NezSez

With apologies to Jackie DeShannon and Burt Bacharach

What the world needs more of are hugs, big hugs
For the smallest tots to the largest of lugs
What the world needs more of are hugs, big hugs,
For friends and “enemies”, and even your pugs.

First off, they’re free and they’re effortless
And they’re warm, and they’re comforting, too
They show compassion, forgiveness and friendliness
And openness, it’s love through and through

What the world needs more of are hugs, huge hugs
It’s the social thing that we often don’t do
What the world needs more of are hugs, sweet hugs,
For everyone from here to Timbuktu

Please don’t let your egos get in the way
As we work to-gether face to face
On the issues that affect all our days
After all, we’re all part of the human race

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
Expressed so simply as the act of hugs
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some but for everyone.

No, not just for some, oh, but just for everyone

I’ve always liked the original lyrics, but it’s pretty abstract. Hugs are more tangible.

Have you hugged someone lately?

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A few months ago I wrote about the Simple Pleasures in my life. Here’s a follow up post with 5 more:

1. Sleeping in late - this is especially high on my list, as being self-employed and with two kids, my days are often long, and I work on weekends, too. So the occasional morning of sleeping in is really welcomed. After a couple of intense days, there’s nothing like stretching out early in the morning, look lovingly at one’s partner still in deep slumber, and deciding to catch a few more winks. Next thing you know, it’s 10:30 AM.
2. An afternoon nap - almost a corollary to #1: I’m often up late working, or I have to wake up early to get in yet more work. Sometimes, before I pick up the kids, or perhaps during the time they do their after school homework, I sneak in a nap. Oh, so delicious! The bedroom faces towards the west, so we usually get the warm sunshine streaming in, and a short 15-20 minute nap really does wonders.
3. Beach revisited - we’re having terrific weather, and yesterday we took the kids out to the beach as a reward for having a great week at school. Being there reminded me of my earlier post, and now I could expand on it. Lying down on the warm sand, with the light ocean breezes sweeping over you is quite nice. Also nice, ironically, is rolling up your pants and getting into the freezing cold water. We were playing “tag” with the ocean, and got totally caught up in it — not to also mention the older kid got totally soaked from falling into the water!
4. Riding a bike - I’m not a runner or jogger because my knees complain afterwards, and to me it seems like it’s a lot of work to not get very far very fast. However, riding a bike is different. It can be more leisurely when you want, but also an intense work-out when you want. Plus, you cover more ground. The clickety-click of the gear system, scenery rolling by (Golden Gate Park, especially), all makes for an experience to relax the mind.
5. Listening to the kids - Their mom and I often enjoy listening to their conversations, which are often humorous and “cute” because kids say the funniest things (without meaning to be funny, usually). When that happens we just look at each other and smile — much more preferable to scolding them for something bad that they did.

Have a great weekend!

When I spoke of the 7 things I’m teaching my kids, one was keeping a positive attitude.

I thought I’d expand on that a bit.

1. All things equal, positive attitude wins out - if you had to choose between two job candidates, both with the same credentials, same skillset, and such, but one has the cheery, genuine I-want-to-know-you kind of smile, whom would you select?
2. All things UNequal, positive attitude wins out - or how about if one candidate is quite a bit more qualified than the other candidate, but the other is more personable, and you can tell she would work well within the team, whom would you choose? Along those lines, I tell my son that we may not be the tallest, fastest, strongest, best-looking, smartest, wittiest person — although we can certainly strive towards excellence — but how far we can get in life can depend a lot on a positive attitude.
3. Positive Attitudes Helps You Overcome Setbacks - one of the most upsetting things the older brother does is to have fits over minor setbacks, such as forgetting to write a word in an alphabetizing exercise and needing to start over. I tell him with a bad attitude that puts you in a sulky mood, unwilling to go further, how will the work get done.0
4. Positive Attitude invites compassion - I tell my son that if he has a good attitude, when he is stuck at something, I am more than happy to help, even if it’s an “easy” question (up to a point). However, I tell him, a bad attitude from him puts me in a bad mood also, and then I’m just not that open to helping.
5. Positive Attitude is Charisma - I touched on this in my D&D post, but we’ve heard the saying, “It’s not what you know, but who you know”, really refers to our charisma. Of course, we need to know something, have some skill or expertise, but charisma is what gains another person’s trust — meaning a customer or client, or employment, or cutting through some red tape, etc. Having a positive attitude is really an important component to having a strong charisma.

It’s not easy raising two rambunctious little boys, and I must admit, I sometimes lose patience with them — that’s when I take my own time-out and go read in my bedroom while their mom takes over.

But I’m hoping that constant drilling and reminders now will help them tremendously when they’re older.

