The Story Behind The Tale of Bunny The Frog By M. J. Di Rocco Everything is white. The screeching noise envelops me in its cocoon of chaos. Pain. Noise. Chaos. My legs are convulsing uncontrollably. Shock. Faces come into focus through the veil of white. Through the noise I hear voices. I don't understand. What's happened? I don't understand. "This is ambulance," one voice says, finally something I understand. "Ambulance. We go hospital." Everything is still white. I still feel nothing except the convulsing of my legs. "Calm down," I keep repeating to myself. Calm down. I will my legs to stop, they don't. I'm moving now, they're carrying me. The white light is mixed with other colours, more voices. One saying something I recognize. "You're at the hospital. You have been in an accident. Do you remember?" I mutter something inaudible about my legs and how they won't stop. I am given a needle, I fall asleep. Blissful and quiet sleep. Waking up in the friendly confines of a Japanese hospital it all came back to me. I was hit by a car while cycling. My shoulder was dislocated and broken in several places, requiring surgery and, my lifelong souvenir from Japan, a titanium plate bolted to my left shoulder. When one is confined to the hospital and heavily medicated on painkillers one's brain seems to work on overtime. Once I was done annoying the young nurses with my lousy flirtations I began seriously think of my future. Of my son. Of my students. As a father and as a teacher for all the good I want to instill in kids, I always feel the world is stronger than me. Once upon a time, in my young, ambitious days, I was a filmmaker. I was bent on winning an Oscar and changing the medium of cinema forever. I was young, ambitious and stupid. I didn't necessarily make bad films, but my films didn't resonate the way I hoped they would because I made them for all the wrong reasons. I gave it a lot of thought while in the hospital. I got reacquainted with my soul. Certainly as we age, we come to terms with our mortality. We start to wonder what we've done and what's left for us to do. Was this me? A kindergarten teacher knocking on 40, with a couple of films nobody has seen to his name? Wow. What the hell happened? Life happened. Nothing bad, but not as I'd planned. Not even close. Then again, for whom does life happen exactly as planned? Taking a deeper look, life has not been bad to me. It's been a fun, unexpected adventure and it's not over yet. There is still so much for me to do, but now I know why I do things (I'm a little less stupid, you see) I do things for my son, for my students, for others. The only way my work and life have meaning is if I do it with the intention of helping others. I'd been toying with the idea of a children's book for some time. Being a kindergarten teacher I read a lot of books to kids. So many times, while reading books, I began to wonder what the heck the stories were about and thought to myself some of these books make no sense. I knew I could do better. Stories are an effective teaching tool when it comes to children. And I think a writer has a responsibility to the world's youngest minds. I knew the basic message I wanted to communicate, but really it caught fire after my accident. I felt an urgency to do better, to be better. Fast-forward two years: The book is finally published and available globally. Not without a long quest to find the perfect artist to illustrate. My vision for this book was very specific and I feel it's been achieved. Purchase This Book through: Amazon Canada A tiny story, about a frog that tries to make himself look like a rabbit so he will be accepted by his new friends, has traveled a long road to publication. But it's a message that I feel is important to communicate to our youngest minds. Accept others; accept yourself, simple but sometimes difficult. I chose to write a book because some of the most precious and effective time I spend with children is through stories. Spend any given amount of time reading with a child and you'll discover how ready they are willing and to communicate after they've absorbed a good story. Children learn quickly and when you least expect it, stories are a big part of that. I'm knocking on 40 years of life. I had planned to win several Oscars by now. How I ended up as a kindergarten teacher in Japan is irrelevant because it's what I am. It's who I am. My stories will never change the history of cinema. But my little story about the frog who wants to be a bunny did make my son smile, it made my students smile, it made children I've never met smile. It made them think, it made them feel, it made them learn. And I'd like to think that it made the world a teeny-tiny but better. For that I am grateful. I am blessed that I could share a moment with families. I'm grateful and blessed because I realized that life isn't about what I