I write stories for two reasons: I enjoy it, and I honestly believe that a good story is often the best way (and sometimes the only way) to accurately communicate complicated life lessons.

We do not live in a neat little world where all our personal development philosophies can be connected with clean lines and wrapped up with a beautiful bow. We do not live in a world where all of our goals, ambitions, and motivations can be quantified in cute little bulleted lists. No, you and I, we live in the real world, where life gets messy and our attempts to improve our lives are often thwarted by very real obstacles. And sometimes, when a situation gets really messy, a good story is the only way to cut through the muck to what really matters.

Don’t get me wrong. Quick numbered lists (like the one in this post) still have their place, and I’ve written plenty of those too.

But if you’re looking for something that’s a little deeper and a little more entertaining, I offer you the 7 best story-format posts on this site. Each story comes with a series of take-away points and life lessons. I hope you find these stories entertaining, educational, and inspiring.
компютри втора употребаMolti offrono il poker giocci ad una varieta’ di limiti, in modo da e’ piu’ facile che mai da ottenere in linea, trovare una sede e da giocare un certo blackjack.

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.

Proving once again that life’s most important lessons can arrive from its strangest experiences, I now present to you my trip into the Twilight Zone.

Cue the music. Doo-doo Doo-doo Doo-doo Doo-doo.
7 card stud strategiesfree online video pokerfree texas holdem poker play,free texas holdem poker,free online texas holdem pokerfree online multiplayer pokerplay texas holdem online free,online texas holdem,texas holdem online gameonline betting pokerpoker siteinternet poker,card game internet poker,bonus internet pokerpoker freefree internet pokercrazy game of pokerpoker gambling gameonline poker schoolfree poker softwareplay video pokeronline poker for fungambling pokerstrip poker gameonline poker bonusvideo poker bettingbest airline miles credit cardcard credit interest lowest ukcredit card debt consolidation loancard consolidation credit debt unsecuredaccount best buy card credit,best buy card com credit,best buy credit cardcard credit debt free helpbank card credit georgia monogramuk credit card companycard company credit uk? ?,credit card company,card company consolidation credit xxasdfinstant approval credit card,approval business card credit instant,approval card credit instant offercard credit mutual providian washingtonapplication canada card creditcredit card processing machine,card credit machine processingcard comparison consolidate credit debtchase credit card servicesmbna america credit cardsears credit card paymentcard credit debt negotiation settlement? ?,credit card debt negotiation,card credit debt negotiationcard credit credit free no online report,card credit credit free online report,free online credit cardsetup online credit card processinginstant online credit card applicationcredit card debt elimination,total credit card debt elimination,mbna credit card debt eliminationapplication canadian card credit visa,application card credit online visa,visa credit card applicationbank card credit,first premier bank platinum credit card,associate bank credit cardcard credit payment searsdirect merchant credit cardbank credit card application,application bank card credit orchard? ?,citi bank credit card application0 balance card credit transfercredit card debt relief,card credit debt debt relief stop,credit card debt relief nonprofitcard consolidation credit debt service

I made a lot of bad decisions that day. The decision to walk home from work during a near record-breaking heat wave was one of them.

At the time, I weighed close to 300 pounds. I was wearing a big yellow T-shirt and black khaki shorts, and I must have looked like a bumble-bee, big and round and walking down the street in the hot afternoon sun, sweat streaming down my face, my shirt sticking to my back like a plastic sheet.

When I reached the end of the block, gasping for breath, I wiped my hands through my hair, first looking left, then right. To my left lay my usual homeward trajectory, a half-hour hike through a subdivision of boxy 1950’s homes with clean, white wooden siding and small square windows. In the opposite direction lay a vacant lot, marching off toward the creek in a flurry of knee-high bramble and weeds.

If I cut across the lot, I could be home in 10 minutes. But would I be able to cross the creek? And who owned this lot anyway? And why was this lot empty when the rest of the lots in this subdivision had been planted with houses for 50 years now?

The vacant lot was nestled between two houses, seeming to belong to neither. There was no fence screaming NO TRESPASSING. There were no guard dogs or watchmen warning me away. There was just the black asphalt curb at the end of this peaceful suburban street and the beckoning tangle of weeds beyond.

I stepped over the curb.

Yep, I made a lot of bad decisions that day. But hands down my worst decision was the one that led me into that field.

I was halfway through the field, fighting tall weeds, when I heard a small voice carrying on the wind. I looked up and saw an old man, crouched in the shadow of a crab-apple tree along the side of his crackerbox house, staring at me. To be honest, I couldn’t be sure if the old man was staring at me, or merely in my general direction.

And when I say he was old, I mean he was ancient. Maybe 90. Maybe 105. A wife-beater T-shirt hung over his shoulder, leaving his wrinkly white belly exposed. He put one hand on the hood of his rusted 1973 Chevelle Malibu and yelled something I couldn’t understand.

I looked behind me and all around. Was he talking to me? I thought about shouting something friendly like, “Hello mister,” but that seemed foolish because he might have been yelling for someone inside his own house or backyard instead of yelling at me, and if I started yelling back at him, I might catch the poor old guy off guard.

I stood motionless, weeds rubbing my bare legs, watching the old man for any gesture or sign. Then he turned away, toward his car. I saw something flash silver in his right hand, maybe a socket wrench or pair of pliers. Okay, so he must have been working on his car, and he had probably been calling to someone inside the house for assistance.

The creek was close now, a few steps away. And that’s when I noticed the old man’s car, smashing through weeds as it came, kicking up dust. I froze, and it’s a good thing I did, because otherwise the old man’s Malibu would have crushed me. The car skidded to stop between me and the creek. There might have been 8 inches clearance between the driver’s side door and my yellow-shirted belly. I couldn’t see how close the old man had come to putting his car in the creek, but he couldn’t have missed by much.

Now his wrinkly cue-ball head was jutting out his open window, his fist shaking and saggy arm flapping. “Is this the way you respond to your elders, boy?!” the old man screamed.

“What?” I said.

“I was talking to you, boy. Is this the way you respond to your elders? Just walking away from me like that?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize.”

“You’re sorry?” he screamed, opening his toothless mouth in a grimace. “I’m tired of you punks cutting across my field. You dirty no-good punks.”

Somehow this old man had confused me with some wayward pack of 11-year-old boys who apparently had made a career out of cutting across his field. If I’d been feeling peckish, I might have suggested he put up a fence or maybe a NO TRESPASSING sign, but I felt sorry for being here without permission, so I kept my mouth shut.

And let’s not forget, this guy had nearly run me over. And in the movies, don’t guys like this always have a shotgun sitting in the passenger seat? What if that flash of silver had been a Smith and Wesson?

I stepped around the back of his car (noticing the glittery Confederate flag sticker in his rear window) and peered down into the creek. If the slope had been gentler, I would have been down to the water and up the other slope before the old man could have stopped me. But too steep it was.

“Sir,” I said, my voice very small, “I didn’t mean to offend you. If you’ll just let me pass, I’m going to go back to the street now.”

Behind me, I heard the car shift into gear. Fear twisted in my gut. Did this guy really intend to run me down?

His Malibu pulled alongside me, and he screamed, “You get off my property, son. This ain’t your place!”

And then he began to babble a stream of insults, lunatic in pitch and cadence, words running together, impossible to understand, jettisoning random words like so much flotsam, and somewhere during his tirade came a series of racially motivated insults about the “black kids” and “Mexican kids” in his neighborhood who wouldn’t stay off his grass.

My adrenaline was pumping, my fists clenched. But he was an old man, probably half-crazed, so I was going to walk peacefully back to the street and continue on my merry way without saying a word. At least, that was the plan until the old man decided to fetch his son.

And his dog.

