companies or Corporations.

More and more people are finding that their terms of employment are ending between 45 and 50. There are supposed to be laws against that but all Companies have their own team of lawyers who dot every I and cross every t before they lay us off and can find grounds by simply saying the Company is going a new direction. There will be tons of class action lawyers trying to get you to pay a little something or to sign on the dotted line and they will go after the bastards but believe me, it is for the lawyers benefits more times than not. More Companies are also hiring two-part time employees over one full-time in order to get out of paying for benefits.We need to be aware of our own ability to put aside and to invest and never trust someone else who is promising us a sweet deal. Too many sweet deals end up in their pocket and they are the only ones who will get the sweet deal. The rest of us will be broke. Never believe the person who tells us that they just need to borrow for a short time until their own cash comes,unless we can verify the information ourselves. If it means paying a penalty to cash in our own personal investments, then don’t do it.

The question was then,”Do we Choose Our Own Financial Misery?” The answer is many times “yes”, especially when we ourselves are the worse offenders of all when it comes to spending more than we earn. Other times it’s a little greyer of an area. Some of us are just too trusting, other times people are immigrants and not aware of our laws, cons prey on the elderly who no longer have the ability to reason and do not have family members to guide them. Other times people are bankrupted by health and crime.Corrupt Evangelists or corrupt Cults can convince many deeply religious or confused people to sign over everything they have or own.

No one is better skilled than the manipulator or con artists who sometimes are our own children,parents or extended family members. Yes we do all need to understand that people will stand in line once they find out that we are generous or aging, to get every dime we have and we are responsible to know the difference, but many times we are people who fail to know that con people are everywhere. It is important that we do appoint a trustworthy person to handle our accounts or to set up trusts and handle our estates while we do have the ability to know who is dependable and not.

If the estate is small, then the safest way many times, is putting it into small varied accounts and C.D.s,bonds, or interests bearing savings accounts in your local bank. You won’t get rich this way but at least your money will be safe as the bank will ask you why you are taking out the money and they can advise you if that would be wise or not. Never,never, never trust the person who tells you not to tell your bank why you need the money. That has crime written all over it.

I guess then the truth to the question is yes,if we are talking about a family who had the physical and mental potential to earn a middle-class existence or better,unless we are victims of health problems that bankrupt us and of crime that we could not foresee. We all have a responsibility to make and find our own financial stability. We are not only responsible for earning the income but also responsible for how we use or spend the income we earn.

We need to educate ourselves as well as listen to the opinions of the experts, to know if it is more feasible to borrow money and on what terms as well as where and when we should invest. It is true that many times those who are willing to take the greater risk, as long as it is done with some knowledge or common sense, are more likely going to make the greater gains. We can be too cautious if we do not educate ourselves on taking a few risk and doing our own research on it.There are still more honest people in the business than dishonest.Many times we can and do well to use a combination of both ourselves as well as bonded brokers,realtors,bankers,and financiers,which the great majority are.Some will be “dice throwers” while others are conservative investors and if you have done your homework you will know the difference. Sometimes the investments can justify borrowing money as the investment will bring us a greater return than what we will pay out on interest.

Too many people have wrongly gone with the idea; “we need to spend money in order to make money”, without understanding fully what the risk are that it entails.Some not many people, who have more knowledge and income than we do, can make that idea work, but it does not come without a high risk ratio, especially if we go into it blindly. If getting rich this way was such a sure thing or a common occurrence then there would be more than 1.3% of the population,with most of those having inherited from oil, in the wealthy class. As long as we look for blame and make excuses we can always find both but neither will protect our income.

Many of us do not knowingly cause our own hardships but regardless of if it is our homes,checking accounts, or extra income we do need to get the information that is necessary to protect ourselves against those who would manipulate or con us out of it. Although our hearts do go out to those who really did think they were doing the right thing and met the wrong person or people whose only interests lie in making certain that the trusting and good of heart do end up broke. We cannot spend everything in our productive years and think we will be retired to do the things that we wish to do when we retire. The Ryan Plan backed by the Republican majority is another such move to spell disaster to those who are unprepared for retirement. We must tell our Congressmen,to “Leave Social Security and Medicare, alone!”

