Words have meaning. In a perfect world, the same word would have the same meaning to everyone. That alone would reduce the amount of miscommunication and misunderstandings that occur. We don’t live in a perfect world though, and those misthings occur. Just recently there was a conversation held, that was unfortunately (or fortunately?) overhead, and had to be shared for the lesson that was available. The biggest misunderstanding that existed in the conversation was that the two people involved had different outlooks on what the word “friend” means. (more…)

I had the unfortunate experience last night (as I type this) of talking with a friend of mine who is facing some personal challenges.  He’s got an adult aged daughter who has made some poor life choices.  He recently was able to offer her some help; some guidance; some financial assistance… and of course he did what any loving dad would do: he did all he could – which was quite a bit.  She showed no appreciation and made another poor life’s choice and he was quite devastated by her actions.  My challenge last night as we talked was in getting him to see that “tomorrow” is always a new day and another opportunity for her to make a better choice. (more…)

…but don’t waste time to prove it.  What am I talking about?  In today’s world it seems, at least to me as I view the news, social media, etc., that there is a general call to perform random acts of kindness.  Further, it seems as if proof of such action is somehow required – as if you’re not really a good person unless you spend the extra few seconds to document your good works; as if you didn’t actually DO good unless you have evidence of such.  My challenge with that should be obvious:  good deeds are good deeds no matter how many witnesses there are or aren’t and the fact that you’ve done something good requires no more proof or evidence than the result of having done it. (more…)