Find a Way to Make it Better

Sometimes life sucks.  It's a fact.  But you can do something about it.  Wallowing in self pity just makes it worse, so think about what can make your life better.  About a year ago, my job was making me miserable.  I felt underemployed, micro-managed and generally dreaded going into work each day.  Then some writing opportunies literally dropped out of the sky (thank you, God!) and landed in my lap.  It gave me something to do during those awful dead spots during the day at work and also allowed me to do something I loved.  I'm still in my job, but it no longer seems like a soul-sucking daily grind. 

Happy Thanksgiving

As your children grow and leave you with more free time to yourself, it's important to try things that you may never have considered doing before.  Push yourself.   On this Thanksgiving Day, I ran my first 2K.  Granted, I had to walk a wee bit, but I ran most of it and, in truth, I hate running.  In fact, I hadn't run any measurable distance since high school when the evil P.E. teachers made us run.

It's not like I don't exercise.  I hit the gym about every day, walk, do yoga, but I hate running.  But then I watched my daughter finish her second marathon the other day and what I noticed -- besides her running, of course -- was the myriad of human forms that crossed the marathon finish line.  Fat people, old people, young people, hobbling people -- they had all finished 26.2 miles.  Wow, I was humbled.

So I decided to make it a goal to do something that obviously I could do -- I just hadn't wanted to do it.  And why not?  We only live once and I'm not getting any younger.  Besides, the race, which also included a 5K and 10K, supports students at the Humble School in Uganda, a school that I was blessed to have visited two years ago (pictured here).

Beyond Da Mom

It's easy to become that mom -- the one that makes us cringe as she stomps along the sidelines of the soccer game or pounds on the glass at the hockey game, screaming at her kid to, "Score!  Score!  Score!"  Or we become that mom who berates her daughter for not throwing a standing tuck or for failing to get all A's.  Becoming that mom starts slowly.  We want to encourage our children to do their best... but then the encouragement rounds the corner and heads over the hill to pushing our children mentally, to shouting, threats and bribery.  It also inevitably ends up in frustration for both mom and child.

How do you avoid becoming that mom -- the one who is so over-involved in her child's life that she can't see that she is doing more harm than good?  You step back and realize that you are not your child.  You get a life (sounds harsh, but meant in all kindness).  You realize that you can't expect absolute perfection from your child when you, yourself, aren't perfect.  And you realize that your main goal in life as a mother is to raise a child that can take care of himself or herself.

And as scary as it sounds, to raise children that can take care of themselves means allowing them to fail once in awhile.  Solving all of a child's problem in the long run does more harm than good.  He will never learn how to cope with failure, which will happen as certainly as death someday.  At least if it happens now, you can walk him through the pain and the reasons why failure happens.  It is actually a much better present to give a child than to buy her a toy to temporarily soothe the pain.