A young man appeared on the porch then, lanky and dirty with long red hair, all bones and hard angles. He was wearing the family uniform, a wife-beater T-shirt and motor-oil-stained blue jeans, and he was holding a leash attached to the thick meaty neck of a rottweiler. Now the old man exited his car and The Unholy Trinity (Father, Son, and Big Mean Dog) started toward me.

“Listen, I was just trying to get home,” I said.

“Well, this ain’t the way,” the young man said. “Now you go on and get out of here before I turn my dog on you.”

I looked at the old man and saw he was grinning a big, toothless grin. The younger guy was grinning too. And the dog (even the dog!) seemed to be grinning. And that was just about the last straw. All of that adrenaline pumping through my body went straight to my brain.

“Take a good look at me, will you?” I shouted, motioning to my bright yellow shirt. “Do I look like I’m on some secret ninja mission to destroy your property or steal your car?”

I saw something on the young man’s face. It might have been fear.

“If you *really* wanted me off your property, you’d have just let me keep walking,” I said, and I was sure my face must have been turning red. “My question is what the heck are you guys hiding out there?”

Right or wrong, I suddenly became sure this guy didn’t want to release his dog on me. If you let your dog loose on someone, the cops are going to show up. And these two guys didn’t seem like the sort of people who wanted the cops sniffing around their vacant lot.

The young man grinned and said, “Well, I don’t guess you’ll be coming around here anymore. I guess we’ve accomplished that.”

“True enough,” I said. “This place is all yours.”

“I think you need to leave,” the young man said, tightening his hold on the leash. The rott, on the other hand, seemed completely disinterested, as if he’d seen this particular scenario a hundred times and had grown bored of it. In my mind, I could see the man letting go of the leash and the dog just sitting there with his tongue hanging out, wondering what all the fuss was about.

But in the end, I did what most people would have done: I walked away.

There was a moment when the ending of this story had the potential to get a lot more interesting, a moment when my sympathetic nervous system was in high gear, but even then I was smart enough to know I’d already done and said too much, and that if I kept pushing my luck, it might just run out.

So let’s review the life lessons in this weird little tale, shall we?

1) Avoid being unnecessarily confrontational: These property owners and I skated a thin line that day. If they’d wanted to hurt me, my outburst could have cost me. And likewise, if I had been some deranged psycho, their knee-jerk defensive response could have cost them. No, I don’t expect all of us to start living in fear of lunatics, I’m merely suggesting that a friendly smile and a helping hand is a good way to handle most difficult situations. If you can help it, be nice to people, not merely because it’s the right thing to do, but also because the power of being nice is well documented. What comes around really does go around.

2) Listen to your intuition: In 2005, Malcom Gladwell wrote an excellent Book called Blink that’s all about the power of intuition, thinking without thinking, quickly figuring out what’s important and acting decisively. If I’d read Blink prior to walking home from work that day, I might have heeded my intuition, which had warned me not to walk across that lot in the first place. Bottom line? Do not discount your first impression.

3) If you don’t like where you are, leave: That old man was apparently bitter about the state of his neighborhood. And maybe he couldn’t afford to leave, but that’s not really my point. My point is that if you stay someplace that’s dragging you down, you can either change your outlook, leave, or allow your mental outlook to deteriorate. Staying where you are without changing your perspective is a sure way to end up in a huge psychological rut.

4) Mind other people’s boundaries: Truth be told, my Momma raised me better than to walk across some guy’s yard without permission, and looking back, it’s clear that I shouldn’t have been so willing to make assumptions about who did (or didn’t) own that lot. And this lesson applies to more than property; it applies to life in general. If you have any reason to believe that your actions will offend somebody specific, it’s often worth the time and effort to ask.

I don’t really know why the situation deteriorated the way it did, why the old man was so angry and why I had decided to cut across his field to begin with.

What I do know is that he was one very unhappy man, perhaps frustrated at having been left behind by his neighborhood.

This was a middle-class suburban neighborhood populated mostly by young professionals who wear Dockers and button-down shirts to work, and yet here were these two men and their dog, remnants of some long ago neighborhood which no longer existed, refugees from a Confederate ghost story.

That old man had probably lived in that house for a long time. I could imagine him sitting on his porch at the age of twenty, watching as bulldozers turned the farm land into houses, and many years later I could imagine him arguing with the county police when they ordered him to remove the rusted-out cars from his side yard, and later still when the neighborhood became ethnically diverse and packs of children from different parts of the world started playing in his lot. I could imagine him getting smaller and smaller as the world grew bigger and bigger.

Or maybe the old guy was just having a bad day. I don’t really know.

What I do know is that I made the right decision by making my exit, opting to leave this ghost story before I could become a part of it. And as I walked away, I listened for the sound of the dog, but that sound never came, and pretty soon I was alone with my footsteps, taking the long way home.

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.

I’m sharing Jason’s story only because I believe the life lessons involved in this story are worth talking about.

Before you read any further, it’s only fair to warn you that this is a long post that contains some very sad subject matter. But as with my last post, there are lessons here for those brave enough for forge ahead.

I met Jason in the 7th grade. I sat behind him in science class. I still remember the day he turned around and asked me if I’d seen any cool movies lately, at which point we launched into a discussion of the world’s coolest movie, a horror-comedy entitled House starring that curly haired guy from the Greatest American Hero who spent most of the movie running around with a shot-gun, shooting various demons.

“Wasn’t it cool when the flying skull popped out?!” Jason asked.

“Yeah!” I said. “And I liked the part where the main character opened his medicine cabinet and found a doorway to another dimension!”

“And then he used the…”

“Rope, and climbed way down into the darkness,” I said, finishing his thought.

We were excited about this stuff the way only 12 year old boys can be, and I guess we must have gotten loud talking about it because the teacher turned around from the chalk board long enough to say, “Gentlemen, please turn around and be quiet.”

I whispered, “Hey, do you want to come over tonight and play video games? I have a Commodore 64.”

And that was the beginning of a friendship that lasted 17 years.

When I think of all those afternoons in front of my Commodore, or running through the woods playing wizards, or walking a mile to the local arcade with a pocketful of quarters pilfered from my father’s jar, why does the light in these memories seem forever golden, like images preserved in amber?

I remember the night when Jason brought over his Commodore 64 and I hauled my new Amiga 500 into the living room and we hooked them both up to the same monitor and played 2 versions of the Bard’s Tale video game all night, until the sun was filtering through the blinds and my father was stirring in the kitchen, asking if we’d gotten any sleep.

I remember the night when Jason almost came clean about how bad his life was at home. He said, “My mom smokes a lot of pot. And she’s always yelling. And there seems to be a new guy in the house every week.”

We were sitting on the living room floor watching music videos on MTV, Jason leaning back against my sofa with tears in his eyes and saying, “My step dad used to hit me, John. One time he got mad and threw me across the room.”

“He threw you?” I asked, running my hand nervously through my hair.

“Yeah, I mean he was a tall guy. Strong. Always drinking. And he picked me up and launched me across the room into the Christmas tree.”

In my mind, I could envision the scenario then as clearly as I can now. I can see Jason, maybe 6 years old, in the arms of his raging step-father, a skinny man with facial hair and beer breath. I can see step-dad screaming, heaving Jason into the tree, the tree rocking, ornaments falling in a shower of red and gold, pine needles and hard branches puncturing Jason’s skin. I can see Jason hitting the ground and lying there amidst the broken ornaments and branches, dazed and terrified as his father loomed overhead like a dark cloud.

Yes, I could see all that. But I couldn’t do anything to change it.

“Did your mom call the cops?” I asked him.

“No,” Jason said, sniffling. “That sort of thing went on all the time. But my step-dad left a long time ago though, so he’s not around to do that stuff anymore.”

But mostly what I remember about Jason is that he was like a brother to me, and we were inseparable for 3 years, between 7th and 9th grade.

It was us against the world. If my dad yelled at me, Jason was there to crack a joke and make me laugh. If Jason had a bad day, I’d invite him over and we’d head down to the creek where we’d throw stones at the water and shout funny expressions into the dark tunnels that fed the canal, listening to our voices echo and echo, as if they’d go on forever.