want, it's about how I can help others. The future, this planet, they belong to our children and we have an immense responsibility to them. They are the ones who will make the world a better place. Our kids don't care about how many likes we get on Facebook, how many followers we have on Instagram, how many calories we eat per day or who we voted for. Our kids care about us, simply being with us. They need us. And the world needs them. Read to them, share stories with them and watch as they grow to be spectacular. After all, the only meaningful thing we can leave behind is beautiful memories. MJ Di Rocco is an author and filmmaker. He has produced and directed three feature films and a dozen music videos and has previously published one book of poetry. He lives in Japan where he stumbled upon teaching and has chosen to teach kindergarten and lecture at university. The Tale of Bunny The Frog is his first children's book and is a story about self-acceptance and accepting others. He can be reached at mjdirocco1@gmail.com Click To Buy The Tale of Bunny The Frog M. J. Di Rocco wrote the introduction to The Frank StoryTelling Program For Dating Workbook
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This is a contributed post. So, Valentine's Day is just around the corner. If you are in a relationship, you are probably jumping for joy. If you're single, not so much! Valentine's Day is a contentious issue around the world these days, for many single and non-single people alike. A lot of people enjoy honoring the old traditions of Saint Valentine, whereas other people think it is just a way for stores to make money by selling gifts and cards. But whatever your opinion on the whole thing is, Valentine's is coming and you had better be prepared! If you are finding yourself without a partner this year, don't panic - Valentine's Day can still be fun! Here are some fun ways to join in the Valentine's festivities even when you're riding solo. Celebrate another couple's love We are all taught that Valentine's Day is all to do with celebrating the love between two people - one of those people being you, and the other being your significant other. But who makes these rules?! There's no reason at all why you can't celebrate the love of another couple this Valentine's, especially if you know a couple you really admire. This could be your best friend and his wife - maybe you have grown up with them and just want to show them how happy you are for them? Or, it could even be your own parents! Sending them a card telling them that you hope they enjoy Valentine's Day will really make their day and shows that you appreciate love between everyone! Find a last minute date If you really don't want to be alone on Valentine’s - even if it's just for that day only - you might want to try and find a last minute date. Most people will already be coupled up for Valentine's just a couple of weeks in advance, so it won't be easy. But, at least you should be able to tell fairly early on who is single and who isn't! The best way to find a date without relying on mutual friends is probably through dating apps, where you can state your intentions quite clearly (as can other people). Many apps are also free, so you don't need to spend a fortune just to find that special someone. Try making a list of your best tinder pick up lines and see if you can find yourself a date for the evening! Celebrate with your other single friends
It's safe to say that most of your friends who are in relationships will be busy with their partner on Valentine's Day. But, what about all your other single mates? Arrange to go out for a meal together - sure, you'll be surrounded by intimate tables for two, but it will be a laugh! Or, get your buddies round at your place for the night and indulge in a few drinks and takeout food. You could even get out some old photos and reminisce about times you had together at school or college. Valentine's Day doesn't mean you need to be with a girlfriend - see it as a chance to catch up with ALL your loved ones. Dating a Man With Kids, and Stuff About Penguins
By Avi Tanny "Sorry I'm really not looking for that level of commitment right now" This was a reply on one of the dating apps I was using (I was honest about being a father). I really liked what the person said. Honest and to the point. I decided to create some questions/criteria of my own for dating. To me there are four basic questions when it comes to dating: 1) What am I offering? 2) What is my date offering? 3) Do we have specific common interests? 