We should make the laws tougher against the corrupt and con artists but sadly a great majority of them are never prosecuted because it cost too much to do so. We all need to remember that regardless of our age, our own identity can be stolen in a matter of seconds, and that is no treat to try to correct,either. All credit cards,checking accounts and Social Security numbers are subject to theft with or without our own carelessness, sadly.

If we remember nothing else,”Ignorance is no excuse in the face of the law,” and “the only person we can trust to be as concern as we are about our own money is ourselves,” If we fail, before we turn our money over to another, to check to see if an insurance company, savings and loan Company, a broker or an individual is licensed, Federally insured or are bonded, as well as,check out the safety and financial records that are a matter of public record, on other institutions, we do need to understand that sometimes our money is not safe.

We need to both educate ourselves ,as well as, understand that everyone even those that others call a good Christian person is not always an honest or moral person. We are no less responsible than if we turn over our money to a family member who is a drug or alcohol addict and we know they will spend it on drugs or alcohol. Just because they attend our Church does not mean they have our best interests at heart. Too often we blame the banks when it is our own lack of knowledge as well as those closest to us that we should evaluate closer.

We can’t live our lives in paranoia so we need to do the next best thing and that is use our own common sense and learn to protect that which is ours. If we do not check out their credentials or make certain our money is guaranteed safe or protected, then we do need to take responsibility when it is lost. The stock market is no better of a bet, sometimes, than a slot machine in many cases. When we decide to take the risk to earn more we are doing just that,”We are taking a risk,”The good news is Americans are paying off personal debt at a higher rate than ever. Have a good day folks and understand a smile goes much further than gossip towards making us all feel better.
(Please note: I repeated myself in several places so that it does stick in our minds)

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New Beginnings

The challenge of starting over in life that many of us will be asked to do is always a little bit frightening until we do become settled. Many times it is not just our re-adjustment but that of our children as well. If we bring with our new start, “the same old garbage,” of the past then we can not just plan on it, but we can count on it, that we will be repeating the same mistakes that we made in the past.

If it is a new job and we were laid off in the past because the employees had no protection against layoffs then we will find ourselves in the same position again when the next downturn in the economy hits, if we can climb out of the current one. By eliminating the Unions as is happening, thanks to the efforts of the right-wing and the Tea Party candidates, we can be certain that the future of the employee will remain out of the hands of ourselves. Before the Unions there was no middle class. Just the poor and the wealthy and if they have their way, we will return to that.

Statistically, it is always the educated who have more input into what their next terms of employment will look like. Any education we can gain while unemployed always works in our own favor. If we are already educated then we must accept that the only thing available to any of us is going to sometimes mean a drastic cut in pay but the fact that we are educated gives us a better chance of beginning over than those who lack an education. People who apply themselves once they do get a job are often recognized for working below their potential and will rise accordingly in the Company. No good managerial staff will keep an over qualified person in the position when they can be better utilized else where in the Company.

Other times many of us have our own definition of what we feel we would be a success at and never had the courage or the time to try. Small business loans are clearing up a little since you last tried to appeal for one in some areas, so try again. If we do nothing to change our own circumstances then we can count on it, that nothing will happen. Sometimes new beginnings begin again in an entirely new location or region. We are as limited as our own imagination.

If the new beginning consists of relationships and we fail to look at our own mistakes or errors made, then we simply continue looking for the same kind of person who failed us previously and keep setting ourselves up to being mistreated again. On the other hand if we are the aggressor,adulterer, or just plain lazy then we need serious psychological help as to why it is that we keep defeating our own self in relationships.

The likelihood that we can change or we find change behind a glass of wine or a bottle of beer in a night club,bar or lounge is next to nil. Eyes do not meet across a table with a blaring band in the background and we behold the person that we have been waiting our whole life for. That happens in the mind of a romance novelist on a cloudy day somewhere in Manhattan or the burbs or in an isolated cabin in the woods.

When new beginnings are about new relationships or the fulfillment of a life long dream we need to depend on reality in a way that we have never done so in the past. The problem with on-line dating is anyone can agree with what we are saying and too many times we are trapped into the moment of,”Oh wow! We have so much in common. They like the same things that I like and so on and so forth. It might help if before you told them every thing about yourself that you ask them first who they admire and why,what they believe in and why, and if they depend on themselves or someone else first and any of the other character based questions, so that they do not have an opportunity to parrot your own beliefs or Character.