Jason and I finally landed girlfriends in the 10th grade, and we naturally started spending more time with our girls and less with each other. Looking back now, it’s clear that our friendship died a slow death, over a period of years, wherein we consciously chose not to make time for each other until there was very little left of our friendship to hold onto.

So yeah, our relationship died a slow death, but the very end came all at once. And it is the very end that I want to tell you about today.

6 Months before the end. We were in our mid-twenties now, both of us parents with broken homes of our own, so similar to the homes we’d grown up in.

I was driving to the mall because I needed to buy my daughter a birthday present, and Jason was along for the ride. Neither of us said much for a long time. There was only the sound of the traffic and the wind and the motor and the swish of tires on rain-wet asphalt.

Finally, Jason said, “John, I never told you this. But my mother is schizophrenic.”

The word rang in my head: Schizophrenic.

He said, “Sometimes she was real crazy when I was growing up, John. And none of her boyfriends would stay around very long. And some of them were crazy too. And you know how she was with the drugs and walking around in her housecoat all the time. Basically, my whole life was like that. Mom was too busy being sick to ever be there for me. And sometimes I got blamed for stuff I didn’t do. And a lot of stuff went on that a healthy mother would have put a stop to.”

“What sort of stuff went on, Jason?” I asked him, looking away from the road for a moment, seeing his tired eyes, his dazed expression.

“Like that stuff with my step-dad always hitting me. And other stuff,” he said, and it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to talk about the other stuff.

And now Jason’s childhood plight became clear. He’d grown up with a schizophrenic mother and an abusive step-dad and a whole series of his mother’s boyfriends who’d stayed around just long enough to figure out how bad things were.

He’d never told me, his best friend, that his mother had been sick, maybe because he’d been ashamed, or maybe because he hadn’t known how.

He had suffered in silence. And there he suffers still.

I was 28 years old when I got a frantic phone call from Jason’s mother. “Jason’s in trouble, John. And you’re his best friend. And I didn’t know who to call.”

That phone call – and everything that came after – effectively ended my friendship with Jason.

I wish I could tell you that Jason had won the lottery and moved to Bermuda, some happy ending that would have taken him out of my life on pleasant terms. And part of me (an ashamed little corner of my mind) would be happy to tell you something more horrible (that he’d committed suicide or died while trying to save his sister from a burning building) because those horrible things would be easier to say than what I’m about to tell you, and ultimately would have left Jason’s reputation far more intact.

But the truth is that Jason dropped out of college and moved to Iowa to be with some woman he’d met on the Internet, a woman who left Jason at home with her two young children while she went off to work. And what Jason did there, in that house, effectively turned him into a monster.

I’m a little reluctant to tell you the whole story, but I’ve taken you this far, and I owe you the ending. So here it is.

When I first heard the news from Jason’s attorney, I thought there must have been some mistake. Jason had never been rough with his own kids, so how on earth could he possibly be guilty of killing someone’s 4-year-old child?

Jason? Murdered? A small child? That sounded too crazy to be true.

Still thinking that this whole thing must have been a terrible accident, I drove up to Iowa to act as a character witness on Jason’s behalf.

Sitting there on the witness stand, my heart pounding, my ears ringing, I looked at the sea of faces, all staring back at me as if I were some oddity, some crazed animal trainer who’d elected to live with grizzly bears when everyone knew those things were DANGEROUS.

Jason’s attorney, a round man in a cheap suit, asked me questions about what it had been like growing up with Jason. I said Jason was a good friend. A nice guy. I said I would never have thought he could be capable of hurting a child.

But a few minutes later, after I was down from the witness stand and sitting back in the pews with my wife, the prosecuting attorney shocked me straight. She turned on the television, which was bolted to the wall in a corner of the courtroom. And she flashed a picture of the poor little boy’s body, covered in bruises, blood around his ear. I didn’t know how this tragedy might have happened, but one thing was clear:

That had been no accident.

I felt a strange hollow feeling in my stomach. My best childhood friend had done this. My best childhood friend had violently attacked a small, helpless child. My best childhood friend was a murderer. A beast.

I really don’t have the heart to describe how the tragedy happened, so let’s just say that Jason got mad at this poor kid for no good reason and then decided to beat him black and blue with a paddle and push him into a wall so hard that he died from blunt force trauma to the head. Does that paint the picture clearly enough? I hope so because it’s about all I can stand.

He will be in prison for the rest of his life.

There is no silver-lining here. But there are lessons, always lessons. Life is full of them, and tragedies offer no exception.

1) Make sure the cycle ends with you: If you were abused as a child, you, like Jason, might feel an uncontrollable urge to do unto others what was done unto you. Since you will probably know you have these desires long before it’s too late, please do yourself (and your loved ones) a favor and get some anger management counseling. Go see a psychologist. Get yourself help.

2) Never strike a child in anger: Discipline is a necessary part of parenting. But there is no reason to ever strike a child in anger, since other forms of non-violent punishment are proven to be far more effective. The whole topic of spanking can turn nasty in a hurry, since everyone has an opinion. And no, I’m not trying to say that spanking a child is the same thing as beating him with a paddle so hard that he can’t walk. But I do want to make the point very clearly that spanking sends a very similar sort of message. It says that it’s okay for big people to hit small people, for strong people to hit weak people, that it’s okay to strike another person in anger. If you can’t figure out a way to discipline your children without hitting them, please visit the book store or library, where you’ll find a stack of information that will help you discipline far more effectively without violence.

3) If you have a friend with anger issues, encourage him or her to get help: Especially if those issues are the result of childhood violence. It might not have done any good, but I wish I had tried to talk my friend into seeing a psychologist. I wish I had talked to him about the cyclic nature of abuse.

Our family trees have deep roots that spread in all directions, and one can often trace the cycle of abuse up the trunk and through the twigs, back several generations. Be aware of the way you treat your children. Treat them with love and respect and there’s a very good chance they will grow up to treat their children (and the children of others) the same way.

But if you treat your children badly, that sort of bad parenting lives on and on.

I still remember the hollow sound of Jason’s voice in 1987 when he leaned back against my sofa with tears in his eyes and said, “My step-dad left a long time ago though, so he’s not around to do that stuff anymore.”

But was Jason’s step-dad ever really gone? Or does he live on, behind Jason’s eyes, lurking in the dark corners of his brain, spreading like a cancer? I’m certainly not trying to excuse what Jason did. Not at all. I think that much is clear.

Be good to your kids. That’s all I’m saying. If you’re going to start a cycle, make sure it’s a good one.

And as I close the chapter on this sad story, I am reminded of one of the many days that Jason and I spent down by the creek during the summer between the 7th and 8th grade. I remember the flash of sunlight on black water, the dense canopy of trees, the soft mud. I remember skipping stones. And I remember standing with Jason at the mouth of the great dark tunnel that fed the canal, shouting and laughing and listening to our voices echo and echo, as if they’d go on forever.

And in a way, I suppose they do.

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.

But before you read any further, I want to warn you that this post contains descriptions of violence and trauma. But there is a lesson here for those willing to forge ahead.

Growing up with Dad

My father obtained custody of me when I was 7 years old. As a result, I spent a good portion of my childhood in my father’s lonely apartment, missing my mother.

My father tried so hard to keep me entertained. He took me to the park. The playground. Six Flags. The fair. The mall. He took me to movies, endless parades of movies in air-conditioned theaters on hot summer days. We played hide-and-seek, tag, pin the tail on the donkey. When I was 8, he rigged up a rope swing in the spare bedroom and spent hours pushing me, his giggling son, while singing strange songs from the Big Band Era in his soft, warbling voice.