4) Is it appropriate to throw pebbles when choosing a mate ( like penguins do)? Dating can be a real challenge when you are a single father, a young professional or a penguin. Did you know penguins throw pebbles at each other as a mating ritual? I'm not advocating pebble throwing but I think it is more effective then Tinder. I wonder which penguin came up with that idea? Couldn’t they have just pushed, shook wings or something? As a single father you have to think about the future and whom you want around your children. Has the person taken care of children on a regular basis? If she is a single mom, what happened in the relationship? Are you going to be able to take on the added responsibilities of raising other children? My problem is chronic tiredness (and male pattern baldness, but one thing at a time). When it's 7 pm I'm on a date and I already feel like dozing off that's not gonna impress anyone. However, if the person has been raising children for a few years they may be in a similar boat. Which is a specific common interest. Going on a breakfast date may solve that problem. However, unless they have poutine I'm not a breakfast person. The question I'm often asked is where do you see yourself in five years? Likely as a 35 year old adult male, probably with a bad haircut, overweight, and with terrible dad breath (I'm not sure why we didn't go on a second date). To me dating is really a drawn out interrogation. The best way around that is too make up some complete nonsense about yourself. For example, you are a direct descendant of AL Capone. Make sure to provide slight details. My great uncle was married to his mother ( not bad?) If the date fails at least you gave her a story to tell. The important part is to have fun and try to create a friendship, and if that fails, eat somewhere decent. I always try to avoid alcohol on a first date because alcohol often leads to children. Top trick : if the date isn't going well have a pre programmed code with the babysitter to bail you out. This is proven to work for me. In conclusion: At the end of the day it's about what makes you happy. You may go on many dates until you find the right person but make sure you have at least some common ground. Base your views on actually spending time with the person (and their children) before making any decisions. Perhaps you've been wasting so much time on dating apps you forgot that maybe you should be part of a community. Volunteer? Get together with old friends? Pretend to be vegan? Start a new religion? Life is good! Think of ways to make it better. I wouldn't recommend the pebble idea because do you really want a family the size of a penguin family? Have you ever seen only one penguin? I rest my case. The role of fathers is starting to change in a tremendous way. They even started recreating New Balance shoes to look less bland. Always look for the good in people and if you can't find it, observe penguins because penguins are pretty awesome. Please feel free to provide feedback and phone numbers. Very little offends me. Except plastic on furniture, toothpaste after orange juice and pineapples on pizza. Avi Tanny is a single father, occasional comedian, and full time hater of pineapples on pizza. You can reach him at avitanny@hotmail.com This is a contributed post. Starting a family and getting married can all come at you so fast. It’s a good thing to question whether you’re ready to make such a big commitment in your life. If you don’t question these things and whether now is the time for you to push ahead, you might make the wrong call for you. That’s the last thing you need, so don’t let it come to that. Instead, be honest with your partner and discuss the practical challenges that the pair of you are likely to face when starting a family and tying the knot. These practical areas of concern might not be romantic, but it’s the practical things that will hit you hardest later on. Timing First of all, you need to think about the timing of all this. Is now the right time for you to be starting a family and settling down with a partner who you aim to stay with for the rest of your life? Questioning that is nothing to be ashamed of; it’s perfectly natural. We all have to find our own way, and you don’t have an obligation to anyone if you’re not ready to do something yet. There are other ways in which timing should be considered too. For example, if you are entering middle age and you still want to have children, you will have to think about biology. Of course, there are things you can do to have children later in life now, but it’s something that is worth keeping in mind. You don’t want to regret things later. Financial Issues Money is a big part of any long-term relationship. You need to find a way to make it work financially for the both of you. And looking at how the balance of financial obligation is going to work between you is key. Talking about these things openly and frankly is always the best way to do things. That way, everyone will know where they stand. The other thing to think about is whether you should put a prenuptial agreement in place. Some solicitors or law firms can provide expert advice if that’s something you want to do. It will mean that if the marriage doesn’t turn out as planned, the finances will be clear and no one will have to argue over money. Finally, think about whether you have the money to start a family and maintain your lifestyle. Raising kids isn’t cheap. Career Concerns
