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Difficult Relationships
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Your Super-Power #2 – ignore it (the power) at your own peril
09 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Super-power #2: The Power to Forgive
Every one of us has the human capacity to forgive.
While often a tall order, we have the power to forgive those who hurt us and hurt those whom we love.This is a distinctly human edge. It is one of our human super-powers.
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Did you know you are Super Human?
08 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
Five super-human powers we all possess, but some ignore
Power 1: Self Definition (day one)
Every one of us has the ability to let the world know exactly we are and exactly who we are not.
This is the power of Self Definition.
It is the capacity to be involved in the development of your own environment, relationships, and ambitions.
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Your money mirrors the state of your soul
05 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I hoard money and screw it up into little wads and stick the little wads in my shoes and in jacket pockets. This goes back to a time when I was married and kept it hidden for several reasons. Now that I am divorced and free I still am very secretive about money and even though I have much more than I ever had, I live like I will soon have still have nothing. Please comment.”
Money, and how we handle it, is a mirror into the soul.
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How do I move on?
04 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My wife and I separated for a year over her doubts and insecurities. There was no evidence of what she accused me of! So in the year she picked up one or two friends I never knew of until we got back together. She would have never told me if I had never asked. She put me threw ‘hell’ for one year of mere accusations, and yet she is the guilty one. How do I move on?”
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Ten (10) very practical ways to avoid a difficult relationship
02 Jan 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
You will radically diminish your chances of living in a difficult relationship if you:
- Have clear personal boundaries. This is an “inside job” and the responsibility of no one but yourself.
- Have clear expectations of yourself and of yourself alone.
- Work at not letting yourself down and therefore get your focus off what others have or have not done.
- Have fewer and reduced expectations of others, especially of those with whom you are closest.
- Listen more than you talk. Forgive everyone everything. Tell the truth.
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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