My father loved me, but didn’t know what to do with me, so he surrounded me with toys. But to a 7-year-old boy, the hugs and kisses of a loving family are just about the most important things in the world, and my father could not give me that because he just wasn’t the kind of guy to openly express emotion. And since he didn’t have any friends and couldn’t form lasting relationships, most of the time it was just me and Dad, and I was lonely all the time.

And Dad had a temper.

One time, when I was maybe 8, I said something he didn’t like (I don’t remember what), and he smacked me so hard across the face that I spilled out of my chair and landed on the floor, stunned and silent. Another time, he punched me in the head because I closed the hatchback on his car too hard. And that was my life: lavish gifts punctuated by fits of violence, complimented by a steady undercurrent of estrangement.

Dad and The Women

“Women don’t make good decisions,” he would say. “They’re too emotional.”

He plowed though 4 marriages in his life (my mother his last) because he could not form lasting connections with women.

He didn’t get along with women, and he didn’t relate to people, and he couldn’t form lasting relationships, and he was violent, and I found it increasingly hard to believe that some common thread didn’t connect these dots.

My Father’s Childhood

When my father was a small boy, maybe 6, he went to visit his mother for the weekend and something terrible happened that changed his life, permanently altering his ability to relate to others.

I don’t know how the argument started or how it progressed to the extremes I’m about to describe. All I know is that my dad’s mother was an alcoholic, and she’d been drinking. For some reason, her boyfriend was running away from her (I mean literally running away from her) across an empty field as she shambled out onto the porch after him in her slippers and housecoat with a shotgun slung over her shoulder.

She screamed, “Get back here! Don’t you run away from me! You get back here and finish this argument like a man!” Her words came out in a drunken rush, and she stumbled forward, swinging the rifle around so it was aimed in the general direction of her boyfriend, who by this point was 30 yards gone.

She pulled the trigger. The shotgun blast echoed across the field. A cluster of black birds scattered toward the sky. And at that very moment, her boyfriend slipped and fell.

She thought she had shot him. That was the great, Shakespearean tragedy that derailed my young father’s life.

Falsely believing herself a murderess, she put the barrel of the shotgun in her mouth. Then she pulled the trigger. And this time, she didn’t miss.

My father, six years old, was standing next to his mother on the front porch of their Texas farmhouse when she decided to end her life. And that’s where the neighbors found him 4 hours later, still screaming. Standing over his mother’s body, screaming and screaming as the moon rose and the rain started to fall and all things good drained out of the world.

Dime Store Psychologist: Who, Me?

I am not a psychologist. I don’t even play one on TV. And I’m smart enough to understand that a person’s behavior can rarely, if ever, be tied back to a single childhood event. And even if it were possible, I would never want to condense my father’s motivations to such an unromantic singularity. Like all of us, there is more to my father than can be explained in a single blog post.

And in any case, my father’s specific motivations aren’t really the point. The point is that Dad was a fighter. He grew up, joined the military, fought in World War 2, took advantage of the G.I. Bill and went to college. And even though I wasn’t around to see any of this, I knew the man that he eventually became, and his personal transformation was amazing. He went from poverty to financial stability, despair to hope, and taught me much in the process.

As proof that it’s possible to learn lessons even from less-than-perfect parents, I offer you the top 7 lessons I learned from my father:

1) When it comes to relationships, trying counts: My father tried very hard to keep me happy when I was a child, and although he failed, looking back on it, I am comforted simply knowing I was worth the effort. You may have someone in your life right now who either does not appreciate or does not understand everything you’re doing for him, and it might seem like your efforts are wasted, but one day, you both might feel differently.

2) Make sure your heart’s in the right place: My father had a way of rubbing people the wrong way. But as an adult, I understand his heart was in the right place most of the time. He wanted me to be happy, warm, and safe. He wanted me to learn and grow. He wanted me to be successful. There is a big difference between a parent who makes mistakes out of love, and one who makes mistakes because he’s a rotten person. And when your children are grown, their perception of you will be more about the big picture than the details, so make sure you’re always acting out of love.

3) You have to do what’s right for you: I respect and love my father, but we were too different to live together happily. You can’t subject yourself to an unhealthy living arrangement just because someone’s heart is in the right place. You have to take care of you.

4) Keep trying: Obstacles that would have defeated lesser men beset my father. First, there was his mother’s death. Then there was World War 2. Then there were academic tests that said he was an idiot (an actual intelligence category at that time), but he still became the first person in his family to ever graduate from college and spent 30 good years doing highly analytical work, all because he never gave up.

5) Financial stability is more important than expensive toys: My father was raised in Depression Era Texas and knew how to stretch a dollar. He taught me to keep ample savings, live below my means, and pay off debts. And he was right. The life resulting from frugality is so much happier than that resulting from shop-o-mania.

6) Don’t let your nerves get the best of you: Dad had sweaty palms all the time. And he was nervous, so nervous about life in general. But it never stopped him from taking care of his business.

7) Don’t blame others for your own failures: And maybe the most important thing I learned from my father is that every person is responsible for himself. And no matter what terrible things have happened to you – now matter how you may have been victimized – your success is your own responsibility.

So at this point, you may be wondering if I think my father was a good parent. When I was younger, I guess I didn’t think so. But a thing can look different to a man at different times in his life.

He loved me. That much is clear. And he did the best he could with what he had.

Listen, I realize some of you may have been raised by terrible human beings. But most parents aren’t evil. They’re just ill equipped.

It’s almost like every person is given a parenting toolbox, and inside this toolbox are all the lessons they learned from their role models, all the books they’ve read, all the so-called experts they’ve listened to, all their intentions and love and confusion and hope, and when they finally have children, they open this toolbox and use what’s inside to take care of them.

I hope your parents had all the right tools in their toolbox. But if they didn’t, I hope they had the most important tool of all: a good heart.

And here’s to hoping that you can build upon whatever they gave you, whether it was sufficient or not.

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.

What follows are some of the most important life lessons I’ve ever learned, and if you want to learn them too, all you have to do is keep reading.

This is a long post, but I promise you that reading about the last year of my life is a much easier way to learn these lessons than living through it proved to be. Strap up, boys and girls. We’re going for a ride.

At the beginning of 2007, something happened that would change my life forever.

A high ranking manager called me and my 80 some-odd co-workers (computer programmers mostly) into a large conference room. There she stood, a middle-aged manager in a sharp suit, looking very unsure of herself. She refused to make eye contact with us as she began to read from a prepared statement. Her voice trembled.

She was about to drop bad news on us; any fool could see that. The only question was, How bad would the news be? I distinctly remember one of my friends turning around to look at me, a big Cheshire grin on his face, cupping his hands around his mouth and whispering, “She looks like she’s about to tell us we’re going to be executed.”

And he kept smiling his silly grin right up until the moment that the purpose of the prepared speech became undeniably clear.

The manager nervously shuffled her high-heeled shoes and proceeded to tell us we were being downsized, re-organized, laid-off, fired, pink-slipped, told to hit the road, Jack, and don’t come back. Our office was being closed. Some of us would be offered jobs at corporate headquarters, half a state away, if we were willing to re-interview for our jobs and relocate, but there were no guarantees. Times were tough. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Yadda-yadda-yadda.

After 6 and a half years as a loyal, hard-working employee, I suddenly needed to find a new job. I was scared to death. But I was also excited. After all, hadn’t I been looking for an excuse to find a more rewarding career? Hadn’t I been telling myself that it was time to find a job that truly inspired me?

Here I was, a bright and highly motivated man on a mission to find a great new job. And where did all this motivation get me? Right into the middle of hell, that’s where.

Shortly after starting my new job as a project manager for a well-known financial institution, I found out my new boss was crazy. Maybe bipolar? Maybe on steroids? Listen, I’m not accusing him of actually being nuts or taking ‘roids, I’m just saying that’s the way it seemed to me, the new guy.