Last but not least, you should think about how your family and marital plans fit in with your career. For many people, their jobs and careers are the most important things of all to them. And there is nothing at all wrong with that. But it can be challenging to keep your career on track while raising a family. It could be a better idea to wait until your career is in a more stable place before starting a family if you feel like you are stilling growing fast in your job. That way, your career will be less hectic when the times comes to have children and take on fatherly or motherly responsibilities for the first time. Battling Insecurities When Dating
By Frank Kermit Insecurities can be an obstacle in your dating life. The special challenge is that even if you find someone that you like, who happens to like you back, your own insecurities will more than likely sabotage every great potential relationship you find. Insecure people usually lack a certain confidence, and can be troubled by self-doubt about their own abilities, skills, and their own self-worth. People can feel insecure about a variety of things such as weight, height, attractiveness, facial features, disabilities, social status and even whether or not they are deserving of being treated well or of experiencing being loved. When your insecurities overwhelm your entire sense of self worth, it may be referred to as an inferiority complex, which can at times drive individuals to overcompensate to achieve extreme related success. For example, a person with an inferiority complex about his or her looks, could potentially go to extreme measures to be considered very attractive, such as people who starve themselves to unhealthy near death limits, or people who train hard to the point of injuring themselves. Insecurities can be rooted both from childhood experiences (for example, growing up with a feeling of unworthiness of love or attention from a parent), as well as, experiences from an adult's life (for example, a failure of some kind that became wrapped up in the adult's self identity). In my practice, what I see most often is that insecure people attempt to solve their insecurities by aiming to be as perfect as possible. This means not taking any action in dating waiting for the perfect time, waiting for the perfect partner, or waiting until he or she achieves some great accolade before being open to dating. Striving for perfection does not seem to alleviate insecurities. It actually exasperates the problem constantly leaving an individual feeling like he or she is not ever perfect enough to be loved. Full on acceptance of self is the best solution for insecurities. It is the complete opposite of the source of being insecure, and when a person fully accepts and loves him or her self, they also accept their insecurities as part of what makes them whole and unique. Once you reach a point where you do not fear abandonment, or fear being unwanted, and accept yourself for all the reason you think people could potentially reject you, that is when you give off the belief in yourself that attracts people. When you are OK with you, you teach others how to be OK with you. This does not mean that EVERYONE is going to flock to you. Fact is, even at your best, there will likely always be a percentage of the population that will not accept you. However, once you fully accept you, you may be surprised to find out that many other people (the majority in fact) will be more accepting of you as well, no matter what it was you originally felt insecure about. The aim is not to ignore the element at the heart of your insecurity, or to try to hide it from others. It means that others may also acknowledge the existence of what you were insecure about, and still accept you with it. One of the behaviors I always encourage in my clients to help them along the path to a stronger self-esteem and to build up self-acceptance is to stop judging other people. Treat people with compassion at all times. It is a learn-able skill just like any other. Avoid gossiping about people, making fun of anyone for any reason whatsoever (in person or online), and be accepting and tolerant of others, even if you do not like them. They do not have to conform to your own sense of appeal for you to accept them. You do not have to like a person, their look, or their lifestyle, in order to accept them and respect their rights as human beings; whatever flaws you may see in them. How openly or harshly you judge others are signs of how little or how much you compassionately accept yourself. Frank Kermit Let the Holiday Headaches Begin!
