I saw a posting yesterday by a blogging mama friend of mine from Utah. She was explaining that she caught her little daughter laying a big smackaroo kiss on some little boy in her class. Her response when she saw it was to tell her daughter that wasn’t appropriate and that she was not suppose to kiss a boy until her wedding day. She added an LOL after the statement but I was pretty sure, due to her Mormon beliefs, that she was being serious.
Being the demure, non-confrontational guy I am, I wrote in the thread under her story saying “Not kissing until married? You know that is setting up a really guilty girl in the future. Do you think it is realistic and do you think it is helpful to her?” What followed was a pretty lengthy discussion about it, with most chiming in that they thought it was completely realistic and good to have that as a goal. Most respondents were fellow Mormons along with the blogger.
I was not of that opinion. It got a bit heated, nothing angry or mean, just some telling me to raise my kids how I want and she can raise her kids how she wants. It was all cool. But it got me thinking, what is in your scripture that you completely understand and it bothers you? Does it bother you because you disagree with it? Because you do agree with it but don’t want to follow it? Or something else? Tell me about it, ok?
2018 Post script – My stepdaughter decided to wait until she was married to kiss her fiancé. We didn’t argue about it with her.
Last night I gave a trial run of the presentation I am giving at Blog World LA in November. Its title is ‘The Six Stop Signs on Creativity Road’. I didn’t quite make it down to 6, I had 8 instead. but I will get there. One of the stop signs involves worrying about people being better than you. That is a paralyzer. But just is bad is thinking you are better than others.
Now, I don’t mean the thought should never enter your mind. If you win a race, you realize you are better than others in that race. What matters is if you publicize that ‘betterness’ just to pump yourself up or to push the other person down. When that happens it is one person rubbing the other person’s nose in their inferiority. When that happens to you, your estimation of the other person doesn’t go up, it goes down. And when you extol your own superiority, it might build you up in your own mind, but it doesn’t build you up in anyone else’s.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily Quote by Anonymous
Sometimes I have a napkin sitting around that I try various markers out on to see if the color is right or if it still has enough ink in it. I keep this napkin until I have made a lot of random marks. Sometimes I feel up to a challenge of turning these random marks into something. This can lead to a pretty strange drawing, in this case of strange creatures.
If you want to be challenged creatively try this: Find something that has no purpose to it any longer. It could be a napkin, an old text book, an old piano, what it is doesn’t matter. Put on your creativity hat and see what new thing you can make of it.
The last time I did this challenge the drawing was more in my typical style. You can see where the random marks originally were a bit easier than in ‘Strange Creatures’.
Click on the napkin to go to the original post.
Drawings and explanation by Marty Coleman of the Napkin Dad Daily
I have known a lot of people over the years who take pride in saying, “I am honest, I say what I think.” These people fall into two categories. Those who say it but don’t really do it as much as the comment might suggest, and those who really do it.
Those in the first category are people who use what is called discernment. They have the ability to speak honestly, to say what they think, when it is wise and appropriate to do so. The can be a person’s best friend because you can rely on them to tell you the truth without being stupid or mean.
Those in the second category are those who love the brutality in ‘brutal honesty’ more than the honesty. They aren’t anyone’s best friend because whatever honesty they have is so tinged with meanness and a lack of discernment that they can’t be trusted or relied upon.
Those people are usually cocksure and bellicose in defense of their honesty. They also are woefully ignorant of who they really are and obsessively mean in their character assassinations disguised as ‘truth’. I don’t like those people unless they are on reality TV, then I like watching them as a warning to myself and as a psychological study in self-destructive behavior and attitudes.
Do you know people like that? Do you agree with my characterization of them? What would you add or subtract?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily Quote by Anonymous
This is a tricky idea because you really don’t know what you have escaped, do you? I mean, you know physically what you have escaped to some degree. You know if you had fallen off that cliff instead of that pregnant nudist hiker you would very likely get a whole bunch of broken bones, scrapes, cuts, and probably more. But do you know everything you might have escaped? What if the pregnant nudist hiker met the love of her life in the form of the paramedic who treated her? What if she wrote a book about her accident and her transformation from pregnant nudist hiker to world renowned Doctor of Broken Bones and became wealthy from speaking on the Broken Bone conference circuit? What if when she fell she actually landed on a beached whale no one had seen and because of her the whale was rescued and put back to sea?
So, what I am saying is this quote should be ignored, right? No, I am not saying that. I am saying whether you escape something or don’t, you have the choice to be content and grateful. You have the choice to find the good in whatever it is you experience. You can be grateful you escaped death and the baby was safe or you can focus on how unfair life is that it allowed you to fall. You can be grateful you met a great paramedic or be angry at how long it took him to get to you. You can be grateful the whale was there to soften your fall or annoyed by how smelly the whale is.
What has happened recently that you chose to be grateful and content with instead of angry and annoyed? How did that affect the rest of your day?