He reminded me of Jesse the Body Ventura back in his pro-wrestling days: lots of yelling, screaming, exasperated hand movements, posturing, and carrying on. “This work is NOT acceptable,” he was fond of saying, spraying spit in every direction, flexing his shoulder muscles. “Listen, I’m getting VERY frustrated now.”

I half expected to hear him say, “Don’t make me angry, Mr. McGee. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” and then turn green, like Bill Bixby in The Incredible Hulk, and start throwing book cases and laptops around the room. Come to think of it, his forehead did have a slightly neanderthal slope to it.

The Hulk never actually directed his anger at me, but I’d seen quite enough of him yelling at other people to know I didn’t want any part of it. After a month, I quit.

Yes, it was that bad. And yes, I knew that soon.

If anyone’s curious, the job I left has turned over 4 times in the last 9 months, so apparently I’m not the only person who found the place unbearable.

Thankfully, I had a decent chunk of change in my savings account, which I slowly drained to nothing during the next 6 months as I drifted in unemployment limbo: a slow succession of weeks, one rolling into the next, all that time spent aimlessly pondering the career aspirations that lay before me, the endless possibilities, so close yet so far, lost in a graveyard of daytime television, long afternoon naps, and directionless walks under the hot summer sun.

After a while, I decided it was time to stop drifting and start doing. I’d wanted to escape software development for a long time; this was my chance!

But if I didn’t want to work with software, what did I want to do? Be a doctor? A lawyer? A farmer? A homeless guy?

My personal theory is that we have a way of knowing what we want to do with our lives, and we usually don’t need any fancy process or career handbook to help us figure it out. The hard part is learning to listen to that inner voice.

Since I was 12 years old, I’d wanted to be a writer. In my younger days, I had grand visions of writing best-sellers and hosting book tours, but I realized that was exactly the sort of pie-in-the-sky dream likely to derail if not grounded in something more realistic. So I decided to forget about writing the Great American Novel (at least for now) and to start this blog instead, which would allow me to help people in addition to providing a creative outlet for my writing.

For six months, I worked on building this blog. I learned a lot about writing: rhythm, story telling, flow. I also learned about deadlines and pressure.

And near the end of that six months, I was starting to go a little stir crazy, and I discovered something very important about myself: I need a schedule. I need to be expected to be somewhere at a certain time every morning. And above all, I need to get out of my house on a regular basis.

Sitting around in your underwear sounds like a great way to spend your life, but believe me, it’s one of those ideas that’s much nicer in theory than in practice.

So finally, after 6 months, I went back to work, partly because I was out of money and partly because I was ready.

I landed a new job in October. The work itself wasn’t very interesting, but the people were nice and the boss was great and overall it was a huge improvement over the days I’d spent working with The Hulk.

I developed software during the day, my blog at night. For the first time in a long time, I felt good.

And then, something unexpected happened. My old employer called me out of the blue and asked, “Hey John, how would you like to have your old job back? You know, the job you lost 10 months ago?”

Well, well… What an interesting turn of events. The old place was willing to let me telecommute from a local office, meaning I wouldn’t have to move, and I could pick right back up where I left off.

“I have to think this over,” I said. “I mean, if I come back to work for you, my work record during the year 2007 is going to look like a black hole.”

My old employer said, “Okay, you think about it. Call me when you’re ready.”

And eventually, I said yes. In the months since the lay-off, I had learned to appreciate all the wonderful things my previous employer had offered: flexible schedule, moderate hours, excellent pay, reasonable expectations, friendly co-workers, and nice managers. And other things, like my many years of company-specific experience, solid relationships, and respect.

So now, I’ve come full circle. The story ends where it began. But my journey has not been wasted, for I learned many things along the way!

At this point, you’re probably wondering if all my turmoil over the last 12 months is evidence that I’ve flipped my lid. I assure you, it’s not, though it is evidence that I’m human, a trait I share with all of you (unless you’re the world’s first reading cat), which means the lessons I learned might be helpful for you too.

So with no further ado, here are the 7 biggest things I learned during the chaos of 2007:

1. Don’t wait for an excuse to chase your dreams: It took losing my job to finally motivate me into writing articles for this blog. I never should have waited so long! This is probably the most important lesson I learned all year.

2. You can chase your dreams on the side: Even if you have aspirations of becoming a full-time author, or musician, or singer, you don’t have to sell your financial future down the river to test the waters. As this blog proves, it is quite possible to pursue your purpose on the side, allowing it to build over time, without tearing your life down to its foundations.

3. Every day, be thankful for what you have: I didn’t realize how good my job was until I lost it. And now, I am keenly aware of that particular blessing. Human nature is such that we “don’t know what we have ‘til it’s gone,” but that doesn’t mean we can’t fight our natures. Research has shown that an attitude of gratitude makes a huge contribution to a person’s overall happiness.

4. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side: this particular cliché exists for a reason. Before you jump, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

5. Always keep 6 months salary in your savings account: Financial advisors tell us as much, and this is definitely advice worth taking. All that money might come in handy if you ever decide to have mid-life crisis. Or if you ever find yourself working for The Hulk.

6. Don’t worry so much about what other people think: Nearly every decision I’ve made this year has been met with a lot of criticism. People thought I was silly to leave my job working for The Hulk after only a month (of course, those people didn’t have to work there), they thought I was silly for starting this blog, and they still think I’m silly for going back to work for the company that laid me off. But you know what? Those people don’t have to live my life. I do. All you can do is make the decision that seems right to you and be willing to live with the consequences.

7. Life is not a destination; it’s a journey: Yes, it’s another cliché. But no, I honestly don’t think that most of the people who have heard this particular cliché have truly internalized its wisdom. Happiness doesn’t come from big houses or fancy cars. It doesn’t come from achieving goals. Happiness, true happiness, comes from a feeling that you are on a path toward something important. Achieving goals only offers lasting significance if those goals serve as mile-markers on the path toward something greater.

Bonus #8. A life of liesure is not a worthy goal or a desireable end state: Having seen firsthand what happens to a man when he drifts rudderless for too long and the hard lessons that await the independently wealthy at the top of Maslow’s pyramid, I no longer have any desire to get rich and retire to a tropical beach somewhere. I am thankful for every day that I get to go to work. To some of you, this will sound crazy. But that’s okay, since I’m taking my own advice about not caring too much about what other people think.

Truth be told, I learned quite a few other things last year. But these are by far the most important lessons. And I hope they serve you as well as I know they will continue to serve me. And here’s to believing that 2008 will be a happier year.

For the first time in many months, I feel a deep contentment in my soul, the sort of contentment that comes from living through uncertain times, emerging victorious, and learning to appreciate life’s blessings. I wish you the same peace.

And I wish you just enough hardship to appreciate all the wonderful things you have, and not a trifle more.

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.

If Valentine’s day is important to your partner, it should be important to you too.

Whenever I say this to a guy, he will generally stare at me, slack jawed, as if I were speaking some foreign language. But every now and then, the guy will actually argue with me, offering up one of these gems:

• Valentine’s Day is a commercial Holiday designed to sell stuff. Case closed.
• Who cares how I treat my wife on one particular day of the year? It’s how I treat her the other 364 days that counts!
• A Valentine’s Day gift doesn’t say anything about how much I love my wife!

And of course, there’s truth in all of these arguments. But unless your partner shares your disdain for Valentine’s Day, these arguments are generally cop-outs for the sort of procrastination that forces you to make a last-minute pit-stop at the local Wal-Mart for a bouquet of silk roses and a box of stale chocolates.

Hey, if you’re really on your game, you might end up with one of those furry toy gorillas that sings “Be My Baby” when you press its foot.

Come on now. How old are you?

Truth be told, I like buying silly toy gifts as much as the next guy, and if you’re lucky, your wife or girlfriend (hopefully you don’t have both!) will like them too. I’m lucky: my wife loves anything I buy her. But that’s not really the point.

The point is that I know Valentine’s Day is important to my wife, so I owe it to her (and to myself) to make sure it’s important to me too.