By Frank Kermit You have been dating your new partner for a few weeks now, and your timeline has stumbled upon the holiday season. The holiday season means parties. Family parties, company parties, client-related parties, friends-traveling into town for dinner parties…should you bring your new relationship partner with you? Or should you go solo and wait until next year? The answer is: It Depends. The criteria you need to consider before you bring your new partner to meet your friends, co-workers and especially your family at a function is if you are ready to go public with the nature of your relationship. That’s it. If you are not prepared to introduce your partner as “your partner”, you do not bring your partner along. And before the label-haters (those people that can not stand putting a label on their romantic exchanges) start gunning down my throat, consider this: It will be easier on you, your partner, and everyone that your partner will be introduced too. If you are not going to introduce your partner as your actual partner, then do not bring him or her. The worst thing you can do is to bring your partner to a function and introduce your partner to everyone there as your “friend”. First of all, introducing your partner as “your friend” makes it awkward for everyone. You are not fooling anyone. People will make three assumptions: (1) you are dating but do not want to admit it because there is something wrong with your relationship, (2) one of you wants to date the other but the other is not interested enough, or (3) you are both just pathetic because you would rather hang out with a platonic friend instead of making the effort to actually find your own legitimate partner. Which would you prefer? Personally, I have been in all three situations, and I can tell you from experience that none of them make you feel good at the end of the night. One of the stories I often hear during my coaching is about the person who brings a “friend” they are interested in to a function, like a work party, and end up having to bite their tongues when co-workers start to flirt, hit on and aggressively try to attract “the friend”. After all, if you aren’t willing to admit that you are more than “just friends” (or that you would want to be), then your “friend” is fair game. Do not put the focus of your affection into a potentially compromising social position. If you are still at the point of having to introduce your partner as “your friend” at any functions, then do everyone a favor: Wait until next year, and bring your partner along to the future holiday functions if you are still together, and publicly open as a couple. Frank Kermit Holidays and Inter-Faith Families
By Frank Kermit The number of interfaith families is growing. It is likely that you or someone you know has been involved at some point in an inter-faith relationship. Love may be blind, but the challenges some couples face in inter-faith marriages can be very real. According to Dr Sheila Gordon, president of Interfaith Community, religions aren’t really set up to accommodate people creating households where there are two different faiths. She suggests that parents should discuss with each other, their goals of the religion as it regards their children and what aspects of the religion they want to practice, and what they want to get out of practicing their faiths before bringing their children into it. Some couples face what has been called the December Dilemma, where multiple faiths have days of celebration around the same time. Some families try to celebrate each holiday separately on their respective days, but allow for decorations of both holidays to be present the entire holiday season (this avoids the December Dilemma of deciding, for example, if they should put up a Christmas tree or a Menorah). One inter-faith couple told me that they celebrate both sets of holidays and will let their children decide what faith to follow in the future. Some families just celebrate all the holidays at once in their own interpretation of mixing traditions together. Finally, other families make a firm decision that the children will be brought up with one faith and one set of traditions, and the parent from the other faith either gives up a faith, or celebrates the holidays more privately, or with less emphasis even if the children are involved. Basically, it is important for the couple to decide ahead of time, as much as they can, what they believe would be best, not only for them, but for their kids as well. It is important to keep in mind that managing different holiday celebrations and how to incorporate them into your family’s life is a yearlong process. One thing that many inter-faith relationships face is a lack of acceptance from family and friends. An old colleague of mine used to be very out spoken about his stance against inter-faith marriage to the point where he would refuse to attend the weddings of his friends and families if they married outside his religion. This eventually led to a lot of abandonment. Everyone has an opinion about inter-faith relations, and it may not always be in favor of the loving couple. If you are entering into an inter-faith relationship, and believe it is heading in the direction of an inter-faith family, be sure you are ready to face opposition that you may not have known you had. Personally, I find it sad when family and friends are accepting of inter-faith friendships, but not accepting of inter-faith romances. In fact, in my own practice, the biggest challenge to inter-faith couples is not the couple’s inability to work out the role of religion in their lives and the lives of their children; their biggest challenge is getting close family members on board to support them as they would any same faith relationships. If there could be just one message I could relate to those parents and other family who abandon a loving inter-faith couple it is this: The taint of your abandonment will never be removed even if you reconcile later. More often than not, abandoning family re-enter that couple’s life again in the future, and it usually is because you want to see the children of the new inter-faith family. Think long and hard before you do something that will never be forgotten. I have yet to meet any abandoner that later claimed it was the right thing to do. Happy Holidays whatever you celebrate! When Love Ends At The Best of Times