I had a comment this morning on Friday’s napkin, the 5th in my series on Personal Finance. It was about retirement. The commenter (Betsy, the Zen Mama) talked about her father being about to retire and having no money and a house worth nothing. He is going to have to get a new job, but can’t find one yet. I hadn’t visited her blog recently so I went to take a look. She had a list of 25 gratitude quotes as her latest blog entry. This one caught my eye and mind. She’s a cool Zen Mama, you should check out her blog.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily Quote by Anonymous
I am going to retire this topic after today. It’s day #5 of Personal Finance week at the NDD.
So you saved all this dough. You did what all the financial planners said to do. Now you can retire at age 65. Then what will you do? Have you been just waiting for retirement so you can do a million different things on your bucket list? More power to you. But what if you don’t have a bucket list? What if your bucket is empty? What if your bucket is filled with nothing but superficial stupid stuff? What then?
Remember, You won’t be able to rely on your company to tell you what your purpose is. So you might want to figure out, what is your REASON for retiring? The question isn’t what are you retiring from, it’s what are you retiring TO? All the money in the world, all the perfect preparations, will not save you from having nothing to do.
Start now, if you haven’t already, and work towards figuring out what matters to you. What drives you. What you are passionate about. If you don’t know the answer to those questions, then it’s time to take a big ol’ leap into the unknown to find out. Time for some therapy, some volunteering, some soul searching, some bone jarring upheaval, because if you don’t do something you will end up being empty and if you think empty is bad at your age, try being empty at retirement.
If you are going to build financial wealth for yourself and your family, it’s just as important to build character wealth. Without building your character, in particular how you will deal with whatever wealth you get, then your upcoming wealth could very easily overwhelm you. It could overwhelm your sense of right and wrong, your sense of empathy, compassion, understanding, humility and more.
And, as the napkin illustrates, it could easily completely warp your understanding of death. What is there to understand about death that could change based on your wealth? After all, we all do know we are going to die, right? RIGHT? Well, maybe not.
If you have a lot of anything; money, stuff, followers, then the idea of losing all those things focuses your attention on the thing that could take it all away. If, in addition to that, your wealth has led to an gargantuan increase in your ego and power, then you might be fooled into thinking you can escape death somehow. I don’t mean you really, truly believe that, but you rationalize the fantasy in your head to the point where you might actually convince yourself. What leads to that rationalization need? Fear of death because you have so much to lose.
But guess what? All the ego, money, power and fantasy won’t change the reality of death. You will not take one single iota of money or of stuff with you. So, perhaps you can regroup and retrain yourself to see your wealth, not as something to hoard and fear losing, but something you gather for the express purpose of dispersing to others. I don’t mean charity alone. I mean dispersing to companies, to adventures, to worthy causes, to family as well. But the idea is to know that it is passing by and you only have the power to decide where it goes and when, not whether you get to keep it.
When we think of personal finance we don’t usually think of someone who is poverty stricken. But everyone on the planet has personal finances. What do you have (usually in the form of money) to get what you need and want? That is the essence of personal finance and whether you are in a tenement slum, a mansion on the hill or somewhere in between you deal with that every day.The cost of being poor isn’t just in the amount of money it takes (and it does take some money to be poor) but in the emotional, psychological and relational aspects of life as well. For example, statistics seem to show that most marriage stress and divorce occur with money being the root cause.
How do we get out of that situation? It starts with recognition that you can only control you. That includes whatever money you receive, from whatever source. The pain and stress of not having enough money is a terrible thing, but it can be turned around if you start with small steps in a different direction.
That new direction might be being more responsible with utilities, food, driving, miscellaneous purchases. Maybe the new direction is just writing all the money inflow and outgo down.
Whatever small step you can take, take it. It might not lead to a grand solution it’s true. But not changing direction guarantees there will be no solution at all.
If you can, it’s a great benefit to your children to teach them about money management. But if you don’t do it perfectly, or at all, you can still help them understand it as adults. But to do that you really have to have your own personal finances in pretty good order first. And that is a good thing because the last thing you want is for your children to learn about personal finances only when they see you broke and at the end of your years.
My wife and I are going through a personal finance program over the next 12 weeks. We meet once a week where we watch a video, have a discussion and go over material in a group. We then have homework during the week. The goal is to get our financial house in good order and be better prepared for emergencies and retirement. As a result I thought it would be fun to do a series on personal finance. I know many of you struggle with money, how to keep it, spend it and use it the way you want. So, let’s investigate shall we?
When do you use a deodorant? Most often you don’t use it when you stink, but before you stink. It’s a preemptive strike against the possibility of stink.
How is money a good deodorant? From the cynical point of view what it really means is that you stink but you have so much money that those around you are willing to suffer through the stink to get close to some of your money. In this case we are not talking about a physical odor. We are talking about a moral, ethical or behavioral failing being the ‘odor’.
Another way of looking at the quote, less cynical – more positive, is that money is a protector. It is a buffer from you being in a situation that might stink, such as an emergency of some sort. After all, if you have an emergency fund then your emergencies (and you WILL have emergencies) won’t be nearly as catastrophic, right? You will be able to pay for them if you have saved knowing they will happen.
