by Marty Coleman | Jan 10, 2010 | Samuel Johnson |
But this is the wrong way to do it. If you are a wife or a boss, a girlfriend or a co-worker, reminding someone is an act of kindness, not one of anger.
I know with me I am not intentionally forgetting something when I can’t remember. I am not testing someone, I am not out to annoy someone. I am simply not remembering.
What I need, and I suspect most men need, is to be reminded in a simple, non-judgmental and neutral way, what it is I might be forgetting. That might be an appointment, or a thank you card I am supposed to write, or a home improvement project I let slide.
Nobody needs to be harangued and nagged about stuff. They need a partner or partners to help them achieve what the need and want to achieve (or to just find the car keys).
Is this only true about men? No, of course not. It really doesn’t matter the gender, the attitude of care and help is what matters.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.” – Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English author
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 9, 2010 | Francois de La Rochefoucauld |
A vintage napkin from my daughters’ lunch, circa 2002.
Drawing © Marty Coleman
“There is great ability in knowing how to conceal one’s ability.” – anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 8, 2010 | Lance Armstrong |
We are not talking about chronic pain. We are talking about the pain that is caused by you making an effort at something.
When you were a child you cried when you had pain. Why was that? In part because you had no idea it would ever end. It was forever as far as you were concerned. But over time you realized the pain eventually went away, so the pain that made you cry at age 3 made you just grimace and hold your breath at age 10. You knew it would pass, you know you could outlast it.
Isn’t that true today of most pain we go through? Childbirth is pretty darn painful, but women go through it again and again in many cases. Why? Because they know it will pass and they will have a baby that will dissolve that pain into love.
Athletes go through the pain of training and of the competition because they know the pain will subside eventually and the glory, fun or exhilaration of the competition and the accomplishment will takes its place.
What level of pain are you willing to suffer, and for what goal?
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, an hour, a day or a year, but eventually it will subside & something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” – Lance Armstrong, 1971-not dead yet, American Athlete
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 7, 2010 | Kin Hubbard |
I live in Oklahoma, USA. It has about 30-60 days each summer over 90 degrees F. It has mild winters though, usually around 40 degrees average temp. Not so far this winter. We are in the grip of a cold spell that we haven’t seen in close to 14 years. It isn’t terrible compared to some places, but it is freaking a lot of people out, nonetheless.
So, why do you talk about the weather so much? What does it have that allows that?
It’s that it affects everyone, so everyone can talk about it with each other. Pretty simple. But it is more than that. Talking about the weather is a method of telling others how you feel, what you are thinking, what your emotional temperature is.
What is your emotional temperature?
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while 9 out of 10 people couldn’t start a conversation.” – Kin Hubbard, 1868-1930, American Author and Humorist
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 6, 2010 | George Bernard Shaw |
Let’s get right to it. Examples of hypocrisy in action on the part of parents that do no favors to their children in the long run.
Telling your child to wait until marriage to have sex but you are having sex with your BF or GF while you are dating.
Telling your child that they shouldn’t drink but you drink like a sailor on leave.
Appearing to always be cheery and perky while hiding blue moments from everyone.
Telling your child to live by the golden rule but you gossip and malign others incessantly.
Telling your child it’s inner beauty that counts but you obsess over your looks.
Telling your child that money isn’t the most important thing in life, but acting as if it is, judging people on their perceived wealth.
So, what is the alternative, to show your kid what a jerk you are? No, the alternative is to work to integrate who you are….who you REALLY are, with what you teach your child. You don’t have to expose every flaw, you simply have to be the same person with the same beliefs in your whole life, not one life for you as an adult alone and another for you in front of your kids.
You may ask, why not be two different people? My kids don’t need to see that side of me. The point is, they WILL see that side of you, no matter what. They may not see it at age 5, but they will by 15. They will see your hypocrisy and it will teach them the lesson you don’t want to teach them, that integrity isn’t real and from within, it is just a charade you play to look acceptable on the outside. That is the lesson a child of hypocrisy learns. Then guess who they teach that lesson to?
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“The best brought-up children are those who have seen their parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the parents’ first duty.” – George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish Playwright
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 5, 2010 | Oscar Wilde |
This is dedicated to some knuckleheads I had the honor of conversing with first thing this morning. They happened to be of the conspiratorial type, sure that the US is in the grips of a secret communist cabal.