Heartbreak for the Holidays By Frank Kermit As the holiday season approaches there are a number of things most people can count on. Time off, shopping, spending time with family and friends (including the ones you may not be particularly fond of), bad weather, exams if you are a student, end of the year projects at work that need to get done, the pressures of holiday get-togethers, worse weather, bad drivers, holiday parties, trips to the clinic, feeling overwhelmed, traveling, even worse weather, travel delays, resolutions, less day light, longer commutes…did I mention the weather? But if you are lucky enough, you might just have that kind of holiday season where you get a glimpse, a tiny reminder of what makes it all worth it. The holiday season brings about a sense of reflection for many people. It is a time, when we look back on all the things we have done or accomplished in the past year (or didn’t). And that is why holidays bring about the end of many relationships. The holiday times can be super challenging if you have a lot going on. It is easy to feel pressure and exhaustion, as if you are being pulled in too many different directions. When this pressure hits, and you start questioning if the relationship you are in is worth it…that means only one thing: you-are-normal. Holidays have a reputation of bringing out the best in humanity…it can also bring out the worst too. Not everyone can handle the holiday times, and if you are having any issues with the person you are dating, the holidays are ripe to exploit even your most minuscule doubts and have them cause cracks in the foundation of your relationship future. It may not be until the holiday’s approach that some people take the time to ask if this is the relationship they really want to be in. It may not be until the holiday’s approach that some people must now decide if they are going to introduce the new partner to their family. Holidays can force issues like commitment-talk, future-talk, family-planning-talk, and even the dreaded, so-what-are-we-exactly-and-where-is-this-going-?-talk. (Yeesh! And you thought that people just drank too much over the holidays to make merry…) And those are only the challenges if you are monogamous. When dating multiple people during the holidays, it can be a bit tricky because there are only a couple of nights that you have to spend with your someone special that have important meanings to it, and if you have more than one someone special in your life, choosing only one person to spend that special night with, usually means that the others will dump you. If you can’t bring all of your partners together to celebrate with you (and hey, that could happen), you might not get to spend it with anyone. The reverse can happen as well if your preferred partner is seeing more than one person, and happens to choose someone else to share that midnight New Years kiss with, instead of choosing you. It can be easier than you think to end up alone on a major holiday. Being polyamorous doesn’t protect you from the same risks as being monogamous. Think of the holiday season as a test. Can your relationship survive the holiday hazards? Is the person you are dating understanding about the time you need to prepare for your exams (exams that can change the course of your life)? Is the person you are with just adding to your holiday aches? Are you the one that is making things worse for your partner because the holidays are fueling the fires of your own unresolved issues? It is a pretty safe bet that if your love life cannot withstand the handful of weeks leading up to, and including the holidays, it is likely that the person you were dating would not have been a reliable life partner for you anyways. So the good news about a holiday break up is that you found out before you got more committed or attached. That still does not change the fact that the end of a relationship heading into, or during the holidays, just royally sucks. It is going to hurt. There is never a “good time” for a relationship to break up. There will always be reasons to stay, even when the most important reason (the fact that you do not want to be in a relationship with that person) says that you need to go. Holidays notwithstanding, if the relationship ended, you are still going to have to deal with the heartache. If you do end up in heartbreak for the holidays, take every opportunity to make merry and spread cheer with the people you care about (except the one that dumped you), and enjoy the company of people that care about you. Take the time you need to mourn the end of your relationship, but not at the expense of the focus you need for those things (like study time to pass your exams) that WILL stay with you for the rest of your life. The pain is temporary. There will be plenty of time to focus on the things you want, after you focus on the things you need to do first. And when you do mourn, remember what you LEARNED from your last relationship. If you can find the correct lesson to learn, so that you do not end up in exactly the same situation again, that is the path of finding your relationship redemption. That is the way to forgiving the most important person you need to forgive in a break up…yourself. Have a safe holiday season everyone. Frank Kermit How Much Should You Care About What Other People Think?