Jonathan Field’s recent post, Is Your High Powered Job Setting Your Kids Up To Fail, got me thinking about my own kids. He points out studies and experiments that show kids whose parents were more “present” in their lives during their formative years did better in school, and stayed out of trouble.

This post expands on my earlier post about the 7 Principles I’m Teaching My Kids.

Troubled Kids

When I hear about troubled kids, I think of any recent number of murders (or massacres) committed by a young males, and the inevitable follow up report that the perpetrators’ parents usually “had no idea”.

They had no idea.

Why is that?

Parents Must Be Responsible Parents

It’s obvious to me that what was missing was open communication between the parents and the child. A parent needs to know what’s going on in their kids’ lives out of the home. When you think about it, a young child spends approximately two-thirds of their lives at home eating, playing, doing homework, etc., and sleeping, and the remaining third at school. So, during their formative years, two-thirds of their lives are spent exposed to anything and everything they see and hear in school, on the TV, in the classroom, on the playground and on the internet under their parents’ care.

So obviously, the most influential person your people kids can (or should) ever see, talk to, and listen is you, the parent.

Open Communication is Key

This communication has to start at a very young age, and continue throughout the teen years — since I guess if you’d made it that far, communications should remain optimum during the child’s adult years.

I want that with my kids.

So what am I doing about it?

I certainly do not have a “high powered job”, but I do run my own business, and can easily (and often do) spend upwards of 70 hours per week on it.

I realize that low-income households may have (a) parent(s) who work all day, just to make ends meet. Even high-income households will have parents work all day as well, leaving their kids under the care of nannies. Both situations often means the parents are unavailable.

Attend their School Activities

For me, luckily, one of the perks I that I DO have is the ability to take a little time off to attend my children’s school activities: Halloween Costume Parades, music concerts, field trips, school plays and the like.

To see their smiles and their waving when they see me in the audience really brings a warm feeling to my heart.

I’m certain that just my presence boosts their self-esteem, validates their importance to me, and at the dinner table that particular night, the child will proudly describe what transpired. I also bring along my little point and shoot camera to take few shots or a short video. And after the dinner, we sit in front of the computer to relive their memories.

The kid is happy for the rest of the evening. And beyond.

This simple activity will form the basis for the child’s future nostalgia.

Discipline, Discussion and Decisions

I’ve also found that dinner time is a great time to go over important lessons — and the kids’ various teachers have mentioned that “what’s practiced at home is what’s practiced at school”, and of course, in life.

• Paying Attention - during dinner, the TV is OFF. I know it’s so tempting to want to be entertained while eating, and for a few years we did that since we were eating with relatives who did the cooking. But recently, we’ve started cooking for ourselves in order to eat earlier, and now that the TV off, the difference is so much more noticeable. We can talk about various topics without the kids eyes wandering off. The kids actually look at their food, and at whomever is talking.
• Discussion - the quiet also allows us to bring up topics that may have been brought up in the car ride home. Oh, a “friend” snitched about a secret you told him? How does that make you feel? Is that person trustworthy? Conversations like that allows us to broach on more abstract topics that we feel are crucial to their emotional growth.
• Decisions - the last thing that I want to mention is we can use the dinner time to make announcements, such as what we’re going to do on the weekend, or how much more attention should the kids pay to their schoolwork, etc.

I know my kids are still young yet (5th and 1st graders), but both their mom and I feel that it is SOOOO important, especially in our oh-so-complicated society, that we make sure we connect with our children at an early age. We want them to feel comfortable and that it’s safe to talk to us.

Hopefully, they’ll continue down a fruitful path, with a nudge or two from us from time to time.

It Starts at Home

When I hear about crimes — white collar, blue collar, whatever-color-collar — this first thing that comes to mind is how were these perpetrators raised? How were they as kids? What was life like at home then?

Certainly, they may have made mistakes as an adult/young adult that really set them on a wrong path — failure to foresee consequences of an action (see my post on alternate time-lines).

However, I bet a majority had detrimental habits that were instilled during childhood.

In fact, sometimes we do get those back-stories, and often we hear that the parents had no clue that their children were troubled.

To me, that’s shocking.

I hope I have SOME clue to how my kids emotional growth is developing.

A Disconnect Between Parents and Children

I know times are so much different than say the stereotypical nuclear family of the 1950’s. Today, because often both parents work and the media (cable/satellite TV, internet) and technology (computer, cellphones) are so pervasive, it is so easy to have a disconnect between parents and their kids. Parents are too tired when they come home, and kids are too busy in their little own world of video games, mySpace, etc. Interactions between them boil down to simple yes-no questions and answers.

One the the things I think is important is to talk to the kids and understand how they’re growing, especially emotionally and intellectually.