And as much as I love those singing toy gorillas and giant stuffed frogs, I know my gift would mean so much more to her if it really came from the heart, an honest expression of love and gratitude instead of an obligatory gesture.

If your wife likes corny gifts (or thinks the whole idea of Valentine’s Day is silly), by all means, carry on with your bad self. On the other hand, if you think your lady would appreciate something a little more thoughtful, here are 10 ways to inspire her this Valentine’s Day. While I can’t promise that she’ll love all these ideas, each has been fully endorsed by my own personal Romance Consultant: my wife.

1. Cook dinner for her: The less comfortable you are in the kitchen, the more significant this gesture will seem. The one time I cooked dinner for my wife, she was very impressed! And bless her heart, to this day, she swears it tasted good despite the fact that I know my Alfredo sauce tasted like schoolhouse paste.

2. Cook breakfast in bed with a single rose: In general, breakfast is easier to prepare than dinner. Hey, even I can make pancakes! Put a rose in a little glass vase and place it on the tray next to the food.

3. Do her half of the chores: This one admittedly works a lot better if you’re cohabitating with your significant other because, in most households, the man and woman split the chores in some way or another. Pick a chore-heavy day during the week of Valentine’s Day and, on that day, do all the household chores yourself. If she normally takes out the trash, do it for her. If she normally does laundry, do that too. But remember, you are not allowed to do man-laundry. And yes, you know what I mean. Man laundry is when you throw the darks in with the lights and let the whole mess turn purple. Don’t do it!

4. Run a romantic bath with rose petals and candles: Don’t forget the bubble bath!

5. Treat her to a day at the spa: Does she like back rubs, face packs, and other typical spa trappings? Well then?

6. Go see a movie that she wants to see: Guys, for a lot of you, this one’s going to hurt. But if she really wants to go see Legally Blonde 3 (or whatever), take her. It takes a real man to sit through a chick flick without having a fit!

7. Take her some place she’s always wanted to go: If money is no object, you have a lot more options, including a weekend mini-vacation. But you can do this on the cheap too. Is there a local restaurant she’s always wanted to visit? A show she’s always wanted to see?

8. Send her flowers at work: My wife tells me the primary attraction is the reaction all her female co-workers have. “Oh girl, your man cares enough to send you flowers? My man never sends me anything!” Whatever the attraction, this works.

9. Revisit someplace romantic that’s of historical significance to your relationship: The restaurant where you proposed? The ice rink where you took her on your second date?

10. Become her personal massage therapist: Buy a book that will teach you how to give a real back-rub. Read it. Put the book on her nightstand along with a note that says you’ve spent the last week reading it and are now prepared to give her an all over body massage whenever she likes. At the bottom of your note, attach homemade coupons that she can cash in for a free massage whenever the mood strikes her.

Okay, yes, I’m making some generalizations in this post. I admit it. And yes, I’m sure the world is full of women who hate Valentine’s Day and men who fall all over themselves to celebrate it with style. Furthermore, I’m sure the world is full of men who love chick flicks and who always separate their whites from their colors. So if anyone found this post to be unbearably sexist, please allow me to apologize.

My opinion? I think the generalizations I’ve made here are close enough for government work, as they say. After all, this post is supposed to be fun!

So guys, take a hint. And ladies, if you want more men to read this article, give it a Stumble so more of them will see it!

And above all, “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.

What I’m talking about are two distinct roads, each leading toward a unique type of happiness. Some people spend their lives travelling one road at the expense of the other, and in the process, miss half of what life has to offer.

I’ve talked about these two types of happiness before, more than once. But today I want to lay down some practical advice so you can know when to pursue which.

First, let’s review:

1) The first type of happiness is the mood. This type of happiness is all about your emotional state, and it might best be described with the phrase, “I feel happy right now.”

2) The second type of happiness involves a holistic evaluation of how your life is going. A person experiencing this type of happiness might say, “I am happy with my life.”

Both types of happiness are important. But the ways in which they are achieved are very different. And if you read this article, I hope you’ll come away with a better understanding of each so you can apply their pursuit more effectively in your own life.

The First Type of Happiness: The Emotion

One of the challenges I’ve overcome in my life involves the quick onset of anxiety during times of stress. There was a time, not long ago, when routine aggravations sent me into spirals of worry. Of course, no one feels happy all the time, but my point is that I know what it’s like to struggle to achieve even base levels of happiness.

I would worry about everything: my job, my finances, my car. And if I didn’t have something to worry about, I’d invent something. It’s pretty hard to feel happy when you’re subconsciously drilling for angst in the darkest corners of your mind.

It occurs to me now that I spent far too many years blind to the many wonderful blessings in my life.

These days, it’s clear to me how blessed I truly am: great job, wonderful marriage, beautiful house, great family, friends. I want for nothing. But these blessings were only made clear to me once I learned how to assert some level of control over my moods.

Controlling Your Emotional State

The key to optimizing this first type of happiness, the emotion, is state control: learning to feel happier, even in an unpleasant situation.

As I mentioned before, no one can assert complete control over his or her emotional state. Well, there might be some enlightened being living somewhere in the upper reaches of the Himalayas who lives above his emotions (doubtful, assuming he’s human), but 100% state control is neither realistic nor desirable for most people.

So no, the goal is not to force yourself to be happy all the time. To the contrary, the goal is to recognize whether you have a glaring problem with your moods and to marshal your resources to address that specific problem.

For example, if you know you have a problem with anger, work on controlling it, preferably while doing aggravating tasks. Also, be aware of the types of situations that tend to send your emotions into overload, so you can manage how and when to engage them.

Personally, I know I’m easily frustrated when I’m working on any skill-oriented task that requires manual labor (like assembling furniture, hanging large pictures, or doing basic carpentry). It’s the combination of hard work and required precision that gets me going. So whenever I need to pick up a hammer and do some precision work, I take a deep breath, focus on the task, and will myself calm. Most of the time, this works. And best of all, I tend to complete the task much faster because I don’t waste countless minutes throwing a fit every time I make a mistake.

But what if you’re depressed, anxious, or angry all the time? What if you’re almost never happy? Is state control really the answer?

Well, it might be. If you have specific triggers that set you off, learning to control your emotional state in the wake of these triggers might prove helpful, using a few time-tested techniques:

• Take a deep breath.
• Reset yourself.
• Stop being your own worst enemy.
• Concentrate on being calm.

Deeper problems, such as anxiety and depression, may be medical in nature. And there is another possibility: if your moods are always in a funk, maybe it’s because the second type of happiness (overall life satisfaction) is bleeding over onto the first. And if that’s the case, you’ve got more work to do.

The Second Type of Happiness: Overall Life Satisfaction

If your only goal in life was to maximize your present-tense emotion of happiness, you’d spend your life searching for any device, pill, or substance capable of shutting down your negative emotions and making you feel blissful.

But have you ever wondered why alcoholics and drug abusers are seldom happy, despite spending so much time escaping reality? Well, to be fair, the obvious answer is that the emotional side effects of drug and alcohol abuse often outweigh the benefits, but there’s another answer hiding beneath the surface that’s very important to my point.

Drugs and alcohol are hollow fixes because they seek to maximize the first type of happiness while often working in direct opposition to the second. In other words, even if you’re overflowing with happiness right now, that feeling cannot last if you’re unhappy with the way you’re living your life.

Enter the second type of happiness: Overall Life Satisfaction. The second type of happiness involves the holistic evaluation of how your life is going. Although it has the ability to affect your mood, this type of happiness isn’t really emotional: it’s spiritual and intellectual.

Are you happy with your life in general? Are you happy with the choices you’ve made? Do you understand and approve of the way you’re living your life? These questions live at the heart of this second type of happiness.

Correcting a lack of equilibrium in the first type of happiness can be a chore, but correcting one in the second involves major lifestyle changes.

