A friend of mine has finally found a relationship that she thinks has long-term potential and yet to hear her talk you would think that she expects the wheels to come off at any time.

Why?

Because that’s what she thinks she deserves.  It’s happened before so she fears it will happen again.

When good things happen, the better response is “I deserve this”.

I’ve earned it.

It changes the wiring in our brain when we initiate positive affirmations instead of negative ones.

What do you think happens to people who say “Something is bound to go wrong”?

It usually does.

But when we say, I deserve my new found good fortune, we pattern our thoughts and as important – our behavior – in a way that produces better outcomes.

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Even though most people know that 99% of the things they constantly worry about will never happen, they continue to pay the toll for fear and worry.

Life is enjoyed when we don’t try to over manage it.

This calls for a new way to look at worry:

• Things that we worry about more often than not turn out to be better than the status quo.
• Very often worry is more about the fear of change than it is what we are specifically worried about.
• For people of faith, putting it in the hands of a higher power is often enough comfort to get them through times of fear and worry.  For others, just giving up control can make a big difference.
• The most effective trigger in dealing with change differently is to consider the high cost you are paying in mental and physical distress.

Concern is forethought.

Worry is fear thought.

Change the way you look at worry and you change your life.

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The best motivation for digging down deep and forgiving another person no matter what the offense is that it primarily benefits us.

We forgive primarily for ourselves – not for the perpetrator of bad deeds.

Forgive doesn’t mean condone.

And it surely doesn’t mean that we have to subject ourselves to further hurt.

People who have been wronged often spend the rest of their lives cloaked in animosity that can turn them into someone they don’t want to be.

Dan Snyder died after riding in a car at excessive speed with his Atlanta Thrasher’s hockey teammate Dany Heatley in 2003.  But Sndyer’s father publicly forgave Heatley, spoke in his defense before the court and allowed Heatley to go on with his career and life even if his son could not.

I’m not sure I could do that – and most certainly it is amazing the Snyder’s could be ready to forgive so soon after losing their son.

When faced with smaller but irritating offenses, I often think of the gift Graham Synder gave himself, his wife and family and young Heatley in the name of forgiveness.

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When we are in relationships that are going well, we accelerate them to the maximum possible speed.

But when these relationships hit a bump in the road how fast we are traveling really matters.

Going 100 miles an hour in a personal relationship is more destructive then going slowly because if you hit that bump slowly you have a much better chance of staying on the road to a good relationship.

But it is a human condition that when things go well, we want more and we want it faster.

How about more – slower?

Enjoy the good times.

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Bosses have a way of fogging our dreams.

When we were hired, goals and dreams matched up, but for some reason all but the exceptional boss hijacked our career narrative.

This can also happen in relationships. We know what we’re looking for but some sequence of events can detour our search for compatible companion and take us far off course.

Even our fitness and health can be adversely upended when we are around people who do not value the benefits of working to be healthy.

Our lives are our own story.

They are too valuable to outsource to anyone else.

We dream.

We aspire.

We know in our hearts the kind of people we want to be with.

Nothing is more empowering than making a daily affirmation to remind yourself to dream on and keep control of the narrative of your life.

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23-year old Rachel Byrk was bullied mercilessly online.

She was born with the name Roger and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis.

Finally, she gave up – jumped from The George Washington Bridge.  Her body was found weeks later but she scheduled a post to run a few hours after she jumped that said, “Guess I am dead. Killed myself. Sorry.”

Please believe that bullying of all kinds is running rampant in.

Bully-shaming is made possible because of the Internet and social media.  It allows a segment of the population to not only have a louder voice but gives them a way to deliver haunting messages directly into the minds of their victims.

This is an extreme case of bullying, but other cases are common in high schools across the nation.  In fact, bullying takes place in offices and it is often done by people with too much power who abuse the rights of others.

The good news is – and there is good news – that adults should cut off access to bullies and to not react to them in any way.  This deprives them of the very thing they crave when bullying others.

React and you encourage more bullying.

For children, help them and reassure them to understand that they are fine the way they are and that others who seek to bully should be dismissed and disregarded on each and every attempt.

In our new world that brings us the many gifts of interactivity and social interaction, we must police ourselves from those who abuse easy access to their victims.

We do it by loving ourselves as many minutes a day as possible.

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When you run a mile, two miles seems better.

When you accomplish all your goals in a day, doing even more somehow seems right.

When you win, you want to keep playing.

You get the idea.

But metrics can also be our enemy.

It’s not how physically fit can you get by reaching certain plateaus; it’s how healthy do you feel.

It’s not how many things can you accomplish in a day, but which ones are giving the most fulfillment.

Not about constantly achieving when all it makes you do is continue to run without savoring any victories.

The best metric to live by in my view is to ask yourself how many days are you happy.

The end effect of everything we do should be to achieve some kind of happiness.

Happiness is not a number.

It’s a feeling and if we track it like we track other things life gets even more rewarding.

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AT&T commissioned a poll of consumers 16-65 who drive at least once per day.

70% of them use their phones while driving.  In other words, if you don’t use your phone to text daily, you are in the minority 30% category.

Texting and driving has been identified as being even more harmful than driving under the influence.

Living in a distracted world can be hazardous to our health and to our relationships with others and ourselves.

The 70% figure probably didn’t surprise you, but these below surprised me.

33% of those in the AT&T survey email while driving.

28% surf the net.

27% do Facebook.

17% snap a selfie or photo (yes, while driving).

14% log into Instagram.

14% Twitter.

12% shoot video while driving.

11% use Snapchat.

And 10% do video chat like FaceTime.

All these things are good on their own.

They are just not as good when they lead to deadly multitasking.

The cure is to use social and digital media as a tool.  To separate not integrate them with other things like taking a walk, dining with others, socializing and yes, driving.

To live in the present, we must try harder to be in the present.

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You have to have wood or something flammable to make a fire.

Kindling to ignite the flames.

Oxygen to feed it and allow it to burn.

And you’re going to have to tend to it constantly to make sure it burns strong and doesn’t burn out.

This also applies to reigniting a relationship.

Often life gets in the way of our interpersonal relationships and we think the flames are extinguished when they really need the ingredients to make them burn.

There are a lot of complicated ways to look at keeping meaningful relationships alive and then there is this.

Feed it.

Nurture it.

Give it room to breath.

Keep a watchful eye on it to make sure it never flames out.

Relationships take work. They don’t stay bright on their own without paying watchful attention to the needs of others and our own needs.

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In colonial days, when a settler’s barn burned to the ground, other settlers from miles away would descend on the land to rebuild it – to make a project of it, and cap it off with a celebration.

Labor was hard to come by back then.

Over the decades being a friend has changed.  We collect friends like flowers on Facebook, Instagram and social media but these friendships are different.  More like associations.

Baby boomers will remember writing and receiving letters in the mail.

Gen Xers may remember that, too, or using email like regular mail composing the content the same way just faster.

Millennials are in constant contact with each other primarily through texting and social media.  New research reveals that they check their phones every 30 minutes – often more.

Friendships take time and time is the one thing almost all of us do not have enough of.  When was the last time you were bored?

Social media friendships are rewarding in their own way.  Instagram pictures bring a magic to real time and help us transcend the miles.

But for any friendship that we deem really special we must be willing to devote the time to nurture and enjoy it in the present.

That may include the connectivity of social media but requires face to face experience without distractions.

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