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Responsive people
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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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How you leave is of vital importance…..
11 Dec 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Strong goodbyes make strong hellos possible.
The manner in which you leave a job (or any relationship, church, or even a marriage) and say goodbye is vitally important.
Desired farewells, in the event of a promotion, should be crafted with great care, if you want greater success in your next similar venture or undertaking. Undesired farewells require the skill of an accomplished artist.
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Preparation now may enrich your family for generations to come……
19 Oct 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
You’ve met someone you consider attractive. The relationship has the potential to move toward marriage. A wise couple can act to pave the way for an extraordinary relationship. While these suggestions may appear “off the wall”, the couple that can tough it out and discuss and implement these few ideas will reap benefits for their enriched generations that follow:
1. Discuss individual and shared beliefs about money. Study each other’s personal finances. The wallet is a window into the soul.
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Does your life get in the way when you are listening to others?
27 Jul 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
I try to really listen to others.
Over the years, and just like you probably do, I have learned to listen for what is not being said, what’s intentionally omitted.
I know that what people don’t tell me is usually more powerful than what they do choose tell me.
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Over-protect or under-protect….. neither is an option
10 Jul 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
To over-protect a child is to shield him or her from all possible, imaginable, even unimaginable dangers. This tells the child he or she is incapable of being a separate person and incapable of fulfilling his or her potential without constant help and surveillance.
To under-protect a child is to fail to provide reasonable and necessary safeguards in a world that is sometimes unsafe. This can make a child feel alone, lost, and vulnerable.
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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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