By Frank Kermit There will be times when we want to do something in our lives that is meaningful to us. It could be a decision related to abandoning education, what career path to choose, what kind of person to date, changing something major in how we live, or even a new life experience to experiment with to see if it is for you. Each option that you consider can unto itself be overwhelming. However, if it is something that may have the consequence that others may not like you for doing it, it can make an overwhelming option a near impossible decision. With each new choice we make, there will be benefits and consequences. The benefits are usually easier to identify than the consequences. The one alarming factor in your internal debate is the fact that you do not actually control the consequences of your actions. However, when we believe that one of the consequences of our actions may be lack of approval from people, it can make going for what you want a harder decision. If what other people think of you is very important to you, it is likely going to be a huge factor in your decision making process. Sometimes, that can be a good thing, but it is not always as important as people think. Over the course of your life, it is YOU, and not anyone else that will bare the major burden of any decision you make. If you are going to take into account the opinions of others, it is important to keep in mind exactly how effective those "others" are in the ongoing process of your life. There are times when caring about what others think has incredibly good side effects. A teenager, who chooses not to experiment with drugs and avoids the whole drug culture because she worries about how her parents may disapprove, helps keep her safe. That is a good side effect. Caring about what your boss thinks about your conduct both in and out of the office is often necessary as it can have an impact on your ability to be promoted, and increase your earning potential. Not all approval seeking behaviors and decision-making is bad. When the negatives in your life outweigh the positives because you are caring about what others think, and put their approval ahead of your own happiness, that is when you are caring way too much. One of the lessons I teach people who are struggling with pursuing relationship goals is how to balance when to worry about what other people think, and when to just follow through on your interests. People tend to have more regrets about the things they did not do, or at least try, than to regret the things they did do and try, even if they failed at it. When you are trying to judge if you should care about what someone thinks; when you are trying to decide if you should go for it or not, you must ascertain whether or not their opinion actually has any legitimate and actually harmful consequences for you. Does the person in question have the power to ruin the quality of your life in a significant way? If the answer is no, then really, who cares what they think? If the answer is yes, then you have a choice to make to judge if the consequences would outweigh the benefits. For example: you want to drop out of college and start your own business. You have talked about this plan and a number of people think you are crazy, while others support the decision even if they do not agree, and still a few love the idea. All of this is in fact meaningless. The focus has to be on what are the consequences of this decision. If your parents are paying for your education and have told you that if you drop out they will no longer support you and that you would be financially on your own and have to move out of their basement, THAT is one of the consequences that needs to factor into your decision more than others. Are you ready to completely live on your own and support yourself while you pursue this new path? Not sure? In this case caring about what "they" think is important. Also note that if the handful of people who thought it was a great idea for you to pursue, but aren't actually going to help you, or support you in pursuing that dream, then their opinion is worthless. It does not matter if they think it is a good idea. As they are not offering any support for your cause either way, what they think is not something you ever need to care about. That is a key understanding many people miss out on. The idea that liking your idea without actually taking action to support you is as useless to care about as someone hating your idea but not doing anything to stop you from trying it. What about dating and relationships? What about sex? If you want to date someone that some of your friends and family thinks is a bad idea, what should you do? If you want to have sex in a way that you would be stigmatized for, what do you do? You balance the benefits and consequences, including how you will be able to live with yourself long term if you do not even try. It is this one element that can be the most devastating. In the short term it is easy to give up some pleasure in your life in order to keep the peace with the people you care about. However, in the long term, living for others and being self-sacrificing does not necessarily grant peace nor happiness. It is more likely to lead to a life of unfulfilled dreams and an abundance of resentment. There will be a consequence no matter what you do. There is ALWAYS a trade off. That is the way of life. There is no one direction that does not have some kind of bad string attached. It is about choosing the paths that have the bad strings you are able to live with. If you have sex when you want to, with who you want to, you will experience one of the great pleasures life has to offer, but you may also acquire the scorn of people who disapprove calling her a slut or him a sleaze. If you choose not to have sex to please those people, you are limiting some of the life experience and life lessons that comes from experience, which may be something you regret not doing down the road. Will it be comforting for you that you cared what others thought when you hit your mid-life crisis regretting all the things you missed out on? Only you can answer that truthfully. If you choose to go after your dreams there will be people who will HATE you for doing it if you succeed, and will HATE you if you fail; and there