Slow down Just A Little!

I sat to chat with the father of a 14 month old and listened to him tell me about the wonderful linguistics program he was enrolling his daughter in.

 “Can you believe she can learn up to 5 languages in no time if she goes to this program!” 

I saw how excited he was and I wondered if he would welcome my unsolicited advice. I offered it anyway.

She will only be little for a short while. Before you know it she will be off to elementary school where learning facts will be the rule of the day. 

The best gift you can give her is your time. Leave work sooner than later so you can enjoy family dinners. Read bed time stories, enjoy milk and cookies, visit an animal shelter, go to the park, run in the grass, dip your feet into a stream and look for frogs, plant trees and gardens and watch them  grow. All this will teacher her to respect the natural world. As she gets older show her how to care for others by taking up a cause and visit nursing homes.

Remember the world is her classroom.

You are raising a global citizen and this takes nurturing. The kind that no text book can give and no course can instill. It must come from an investment on your part to be PRESENT in her life.

Too many parents are rushing from one activity to another hoping to raise the next great one yet all the while forgetting the most important foundations must be nurtured by parents and teachers in the early years. 

All is lost if we do not raise our children to be good people!

Show her compassion and she will learn to empathy.

Demonstrate acts of kindness so she will pay it forward.

Teach her tolerance and acceptance so she will respect differences.

Value her so she will learn that she matters.

This can’t be done if you’re rushing from one structured activity to another.

This is not to say that organized sports, dance and art classes have nothing to offer. They do just at the right time and not all at the same time!

So slow down just a little. 

Snowflakes

I woke up this morning a better version of myself and simply grateful to be alive; watching the snowflakes dance their way to the ground made me feel nostalgic.
How did I get here, to 56?

Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was a child, much like the ones who fill my schools; free, abundant, hopeful, and innocent?
She is still with me,watching and hoping.

Most everyone lives for tomorrow but the past year has taught me to live for now, this moment.
 It’s such a waste of precious time to keep aiming for the prize-what prize I wonder?
The next moment belongs to no man; people die, friends are lost, health fails and greed consumes.

I’ve learned that advice is best served lightly and only when requested.
I give no council unless I’m asked and even then what right do I have to influence another’s journey.

Perception is everything. No two people see circumstances in the same way.
 Acceptance of our short comings, living the truth, gratitude and love give us the best version of ourselves.
Ego is destructive on so many levels and shaded eyes and lies blind us to the true nature of the people we walk with.

Good people and bad people are placed in our path for a reason. Sometimes it’s not always obvious why.
Life has a way of revealing.

We have all lost and loved, laughed and cried, triumphed and failed.
This is our journey.

Blessed is to be surrounded by family and friends-past and present-many or few.
They are part of the story we’ve written and the one yet to come.

And if we are here to see the sun rise one more day then we are the richest of men.