Which is the larger amount in your case, the good or the bad?
Quote by Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American Inventor, Printer, Satirist, Businessman, Scientist, Publisher, Writer, Revolutionary, Politician, Statesman and community organizer.
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Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you cannot fulfill your habit for an extended period of time? Maybe you went backpacking and couldn’t smoke during the trek. Maybe the power went out and you couldn’t watch TV. Maybe you became unemployed and could no longer shop like you used to.
Sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is an accident of circumstances. Without you planning it you are forced to do without. What is your reaction when this happens? It might make you fidget and pace. It might make you easily irritated. But after a while that habit has less of a hold on you than you realized. You can take that hike without a cigarette. You can live without new shoes every week. You can survive without your favorite reality TV show.
So be open to trying something new, be open to adventure, not for it’s own sake, but for what it forces you to do without. And maybe in the process you will discover that you don’t need that habit after all.
Quote by Leo Aikman, 1908-1978, American journalist and speaker
Have you ever looked at your habits and thought about when they developed? A good many of them probably started when you were quite young. Why did they develop? One possibility is that they developed to help you cope with something in your life.
Maybe it was your parents’ alcoholism, as in my case. Maybe it was domestic abuse, or being left alone a lot. Perhaps it was an over-controlling or hypercritical parent. As a result you might have made a habit of escape, or defensiveness, or pretending. And maybe those habits served you well, maybe they really did help you cope.
But what about now? Do you still need that habit to cope? Do you still have that parent around you? Are you still bullied at school or under pressure from someone? Or is it now just a habit without a purpose?
If that is the case, maybe you don’t need it any more.
What are the habits you would like to do away with?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832, German writer
Napkin Dad trivia – I mentioned above about my parents’ alcoholism. My mother spent 3 months at an alcoholic rehab hospital in 1973. She was sober from then on until her death in 1988. My father also quit drinking around the same time (though he sometimes would fall back into it a bit, but never with the same fervor) and is still sober at age 93. I quite drinking in 1993.
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I used to develop, design and write a large website for a medical college. I had to spend a lot of time with doctors who wanted to put up information about their department, research, etc. My main effort was always in first convincing them that their audience on the website was not primarily an academic audience but a general information audience. Then, after they edited down their material based on my instructions, I took that same material and winnowed it down much further with my own edits.
It had to fit the audience expectations, and the expectations for the web reader was to be able to get quick, easily seen and understood information. We always gave them access to more detailed, scholarly information if they wanted it, but the vast majority didn’t.
Who is your audience? It’s important to consider whether writing a query letter to an agent, a thank you note, a novel or a speech. Write for them and leave out the parts they will want to skip.
This drawing initially appeared yesterday at Rachelle Gardner’s blog. She is a literary agent and we are collaborating on a series about writing.
Speakers have authority. People tend to believe anyone up on a pedestal, altar, dias, podium or stage. Anyone with a microphone, basically. My keynote speech last week was on ‘Change’. I started the presentation with a series of slides explaining my eminent qualifications as an expert in change. They included a photo of when I was younger and when I was older. Photos of when I had hair, and now that I don’t. Photos of me before I had kids, and now that I do.
It was meant to be humorous and it was followed by the statement that if those things made me an expert, then all of my audience were also experts in change. I then proceeded to give some examples from my personal experiences of change and what I learned from them.
The truth is, the reason I was qualified to talk about change isn’t because I have a degree in it. And it’s not even because I have lived it. It’s because I have thought about it. In the end, the experts are those who study. Those who do the research; who examine, investigate, dig, ask questions, evaluate, ponder and ultimately are able to come up with some conclusions.
They aren’t conclusions set in stone, they are conclusions so far in the journey of discovery. That is what we should always remember about listening to authority, i.e. anyone with a microphone and a stage of some sort. They may be persuasive and compelling, but in the end, YOU have to decide whether you believe them. You have to look out in front of you for that cliff because after all, the person talking is looking back at you, not at the path in front.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote author is anonymous
Love the art of writing? Check out my second contribution to Rachelle Gardner’s blog. She is a literary agent who writes on a number of interesting topics. I am doing a napkin series on ‘Writing Lessons’ for her.
It’s Public Speaking week at the NDD!
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I gave a Napkin Dad presentation this past weekend to the Oklahoma 4H Parent Volunteer Conference. It took place at the OSU Alumni center in Stillwater, OK. The topic was ‘Coping with Change Within and Without’.
I spent many hours getting the presentation ready. I first threw in all sorts of napkin drawings and ideas that I felt applied. While I did this my ideas were all over the map. It was disconcerting. I don’t like that feeling of not having the message together, knowing it just doesn’t make sense yet. I was nervous, would I be able to find a cogent message?
At that point I hadn’t really found the major points to hang the presentation on. I was like a gold miner looking all over the mountain, with just a few clues as to where the gold might be. I eventually stumbled upon a set of compelling ideas. That made me worried, could I make the ideas make sense together?
Once I did that, the task became even harder. It was editing and arranging time. What drawings and quotes went with the ideas. Which ones would be visually interesting? Which ones would confuse and distract the audience? Did I need more drawings or less? That made me anxious, would I be able to fit my presentation to the time allotted?