will always be consequences to just having dreams no matter what they are. Should you still have and go after your dreams? If you have relationships with individuals that some of your family and friends can not stand, you will have to deal with possibly being cut off from them and others you love that may be caught in the middle (like a younger relative that must obey their parents that no longer approve of you). However, you may very well have the main relationship partner of your life that addresses your most important emotional needs better than your friends and family ever could. Is it worth it? Only you can answer that truthfully. Then again, you could forget that potential partner and only date someone your friends and family do approve of that may or may not completely fulfill you. If you do, and given you keep your friends and family connections intact, it could seem like an acceptable trade off. Is it worth it? Only you can answer that truthfully. Or since you can't be with whom you really want, and you don't want to be with anyone else, you could just end up alone for the rest of your life. That way no one is happy, but no one is hurting...except for you. By putting everyone else's needs ahead of your own, you ARE hurting. It is just that it is not always easy to detect when you are being hurt since you are not in the habit of looking after your own needs. (Ouch, those a-ha moments sting don't they?) Whether "they" are strangers on the Internet who have nothing better to do than to troll your efforts and post negative comments, or if "they" are people that actually have the power to affect your ability to provide for yourself, the process is the same. Judge if the consequences are actually worth what you are getting for it. Over the course of time, your consequences change for certain decisions you make for yourself. The consequences of being an uneducated 19 year old, in a closed social circle, who is dependent on parents to survive is very different from the consequences you would have to deal with as an independent 35 year old adult, who owns a business, and does not care about breaking ties with close friends and family. So do keep in mind that how much you have to care about what others think will change over your lifespan, as your dependency on others change. One thing is for sure though. No matter what decision you take, YOU are still the one person that has to live with the full consequences of every decision you do make, and that you don't make, regardless if you cared about what other people think or not. Frank Kermit Credibility Creates Commitment By Frank Kermit When someone comes to me for coaching to figure out why they are still single despite being able to attract a number of partners to date, I start coaching them with an assessment of what happens on those dates to look for actions and behaviors that may be turning off potential life partners. Most people are often unaware of the things they may be doing or saying that causes the other person to halt any potential commitment. One of the behaviors that I often spot is how a person lacks credibility in the way they communicate, which I believe to be a source of why they may be able to attract a lot of dates, but none of them turn into a serious commitment. Although there are people who are commitment-phobic (who self sabotage a potential serious relationship because of a deep rooted fear that a committed relationship is related to more pain than it would bring pleasure), this is not always the case when dealing with people that WANT a serious commitment and associate being single with being in pain. An easy way to summarize a lack of credibility is whether or not someone is caught breaking his or her own rules. It does not matter what your rules are per se; what matters is if you break your own rules. For example: If you mention that family values are important to you, but you are caught trying to get out of a parent-teacher meeting, you lack credibility. In the mind of your date, if family values were as important to you as you claimed you would be willing to attend the parent-teacher meetings regardless if it means having to attend with your ex, because it is about your kids (your family). You lack credibility. If you mention that you do not like seafood on a date, because you sense that your date does not like seafood and you want your date to like you, but you are caught ordering seafood at a later time because you forgot what you said that first meeting, you lack credibility. In the mind of your date, if you are willing to lie about something small because you wanted to be liked, then you likely will lie about something big down the road to avoid the possible conflicts it would bring. You lack credibility. If you mention on a date that you do not have sex unless in a committed relationship, and then proceed to have sex with the person you are seeing before any serious commitment has been established because it felt right, you lack credibility. In the mind of your date, if you are willing to go break your rules just because you felt like it in the moment, how is your date suppose to trust any promise you make, if there is a chance you will break your promises because of the way you may feel in the moment. You lack credibility. It is not the facts that you would rather avoid dealing with an ex, ordered the halibut, or had sex sooner than later because it felt right. What you are being judged on is that you said one thing (your rules) and did another thing (your actions). This lack of congruence is what are scaring people away from getting serious with you. Think of it this way. A serious relationship can be a risky endeavor. A person may risk their children (having an unfit step parent can affect custody not to mention the safety of the children), their resources (what people lose in a divorce), their financial credit (sharing of debt repayment), even their very way of life (image the ways of losing your profession because you made a bad partner choice). So if someone is looking to find a person to make a commitment too, that commit must be earned. Lacking credibility because of the way you break your own rules destroys the desire to commit. Credibility-Creates-Commitment. |
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