Meeting people in Church activities does not guarantee us that we are going to find someone who is as dedicated to their religion and the Church as we are as the word has been out for a while now that it is a good place to meet new men or new chicks. Even if the commitment is there too many fail to understand that being a Christian does not guarantee morality. Some times people who do attend are trying to clear a conscience that clearly needs to be cleared and are doing it without success.

We need to trust our own instincts and have a clear understanding of what makes us tick and what our own standards are. If people would get counseling before they dated instead of when they are ready to get a divorce they would be so much wiser. Too many times people will tell themselves that their standards are just too high and end up with real jerks time and time again. There are those who claim a nice guy just is not exciting enough without realizing that many times relationships like wine take time to age. It is when we give the nice guys a chance to develop that we do find the person we have been looking for all our life. We cannot fix anyone other than ourselves. We can only improve on what is already there.

Too many times men look for the most shallow of reasonings for their future mates. They like the personality of the woman who will speak out and stand up for herself, until they marry them and find out sometimes they are also a selfish bitch who is taking him for a ride or who has no wish to ever uphold her end of the bargain, but foolishly they lost touch of their male logic and allowed themselves to be rushed into a marriage. Other times they are looking for a woman who wears a size 3 and is a virgin and has no interests at shopping at the mall, and do not see the humor in that, that the rest of us see. Other times they do want the woman on their arm to be arm candy and look good and do not have a clue just how much that is going to cost them.

Other times and ladies beware, he is looking for an income large enough to support his dream of being a rock star. That interprets into this man is never going to support you. Other times men are looking for a woman he can control and then will complain that they cannot even communicate on any level beyond what her sisters and mother are doing.

When it comes to people, and we want them to care about us, we have to accept if they are obsessing over their own looks they are rarely going to put us second much less first. I do understand we all want people who wear deodorant and is pleasing to our sensibilities but the places most people are looking for them is not the most realistic places to meet, all the times. I do not suggest that we quit looking in those places so much as I do that we beware of what strikes are against us when we do meet there. Common sense should tell all of us if we meet in a location where it is easy for another person to know and parrot our own feelings,religious beliefs, or we are uninhibited due to that last drink, then we need to be that more alert of who we are meeting,before we invite them into our own space.

Sometimes starting over has nothing to do with replacing or meeting new relationships but we feel that we are losing control over our own ability to discipline,maintain, or become all we want to be, and like a ship “we feel a little lost at sea.” We have become Mrs. So and So or the Mom of So and So and we realize that we have or are close to losing our own identity. We need to discover, through a new beginning many times, when it was that we felt we did not matter as much as the rest of the family.

Other times we wake and discover that the life we dreamt about all our lives is not nearly as fulfilling as we thought it would be. We all do well to understand that many times the problem is not with or in the people that we are living with but instead something that we missed out on in ourselves. We can leave and destroy all that is and was sacred to us but ultimately we solve nothing because the problem is in ourselves. We need to get the help to find out what makes us tick.

Just praying does not always bring us answers, although I am a big supporter of prayer, sometimes we need to find that person who does work with us on a professional level and helps us understand ourselves better. Well intentioned friends are always going to give us a way out and too many times that is what we are looking for. A professional will not let us excuse ourselves. If we are fortunate to have a friend who will not let us b.s. ourselves and short of funds then sometimes that will work as well. Men and women alike, often feel that they are doing nothing they ever wanted to do or are locked in a place that they can’t get out and will turn to alcohol and or other women and men because their wives or husbands do not understand them.

Do our family the favor of getting help before we do something so stupid or rash, since way too many men and women do find when we do get help we already had everything we wanted but were too foolish or stupid to know it. Many times we let our own pride or insecurities lead to hearing things that were not said and having hurt feelings as well as all the other issues that go along with living with the same person for so long, really get misconstrued. Do not spend the rest of our lives grieving the loss that we create during a moment of temporary emotions gone astray. Many times our family are more than willing to help out and offer us the breaks we need or listen to us but it is we ,ourselves, who are shutting them out. More times than not, we do find that we had all the support we ever needed but refused to see it. New beginnings are about getting rid of yesterday’s garbage and finding we are not all that bad of a person to spend time with nor are those we did our best to try to drive away.