But the danger isn’t really about those people, the danger is with people of any stripes, left, right, up down, Christian, Muslim, atheist, etc. who aren’t paying attention to evidence, proof and history.
They instead are purposely bending the little bits they do know (not much) to match their anger, their prejudices and their self-serving agendas.
Whether it be UFO true believers, anti-Obama birthers, anti-Bush anarchists or any number of groups, the test is whether they are truly interested in finding truth, figuring out solutions, including compromises, or if they are interested in just building on their wobbly prejudices with more true believers.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“The worst vice of a fanatic is their sincerity.” – Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish author and playwright
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 4, 2010 | Horace |
Fighting someone else’s fire is good, but it is always important to remember that self-preservation is not a sin.
It does you no good to ignore your own home (relationship, family, job, etc.) while trying to save someone else’s. Doing both is the trapeze act we all have as part of a community of caring people. But, if the choice must be made, I think it is better to take the chance of damage to our own property than to not care for others in danger.
My frozen winter weather reporter, inspired by SP, is a bow to all our intrepid journalists who go out on frozen days like this to tell us stories we need to hear. Thank you!
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Your own property is concerned when your neighbor’s house is on fire.” – Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) , 65 BCE – 8 BCE, Roman Poet
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 3, 2010 | Henry Moore, New Years Resolutions |
This is how you stick to New Years resolutions, breaking them down into new day resolutions.
Seriously think about it. What is your goal? Is it something amorphous like ‘lose weight’ or ‘get organized’ or is it something very specific like ‘calling my mother every Saturday’ or ‘cleaning out my attic’.
Specific is better of course, but either way, you still need to break it down into parts. You can’t make every Saturday call on one Saturday, you are very unlikely to clean out and organize an attic in one day.
What part of your goal can you plan and do today? This week? Next Saturday? Break it down and guess what, it will appear more manageable and more interesting to tackle.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years'” – Henry Moore, 1898-1986, English Sculptor
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 1, 2010 | Joey Adams, New Years Resolutions |
First, a caveat: If you are the type that actually makes resolutions AND sticks to them, then my 2010 blessing is this instead: ‘May your resolutions beat the crap out of your troubles all year long’. But if you are like most of us then this napkin blessing is for you.
Everyone’s life has them. Some are of our own making (more than we would like to admit). Some are due to who we are in relationship with. Some are random accidents and twists of fate. Some are biology and chemistry. Some of you would say it is all God. Some of you will say it isn’t. No matter though, you still must deal with your troubles.
Be it resolved for all of us that we will face them head on in 2010.
- We won’t make excuses
- we won’t hide our head in the sand
- we won’t enable others to continue in their troubles
- We will use our troubles to increase our love. We will use them to increase our understanding, our empathy, our giving, our tenderness.
- We will not use our troubles to build our resentments. We won’t use them to increase our anger, our prejudices, our hatreds, our meanness.
Keep these as your resolutions and they will beat the crap out of any troubles that come your way now and forever.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman“May all your troubles last only as long as your New Year’s resolutions.” – Joey Adams, 1911-1999, American Comedian
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 30, 2009 | John Ray |
Here is an illustration of how this works (at least for a male).
When I was in college I visited a friend in Boston. I went to a party at his house. While there I went searching for the bathroom upstairs. The hall was very dark and dull, the window showed a dark sky with snow falling. A door was slightly cracked open with a bit of light peeking through. There was no one in the hall but I asked out loud where the bathroom was anyway.
The cracked door swung open bringing a bright light followed by an impossibly long sweep of jet black hair falling into the hall. A beautiful female face with a big smile was attached to the hair. She swung her head my way, pointed down the hall and said ‘thataway’.
Everything about that moment has stayed in my mind for three decades. But the center of that memory is the smile. That was the sword that stopped me in my tracks that night.
I made sure I met the person with the beautiful face, radiant smile and the long black hair. We became friends and still are to this day, though we often lose track of each other for years. She turned out to not be a big smiler, nor very much of a happy person at all. But the sword she wielded on that day still shines in my mind.
That is how it worked on me that day and, I suspect, on many others as well.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Beauty is power and a smile is its sword.” – John Ray, 1627-1705, English naturalist
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