So what do you think? Do you need to make serious changes in your life so you can feel happy about the way it’s going? Some points to consider:

1) Professional: Most adults spend the majority of their waking lives at work. Does your job pay enough to cover the bills? And beyond that, does your job excite and motivate you?

2) Relationships: Do you feel good about your relationships? Are you associating with people for reasons that feel important and correct to you? Do these relationships fulfill you?

3) Health and Fitness: Do you feel good about the things you eat and drink? Are you clean and sober? Do you get enough exercise?

There are many other considerations besides these, but the point I’m making is that sometimes you have to take a hard look at your life and decide if your lack of happiness is the result of wayward moods or deeper imbalances.

You Can Learn to be Happier

Research has made it very clear that you can learn to be happier, whether through state control or lifestyle change.

You have choices. You are not powerless. Knowing which type of happiness to pursue, at which times, is half the battle.

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.

If you answered yes to any of these questions (and especially if you answered yes to all three), listen up: you’re wasting your potential; squandering your happiness.

Let’s talk about how you can put envy behind you forever and learn to be happier.

Are You Smarter than a 3rd Grader?

When I was in 3rd grade, my grade school decided to have a canned food drive to help an area shelter. It was going to be a contest! The classroom that collected the most cans would be rewarded with an afternoon of movie watching.

And this wasn’t going to be some lame 8mm wildlife movie on the school projector, but an honest-to-goodness Hollywood blockbuster that we actually wanted to see.

I wouldn’t expect today’s 3rd graders to understand the attraction of watching a real Hollywood movie at school, since we now live in the age of easily accessible DVDs and video downloads, and lots of kids these days are practically being raised by recorded media. But back then, when I was in the 3rd grade, these new-fangled devices called VCRs were just starting to show up in the average American home. And as a result, watching a blockbuster movie any place other than a theater was a big deal. Watching one at school was unheard of.

I wanted to win the contest, so I went home and bagged as many cans as I could: greenbeans, chili, yams, and soup. I lugged my cans to school every day for the next week. The rest of my class did the same thing. And of course, the other two 3rd grade classes engaged in fierce competition with us, as evidenced by the large stack of cans piling up outside their doorways.

After a week, we all waited anxiously as the teachers tallied up the take and prepared to announce the winning class.

But alas, there was no winner. Instead, there was a 3-way tie. Sort of.

Each of the 3rd grade classes had delivered hundreds of cans, each within 4 or 5 of the others. Technically, I’m sure that one class delivered more, but all I remember is that all the classes were going to be allowed to watch the movie.

Yay!

In my little 3rd grade mind, this made perfect since. We had all done a good deed. A local shelter was going to have a pantry full of food. And all of us were going to enjoy a major Hollywood movie on school time instead of doing math. I mean, what’s not to like about this set-up?

But apparently, a lot of the kids were very upset. I distinctly remember one kid saying, “It’s no fun being a winner if there isn’t any loser.”

I was mystified. Dumbfounded. I couldn’t understand why these other kids couldn’t be happy watching the movie as a group. This wasn’t the SuperBowl or a job interview – this was a canned food drive organized by 3rd grade teachers, for God’s sake. Did there really have to be a loser?

Before I go any further, I want to head one particular argument off at the pass. I’m sure some of you will take exception to the way the teachers handled the situation due to inconsistency, breaking of rules, and the sacrifice of a perfectly good lesson in sportsmanship for a touchy-feely ending without losers. And if that’s the way you feel, more power to you. But know this: whether your argument holds water isn’t germane to the point I’m making.

My point is simple:

To many of my 3rd grade peers, the act of doing a good deed and enjoying personal success was not sufficient unless they had someone else to look down upon. There was no point in being a winner unless there was a loser. No point in victory except to watch another’s defeat. In other words, my issue is not with the way the situation was (or wasn’t) handled by the teachers, but rather with the self-defeating attitude of those affected. Many of the kids who’d previously looked forward to the film now watched in disgust, focusing on the undeserving in their midst instead of on their own enjoyment.

Of course, looking back, it’s understandable that 3rd graders should feel that way. After all, they’re just children. But all too often, I see this kind of mindset in grown men and women, especially unfortunate in non-competitive situations where it’s simply not called for.

Yes, lessons in sportsmanship, such as learning to lose gracefully and win with humility, are very important in life. But I outright reject the ridiculous notion that victory cannot be enjoyed except at the expense of another’s defeat.

So what does all of this have to do with envy? Two words: Scarcity Mindset.

Scarcity and You:

If you find yourself resenting another’s success, ask yourself why. Is it because you believe that another person’s success has somehow encouraged your own failure? Is it because you believe that success is a limited resource and that all the winners in the world are your primary competition? Is it because you think the world is unfairly, perhaps arbitrarily, doling out good fortune on everyone but you?

That, my friends, is the scarcity mindset at its worst. And unless you nip it in the bud, the scarcity mindset will eat your happiness alive.

Yes, the world is full of competitive situations. Job interviews. Scholarship competitions. Essay writing contests. And yes, you may find yourself in direct competition with others for a limited resource. But no, those other people, as a general rule, do not determine whether you will win or lose. That, my friends, is up to you.

Please understand I’m not talking about science, or irrefutable facts, or hard data. What I’m talking about is philosophy. Attitude. The decision to take responsibility for your own success and happiness instead of blaming someone or something else for whatever befalls you.

After all, if you won’t take responsibility for your success, who will?

Even in highly competitive situations, your success has more to do with you than with anyone else.

So what’s the secret of success? Well, there is no single secret, but I can sum up an important one in two words:

Abundance. Persistence.

Think Abundantly Instead:

The next time you find yourself envious of another human being, snip that dangerous emotion off at the root. Do not allow it to take hold. It won’t do you any good anyway. Instead of viewing success as a limited resource being doled out capriciously or carried away by more successful predators, view it as an ever-expanding pie.

If another person does well, wish him well. Enjoy his success as your own. Share it with him.

And keep trying, knowing yours is out there too.

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.

I thought it was a good idea for an article. So here it is.

In many ways, this subject is alien to me. Neither of my parents has ever been particularly overbearing, and I’ve never had any problem standing up to them when necessary.

But I’ve had plenty of second-hand experience with exactly the type of parent that this article is written to address: overbearing, manipulative, controlling, or otherwise way too involved in the lives of their adult children. And I’ve even helped a person or two escape their mother’s shadow, so this is a topic that I understand as a coach, if not a player.

If you have a strained relationship with an overbearing parent, the first thing you’d do well to understand is that your relationship is unique in all the world, which means that one-size-fits-all advice will not apply. The best I can do here is provide some general guidelines and leave it up to you to fill in the blanks.

So with no further ado, here are 7 general guidelines designed to help adults achieve independence from overbearing parents:

1) Stop looking for affirmation:

As a child, you grew up longing for the respect, admiration, and praise of your parents. If you didn’t get it, you may still be looking for it.

Unfortunately, your desire for unconditional love can undermine your attempts to deal with an overbearing parent. Even if you find the courage to stand up for yourself, you may later regret it, fearing rejection and anger from the person you most want to accept you.

A friend of mine has spent most of her adult life seeking her mother’s approval. Unfortunately, every time she goes out of her way to seek approval, she puts her mother in a position of judgment and ends up playing into all the old family dynamics that landed her in this needy mindset to begin with.

First things first. You have to come to terms with a simple reality: you may never receive the affirmation you crave from your parent, and you cannot live your live pandering for it.

As an adult, you need self (not parental) affirmation.

2) Understand that you are part of the problem:

As a child, you were not responsible for the actions of your parents. But the world isn’t fair, and like it or not, once you reach a certain age, you become responsible for the role you play in all your relationships, including your relationship with Mom and Dad.

I’m not implying you should take responsibility for your parents, but rather for the way you interact with them.