Finally I started practicing the presentation, even though it was only the first half I had together. Giving the speech to myself helped me understand what was working because I found myself completely stopped dead in my tracks saying ‘uh’ many times. It was my clue that I needed to work more. I started to build the second half, arranging and rearranging it. I ended up doing about 4-5 dry runs of the presentation. My last dry run was in my car, an hour before I had to give the presentation, parked in the parking garage. That made me increasingly confident, knowing I had the ideas, organization, message and timing pretty well covered. But I worried, wondering if I would be able to stay on topic, keep the pace and timing going in a dynamic situation.
By the time I was up in front of the crowd I was comfortable. I was feeling that I could do it, and do it well. I think I did. One can never know, some may have thought it was confusing, some too long, some too this or that. but in my mind I gave them my best.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by George Jessel, 1898-1981, American comedic actor
The day has changed but the topic remains the same, namely CHANGE.It’s Change Week at the NDD.
Bessie here likes that some forgetful soul left the gate open for a change. She thinks she will walk to the big city in the distance and get a job, maybe find a boyfriend. She thinks that would be a cool thing to do, considering the way things are. It would be a nice change. She is going to take advantage of the way things are to change the way things are.
For everything to stay just the way it is; no big changes, no small changes, what must happen? Nothing must happen. What are the chances of nothing happening? Not much, I agree. So, you can assume change will happen.
What are you going to do to change the way things are?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Bertolt Brecht, 1898-1956, German playright
This only being #2, I am not finished with Change Week!
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I read a blog post today from a man who is dead. It was written before he died and posted by his family when he passed. He talked about something that you don’t often hear discussed. He said he was making the great transition from human organism to corpse.
My thinking about what it means to be at an end of something changed a bit after reading that. Even when we are finished, what we really are is finished being conscious of ourselves as we once were. We still continue to change into something else. Maybe it’s spiritual, maybe it’s not. But we change no matter what our beliefs are.
But in the context of being alive and conscious I think the quote is true. Even if every part of you has been chopped down, you still need to work to grow again. You might not be the mighty oak anymore. You might not be the mother of young children who are dependent on you. Maybe they have grown and moved away. Then what? Are you going to just sit down and die?
No, you are going to eventually realize and accept a change has taken place and adapt to it. Keep growing, keep moving forward. It’s not only good for you, but it’s good for those watching you, especially your children!
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American Printer, Inventor, Scientist, Signer of the American Declaration of Independence.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapters Ten & Eleven
Epilogue
Epilogue
I am sitting in my studio on a Sunday morning, three years to the day that Melissa came to live with us. Turns out she did stay one week. Then she stayed another. Then a month had passed. I was able to convince the agency that I could be an affective foster parent and soon school started.
There were some adjustments to be made on all sides, but it was less of a struggle than I thought. Maria and Melissa learned about their boundaries from having a few spats. They made up quickly and no damage was done. Daria felt a bit unneeded at first, with Maria no longer barging into her room to tell her something. Daria used to complain about that, but it turns out she missed it. Melissa made a good bond with Daria though and before long Daria found both of them barging in to tell her things. She didn’t pretend to hate that anymore.
Six months later I started adoption proceedings and 6 months after that, it was finalized. My 4 daughters conspired to try to convince me to allow Melissa to change her name to match theirs. They suggested Laria, Staria and Faria. I suggested Blaria, Glaria and Ungaria. They didn’t think my suggestions were very good at all. In the end she stayed Melissa, because we all really liked her just as she was.
In September of that year she got another beautiful envelope in the mail from her brother. It was of a sunrise. In it he told her that he was going to finally be able to move back to Oklahoma. He had been discharged from the army and had found a job in Tulsa, the main city in the area. He was here in time for Christmas.
A nicer guy I had never met; polite, creative, caring and very much in love with his little sister. He also, it turns out, fell in love with someone else. Caria was home for the Christmas holiday and they spent a number of days together. They hit it off wonderfully and started dating. By the time the next summer came they were inseparable.
Now I sit in my studio 3 years later thinking about how the most random of events; the placement of an envelope in the wrong box, the desire of a young girl to learn to paint, the death of a good man at an inconvenient time, all led to the events of the past day.
From where I sit in my studio I can see into the kitchen. There, on the table, are 3 corsages. The flowers are white and red, the colors Caria chose for her wedding.
I can see beyond the kitchen into the yard. There is a bunny in the yard the dogs haven’t seen yet. I see it eating a dandelion. There are birds at the bird feeder fighting for a perch. I smile as I look beyond the yard, watching as puffy clouds make an orange and pink blanket in the sky amidst my favorite thing in all the world, a beautiful sunrise.
The End
The Good Samaritan – The Gospel According to Harry Potter #1
Predicting the Future – The Gospel According to Harry Potter #2
Curiosity – The Gospel According to Harry Potter #3
Life with Dragons – The Gospel According to Harry Potter #4
Dreaming to Live – The Gospel According to Harry Potter #5