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Iiving A Contented Life

Contentment is the epitome of life itself, in my opinion. I have had people tell me that they need more thrill in life or need to keep things stirred up more in order to enjoy themselves. I understand that a contented life probably isn’t for everyone but, in my book, it can’t be beat.

What ever kind of life we choose to live, the facts are, the important thing to remember is to not delay making the decisions or make the decisions in too much haste. Life was intended to be lived on balance in all things, and sadly, the great majority of all of us do tend to go from one extreme to the other. We must have a plan as those who do just let life happen are the same who often end up bitter thinking that they got screwed while such and such just set back and watched it fall in their lap. It never happens that way, folks, to anyone, other than possibly the fraudulent who ultimately pay a larger price when they get caught and the lottery winners, who many times regret that they won, as it often costs very important relationships in the process.

Opportunity ventures its face in the life of all of us and as the saying goes”he who hesitates is lost” but on the other hand the opposite applies as well that”good things comes to those who wait”.It is a matter of knowing the difference when it happens because we either planned for it or was in a position to make the decisions necessary when it arrived.

To contradict that statement on very rare and I do mean rare occasions people do seem to have a luck that does out surpass most. Although I’m not a big fan of the idea that success has much of anything to do with luck, I do know that sometimes even the unconscious will stumble onto something and come out smelling like roses as a result of it.Anyone who counts on luck though is usually going to be sadly disappointed.

It does none of us any good to blame anyone else for the life we are living because we always have options to make choices that will reflect our own lifestyle. We cannot predict the market anymore than we can predict a slot machine. Con men and women will always take us for a ride. Credit cards all need to be paid for as do the bills. Not sooner or later but on time. Checkbooks need to be kept balanced, just as, we need to live according to what we make and not according to how someone else lives. It is our responsibility to know and understand the difference, and at the same time understand that if we fail today then there is another day to try again. The important thing is with practice we eliminate failure and not increase it. Most especially we do need to understand,that our adult children need to make their own decisions as well and live according to their own earned means and not according to our means.If we do not raise them to be responsible,self-sufficient, and kind we have only ourselves to blame.

It is true that, “bad things do happen to good people,” and my experience is that the great majority of people who do have the worse of tragedy in their lives are often the ones that set the best example for the rest of us to follow. They seem much wiser in their knowledge of the value of forgiveness and giving up on hate than many of us whose lives have simply followed the pattern of what life is intended to follow. Health problems can and will destroy the life that many of us had planned on living as does crime. I give you all exemption from the rule of thumb,”that we make our own decisions”,however at the same time, we all will need to decide how we are going to make the best out of what we have left with life, so it does get back to the decisions we make for ourselves.

Whatever life we choose for ourselves we all need to understand it takes planning and sitting around waiting to hit it big with the lottery is not going to cut it. We also have all different kinds of ways at looking at just what contentment means to each of us. I knew if I married someone just like myself that life would probably get quite boring if not downright dragging in a short time. What has made my marriage interesting has been our differences. Believe me, my husband and I are totally polar opposites. Our main and abiding sameness is our morality. Our sense of right and wrong, if not identical, is as close to it as any two people can get. Others will bully in order to get their mates to be identical to them in their thinking, or go out looking for a mini-me. Not me boy. I will always want to know what the other side of life looks like.

Money is the sign of contentment for some, to others having the luxury of good health , being able to travel for another,the time to read for those who never had time before is contentment, and spending time with grandchildren for others. My idea of contentment is living life with a clear conscience, owing no person anything, and having given better than I took from life, while hoping my husband and I live long enough that our grandchildren remember who we were and what we stood for, and their evaluation comes out on a positive note over a negative. I also hope I leave behind a few that can think of me and smile. The beauty of living a content life is that it can and is as variable as there are people. For some it is what they feel or look like, to others what they do or own, and to many others who they have become. That is why we need to seek for ourselves what mysteries life holds for each of us.

I’ve had enough money to know that the more that we have the more responsibility we owe and the more expectation people have in us. I have traveled well enough to know after two weeks I want to be home on my own mattress and cooking home cooked meals.As much as I love my grandchildren I owe it to their Mom and Dad to stay out of their way as much as I can. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to keep doing as much of it as I can and gaining even more from the adventure.

