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Communication
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Classic education
09 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
A 14-year-old student is lugging George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1874) everywhere she goes. She’s just finished Little Woman (1868) and The Help (2009). In a brief conversation she discloses she can hardly believe the time she has wasted on vampire books. Another student, also 14, while reflecting on the broader themes of Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1874) and Little Woman, declares that she can fully relate to Alcott’s 19th century classic. Her parents, she says, reared her to know that there are no legitimate limits that come with being female.
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Are you defrauding yourself?
08 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
No person can be emotionally healthy– that is well-defined and one who implements useful boundaries, sets clear, achievable goals, and participates in a mutually enriching adult relationships – if he or she persists in showing an outer face (a façade) that is incongruent with his or her inner experience.
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My mother covers for my daughter……..
07 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I have a difficult situation with a 24-year-old daughter. She was diagnosed as bipolar. Was a difficult teenager, she cut herself, drinks a lot and is a lesbian. Battles to keep a job. For months she has refused to find a job. She sleeps late and watches TV all day. If I attempt to speak about a job she gets furious and verbally abuses me. I don’t know how to handle the situation anymore. I am always the bad mother. My mom lives here and adores her and covers for her. She gives her with cigarettes and airtime. The girlfriend spends every night here as well. I think they enjoy doing this to me. We also have two other daughters who hate the whole situation. These scenes never happen when my husband is home. Shouldn’t he step in and do something?”
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Symptoms of humility OR signs of a great leader
06 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
- You are willing to listen to and learn from everybody.
- You listen more than you talk.
- You resist the “human” urge to turn all conversations into an opportunity to talk about yourself.
- You do not follow the stories of others with something smarter or bigger or better.
- You learn from others rather than try to teach them.
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It took me 5 years to figure out he was homosexual
05 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“This is to let you know that I read your newspaper column everyday day. I often keep certain articles to give to friends when the subject might pertain to relevant difficulties they are experiencing. I also keep those that motivate me. I am 51. At 28 and after 8 years of happy marriage my husband left our 18-month baby and me. It took me 5 years to figure out he was homosexual. It was traumatizing and a divorce followed. It was my lowest point ever. A couple of years later he told me he was HIV. On a happy note, he is still living and is healthier than most people that aren’t HIV. This is the trauma I had to face and still do. My daughter went through years of anger and depression. They are now bonded with love. I will never forget the things I had to face and keep to myself for years. There was a time homosexuality was illegal and HIV could cost you your job, family, and friends. I battle to talk about anything as I learnt to be ‘the silent lamb’. You can publish this. I thought you might find it interesting and perhaps help others.”
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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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