What tricks and tips do you have surrounding your personal finances?
I love road trips. When I was very small we moved from one side of the country to the other a number of times. We did it again when I was a teenager. I did it twice during undergraduate and graduate years and once again as an adult with a family. Those were just the moves. The road trips include journeys to the North, Northeast, Northwest, South, Southeast and Southwest all from Oklahoma, the middle coast of the USA.
Here are some of the photographs I have taken on those journeys.
Piranha Beef Jerky in NebraskaThe Old Church in The Badlands, South DakotaThe Vermeer Discovery, Plimoth Plantation, MassachusettsDunes – Cape Cod, MassachusettsOn The Other Side – Grand Canyon, ArizonaSunset among Friends – Del Mar, CaliforniaThe Stressed Mother, DisneyWorld, Orlando, FloridaSelf-Portrait while Tired, DisneyWorld, Orlando, FloridaThe Hot Cheerleader, Baylor University, Waco, TexasThe Grandson, Rural Oklahoma
On the way home from my coaching certification class in North Carolina I came across this woman sitting across from me at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. I complimented her on her boots and she thanked me then said “It wasn’t easy at the security line, but they’re worth it”.
I then imagined that moment when she realized she was going to have to take them off for the scanner and having to do so while standing up and moving down the line at the same time. That was a task I am sure!
Day #3 of my stay in North Carolina. Travel napkin is from the catered lunch we had at Fleet Feet.
We have been discussing how best to coach runners and one of the best quotes is this one. We lead from behind, not pulling them to something they can resist but pushing and encouraging them in the direction they already want to go. We don’t push in a controlling way, but in a collaborative way, with their assent.
I am currently in North Carolina for a run coaching
certification class. Time to do some travel napkins. I picked this
napkin up at Dickey’s BBQ, even though I didn’t eat there. I brought a
sandwich from home. It was much better.
This woman was deeply engrossed in a movie on her
laptop. I saw her trying REALLY hard to open her Aquafina but just
couldn’t do it. She tried her fingernail on it twice, and still it
wouldn’t budge. I went over to her and opened it (not without
difficulty myself). Then I asked her if I could draw her. The woman
next to me thought I was one of those arty people she said. The woman
I drew promised she would come to the blog online and see the drawing.
Let’s hope she does.
I like this quote – it’s about art, it’s funny and it rhymes – what more can I ask?
Creativity is so much about freedom. Letting the dot in your head take it’s walk where it wants to go and not stopping it. Are you able to do that? What stop signs do you have? I tried something a bit different today. I drew the line drawing on the napkin but then did the color work in the computer, just for fun and a change.
Are you ignoring Ms. Creativity? She doesn’t like to be ignored. She dresses to get noticed and if you don’t pay attention she will secretly push hunches on you all day until you do. So, PAY ATTENTION, she is trying to tell you something!
Hello to all my Napkin Kin around the world! I have an unfinished quote for you to finish today.
I left out the final word of this quote. I want you to tell me what you think that word is. I don’t mean what you think the correct word is in the original quote. I mean what do YOU think the word should be. No use cheating since I am not interested in the ‘right answer, just your answer.
Put your answer in the comments so others can see and comment.
An online friend of mine, Debbie Hampton of the blog ‘The Best Brain Possible’, posted this quote this morning. I liked it and since I didn’t have any great week-long series in mind thought I would just start with what was right in front of me, just like the quote says!
Do you miss out on happiness because you only want to reap it, never plant it? You never want to find it, just to search for it? You don’t want to trust it, just judge it?
What does not being happy give to you? How does your unhappiness or your longing for (but not finding) happiness feed you? How does it help define you? What do you like about being not happy yet?
Answer those questions and it just might make you happy.
Living in Oklahoma a photographer can either be cursed by the wind or blessed by it. I feel blessed by it. After many outdoor photo sessions I found I had a great collection of images with hair and expressions all over the place. I started to find an emotional aspect to the images that I liked and a series, Emotional Wind, came out of it.
On Wednesday I had a guest post, ‘Writing Lesson #4’, at Rachelle Gardner’s blog. I have been drawing a series of ‘Writing Lessons’ for her readers, who are mostly writers and publishing industry people. I realized that for some reason I forgot to post Writing Lesson #2 to my own blog when I first drew it a few weeks back so here it is.
It’s day #3 of The Great Quotists – Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens if you please.
The words ‘mark twain’ are what the steamboat pilots of the 1800s would call out when the measurement of the water on the river was at least 2 fathoms. It meant that the water was deep enough for the boats to travel safely. Samuel Clemens was a steamboat pilot along the Mississippi River and took those words as his pen name in 1863. It also is the case that an earlier Mississippi steamboat captain, one Captain Sellers, used that as his pen name before Clemens did. Clemens supposedly chose the name in honor of that first writer and as a connection to his roots on the river.
Drawing by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Mark Twain – NOTE: While this quote has long been attributed to Twain, there is some reason to doubt whether he actually said it. Record going back to early in his life attribute the quote to Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar.