Contentment to all of us, in my estimation, should mean taking care of ourselves and our own problems for as long as is humanly possible and then asking for help when we need it. Often times when parents have been overly generous and bailed out their adult children they are owed definite financial help when the adult children can help out financially and the parents have met with hardship.If bailing them out consists of more than once or twice or became a frequent occurrence it is unrealistic to think that they or us, either one, will have income for our old age.

In other cases adult children have taken responsibility for themselves from the minute they turned 18 and owe us nothing more than they choose to give. Our children are our responsibility up to the age of 18 and they are not responsible for what we choose to give them anymore than they are for what we fail to give them, prior to their becoming an adult. All the money we spend on spoiling them that does not go into an education or teaching responsibility is spent more for our own purposes to make ourselves look and feel good than it is spent towards making our own children more responsible or self-sufficient. Too many people when they get older either think their kids owe them and move in to aggravate their lives when they still have the capacity to look out after themselves or are so stubborn they force their children into making the tough decisions that the elderly should had made before they got so old they became incapacitated.

It is possible when my husband and I both get to that point that we will be the biggest pains of all, but I hope not. We have made plans to do a little of what he wants to do and a little of what I want to do at the same time we both understand that”life is what we are busy planning for when the uncontrollable happens.” If we don’t at least plan and accumulate savings, one thing we all know for certain, when we cannot afford to retire is we will have no plans or choices to make, beyond being a Wal-Mart greeter or something comparable or living a life we never planned on living.

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We Wonder?

The thing most young people do not understand, is the life that we are living today and the kind of person we will become, has very little to nothing, to do with today, but everything to do with tomorrow. When we are young, just as it is hard for us to understand our own longevity, we think we still have time to make all the necessary changes to become the human being we want to become.

The truth is, that is what today is all about. Today is about putting together a life, of truth, honesty, fairness, to not just ourselves, but especially to people who others find difficult to like. It is about developing a kind spirit today. It is about being able to look back with a sober and clear conscience, never having to disappear into denial,drugs and alcohol and being able to smile because we reached out and beyond ourselves to give and to love when others spewed hate. It is about earning the income and putting together a savings, that will guarantee us a nice nest egg so we can retire and understanding that with investments, there are no guarantees. So we need to put a little collateral into humanity as well.

To think that you can eliminate social security today and then pay for it later, is ludicrous. Those shoes you buy today will earn nothing along side of retiring with dignity and independence. To send brave people to war and lower their benefits so you can pay less out of your check, to know you ran the unions of the working class out-of-town on lies, so the wealthy could lower minimum wage for all, and you were a leader in the movement, how will you feel about that when you do get older and can reflect back on your life?

This is the time, It is about reaching to others and giving of our time and help along with our understanding, even if it means you risk getting slapped for it. It is about developing our compassion and empathy for all of God’s creatures, large and small. It is about showing our respect and appreciation so our children learn the same. It is about being the best and doing the most now, because these are the years we will all reflect back on to gain our own sense of joy and accomplishment when we reach the age we can no longer carry on.

How much hate can people carry now, and how many lies, can they tell in the name of God or the Bible now? How good will you feel knowing you worked over-time destroying a good man’s name, one who worked laboriously to save our Nation, who history will determine was and is a good man?What is it teaching your children? Do you think they will grow up as admirable members of society or possibly bullies? Will they have learned to offer mercy and respect at their parents knees? Will they be grateful for the times you were not home because you were spreading hate and lies, instead? Will they learn the same works for them, and use it against you instead? Will you have taught them how to be proud new members and warriors of the skin heads or for the KKK because you taught them how to hate well? Perhaps they already have a mean spirit, just like their mommy or daddy. Does that make you proud? Very little that we do today is about today, it is all about tomorrow.

I think we will all be glad we can look back on that sorry state of affairs, some are living today, and will have to reflect on later, and be grateful we avoided the mentality of Christian behavior today,in order to find the peace of our old age. But like another generation of drop-outs, perhaps they have hope in turning to the “born again Christians” and we all will give thanks that they will find mercy over hate. As much as we would want them to be able to enjoy all the warm memories that go along with love, be able to smile from the heart and have warm thoughts and memories, at least, “if the Lord willing and the creek don’t rise” they can begin towards that direction and until then, We were just wondering is all? Since very little we do today is about today but it is all about tomorrow.

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