3) Draw a hard line between parental advice and parental control:

Before asking an overbearing parent for advice, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.

The right reason: Your parent has vital information, which you need to make a decision.

The wrong reason: You want your parent to approve of a choice you’ve made so you’ll feel better about yourself.

If it really does make sense to ask your parent for advice, proceed, making sure to keep it clear in your own mind that your parent is serving as advisor, not dictator.

Remember, no matter what your parent says, you, as an independent adult, have total control over the amount of influence he or she has over your life.

Conversely, if your parent is the type of person who can’t assume an advisory role, you may have to stop asking for advice altogether.

4) Identify your boundaries:

As adults, it probably doesn’t make sense for us to make a big deal out of every parental transgression. Instead, take some time on your own to make a list of the areas where you feel it’s important to assert your independence.

Are you tired of the way your mother keeps meddling in the lives of your children? If so, write that down. Are you tired of the way your father keeps getting involved in your marriage? Write that down too.

You can throw the list away when you’re done. The purpose of the list is to make note of the battles that are worth fighting so you can let the unimportant ones slide.

5) Declare your boundaries:

If your mother crosses the line and will not relent, make it clear that while you appreciate her advice, you’re an adult and are perfectly capable of handling the situation on your own. Most of the time, there is no need to get into a long, drawn out argument, which brings me to my next bit of advice:

6) Whenever possible, keep arguments short and sweet:

If your father gives his opinion once too often, politely tell him you’ll consider his opinion, and then end the conversation so you can do just that. Most of the time, you won’t even have to mention that you disagree. Remember, once the conversation is over, the decision is yours and yours alone, assuming the matter at hand is under your direct control.

While it may be true that a heated argument may sometimes be productive, by the time you’ve reached middle age, you probably have some idea whether such an argument is worth the trouble.

7) Remember, it’s your life:

If the matter at hand is truly your mother’s business, then she has a right to express herself. She may, in fact, have a right to assert herself. For example, if you’re living in her basement and she wants you to kick your noisy friends out by 10pm so she can sleep, she has every right to say so. And if you’re really 42 years old, she has every right to kick you out too.

But most of the middle-aged adults having trouble with overbearing parents have long since gained their financial independence. The next step? Well, if this article has been an interesting read for you up to this point, it’s quite likely that emotional independence is the next stop on your train of personal improvement.

It’s your life. Don’t let anyone else live it for you.

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.

I personally am a product of divorce. My parents split up when I was 7, and I grew up migrating back and forth between my mother’s house and my father’s apartment, never quite feeling whole, always missing whichever parent wasn’t there, and always wanting to be someplace else.

As I grew older, I watched most of my friends, and even my siblings, tear through relationships like they were pinatas, scattering unhappiness everywhere.

And yet, somehow, growing up in the midst of all this dysfunction, I’ve managed to hold my marriage together. In fact, I’ll go one better: I’ve managed to find the perfect woman for me. No matter what crazy twists and turns life brings me, I know I’ll be all right because my wife is as constant as the Northern Star, forever guiding me home. I’ve been with her for 10 years, married for 4, and every day I love her more.

Finding her was partly luck (or destiny, if you’re a romantic) because I certainly could not have planned to meet the perfect woman the way I did. But some of what it takes to build a wonderful relationship isn’t luck. So let’s talk about that part: the part we control.

In the simplest possible terms, relationship success boils down to 2 things:

1) Picking the right partner
2) Being the right partner

Of course, nothing is really that simple. We could spend 100 pages on each of these, couldn’t we? For the sake of brevity, let’s spend a few high-power minutes talking about the second item: being the right partner.

That’s not to diminish the importance of finding the right partner (after all, you could be the greatest guy or gal in the world, but you’ll never find relationship utopia if you’re with the wrong person). But once you find the right person, you’ve got to have the skills to keep that relationship in happy symbiosis, don’t you?

Here are 7 simple, actionable things that anyone can do to be a better partner, thereby vitalizing his or her relationship:

1) Pay attention to your partner:

When your partner is talking, pay attention to what he or she is saying. I’m as guilty of not listening as anyone, but I do try. If I’m listening to the radio or watching television or spacing out while my wife is trying to talk to me, I have the good sense to understand that I’m being rude. If you’re only 50% present in a conversation, you’re basically telling your partner that he or she isn’t worth your time.

Of course, there is a flip side to this: If your partner is constantly interrupting you when you’re in the middle of some other important activity, you might want to have a talk about that.

But let’s be honest: if we have a problem paying attention to our partner, we probably know it. Do something to fix it. Pay attention. Stop spacing out. Your partner is worth your time.

2) Watch your tone:

Have you ever snapped at your partner for no good reason simply because you were upset about some other unrelated thing? Or yelled at your partner for bringing up a stressful topic, even if he or she is on your side?

When your partner says, “Hey, why are you yelling at me?!” you say, “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at the situation.”

News Flash: You’re not talking to a situation. You’re talking to a human being.

Yes, we all deserve a little latitude from our loved ones when it comes to highly stressful situations. After all, no one is perfect. But a little common sense can go a long way when it comes to making sure our tone of voice is appropriate to the situation, the person we’re talking to, and the feeling we’re trying to convey.

I went through a period of time in my life when I’d let the stress of the day bleed out all over my relationships, snapping at people who didn’t deserve it. Most of the time, I wasn’t even aware of my tone of voice at all.

And I cannot tell you how much of a difference it made when I finally learned to use a polite tone of voice with my wife. Tone of voice can be like a weapon. Avoid the arms race.

3) The golden rule:

Treat your partner the way you’d like to be treated, in all situations, all the time. To do this properly, you have to understand what makes your partner tick, which brings me to my next point…

4) Consider what’s important to your partner:

Guys, you might not understand your wife’s desire to spend money on an endless supply of purses and shoes. And ladies, you might not understand your man’s desire to buy an endless parade of home theater equipment. But relationships are about teamwork, working together to help each other be happy.

This concept extends way beyond finances.

You are not your partner. Your values and priorities may differ. If all you can think about are your own priorities, you have a problem. Conversely, if your partner’s priorities are so far removed from your own that you cannot function as a unit, then you probably hooked up with the wrong person, but that’s a subject for a different article.

5) Remember that you and your partner decide the rules of a relationship:

The terms of your relationship are not decided by friends, parents, or co-workers. Yes, outside opinions can help you formulate opinions, but they cannot supplant the opinion of your partner. You’re not trying to please the world. You’re trying to please yourself and your partner. Never forget this.

6) Turn off the “understand me” impulse:

I know people who spend 10 minutes fighting about some innocuous topic, and then spend the next hour arguing about the motivations that caused the argument to begin with. We want to be understood, justified. We want our partner to understand we’re being reasonable, to comprehend our point of view even if it’s not shared. The key question is whether your desire to be understood serves any practical purpose or is instead a selfish assertion of ego. If the latter, let it go.

7) Reach consensus on the big problems quickly:

Not every battle is worth fighting, but the big ones are worth tackling quickly, calmly, and decisively, or else they will forever fester beneath the surface of your relationship, wreaking untold havoc upon your happiness.

When I first got married, I quickly came to realize that my wife and I had different priorities regarding money. To me, it’s very important to keep a certain amount of money in savings and to pay all our bills on time. To her, these things were not so important. Knowing that money is a leading cause of divorce, I kept looking for ways to calmly broach the topic until finally we reached agreement on how to handle our finances. Problem solved. We haven’t had a single argument about money in all the years since. The details of our compromise are not nearly so important as the fact that we saw the importance of reaching one.

Well, there you have it: 7 ways to be a better partner. And at this point, I’d like to turn things over to you. What tips do you have for being a better partner? Relationships are vitally important to all of us. And since we’re stronger as a blogging community than we are alone, your input is much appreciated. If you have a successful relationship, let your fellow readers know your secret!

This article is copyright © by John Place. For more personal development articles, visit John Place Online.