I try to find out as much as possible without being too nosy, and use regular utilize a topic to explain a appropriate principle. Thus far, these are the ones that have come up fairly often:

7 Principles I’m Trying to Instill in My Kids

1. Respectful Communication - Kids have motormouths that run a mile a minute, and when they talk, the speech is frequently filled with um’s and an’then’s. When that happens I always ask them to slow down. I also require them to stop talking when their mother or I am talking to them — sometimes I will ask them, “What did I just say?” to see if they were listening. I explain that they should wait to talk until they have understood what was told to them, and I want them to look me in the eye when they talk, not stare off somewhere.
2. Attitude is Everything - I will get more upset over a bad, whiny attitude than I will over something “bad” that they did.
3. Saying “I’m Sorry” - I do not want to hear excuses for everything. If you did something wrong, take responsibility for it. Know that everyone makes mistakes, and if you made a one, apologize, fix the problem if needed, and move on.
4. Keeping Promises - The reason to keep promises now is to become trustworthy. A few years from now, you’ll want to do things like go out on your own, stay out late, learn to drive, etc. If you’re not trustworthy by then, I will not let you do those things.
5. Anything worthwhile comes from hard work and effort - All the things that you want right now (toys, video games) require money. Money requires hard work. Right now, the older one is earning “stars” each week, a minimum of five, to get a Nintendo DS if he earns five or more stars for six straight weeks.
6. Learn to See the Bigger Picture - We use examples to see if the kids will see the bigger picture, in order for them to learn the concept of long-term gains. For instance, we normally ask that they read 60 minutes, and then they get to play video games for 60 minutes. Sometimes we’ll offer them 30 extra minutes of playing time if they read for just 15 minutes more.
7. What the Opposite of Love Is - As a kid what the antonym of love is, and he’ll probably say hate. However, I explain that the opposite of love is selfishness, thinking and caring only about yourself, not being sensitive to other people’s feelings, not sharing toys, not saying hi or thank you. Basically, you can squeeze a lot of negative qualities into that definition, in order to show how good love is. That way, we avoid the abstract concept of hate and demonstrate what love is.

I don’t know how successful my strategy will be, but I’m hoping some of these will eventually rub off on them and serve them well throughout their lives.

At the least, down the road, I want to be able to look back and be able to say, I was involved in my children’s upbringing, that I did my best, and I did have SOME clue to what they were doing.

If you have kids, or are around kids a lot, let me know what other principles I may have missed.

Or, if the kids are all grown up, how did they turn out?

photo by undronotto

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated with Legos.

Just think about it.

Two little Lego bricks (like the 4×4 squares in the photo above), when pushed together (the bottom of one to the top of the other) will stick together. Yet can be pulled apart. Yet can be stuck together. Again. And again.

Amazing.

What I love about Legos:

• They’re colorful and tactile - they appeal to the senses, as most toys do.
• They’re versatile - Once you’re done building the “prescribed” model, you’re free to tear it apart and build something else, and their design allows a multitude of designs.
• It teaches fine motor skills to young kids - I watched my younger boy struggle with it when he was 4-5. Now at age 6, he has no trouble building sets labeled for 8-12 year olds. (Ironically, they have larger “Mega Bloks” for preschool aged kids).
• They spur the imagination - CHiPs was one of my childhood favorites, and I built my own lego motorcycle to imagine my own chase scenes.
• Legos will last - They toy has stood the test of time, and today’s blocks are totally compatible with yesterday’s and tomorrow’s models.
• I know they appeal to boys, but I would say they are certainly girl-friendly - I’d be curious to hear my female readers’ experience with Legos.

Lego was not the first “erector” type toy but its success has spawned a number of copy-cats, including much “slicker”, “cooler” toys.

However, Legos still sits atop of my all-time favorite toys list.

Over at ZenHabits is another useful post, 7 Powerful Steps to Overcoming Resistance and Actually Getting Stuff Done. In it, Leo mainly talks about the book The War of Art by author Steven Pressfield, and discusses how to overcome our natural urge to not do the things we really want to do and rather maintain the status quo.

Of the 7 steps listed, number six jumped out at me:

“Know your motivation. Why are you doing this? Why is this task important? What is it working towards? And how important is that end goal to you? Why is it important? You need to know these things to build up the motivation to overcome Resistance.”

Motivation is Key for Me

Most of us have seen or read crime thrillers, where the detective needed to find the motive (and evidence, and opportunity) that will finger the bad guy.

Well, in real life, we have motivations for everything we do (hopefully not crime). As such, motivations play key part in explaining why there is so much conflict in our societies: different priorities, agendas and the like. On a more personal level, though, understanding my own motivations is a step towards understanding myself, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

Think about it.

A Baby’s Motivation

As a little baby my motivation was to survive. I needed my:

• food
• water
• shelter
• love

The basic needs.

A Child’s Motivation

As I kid, my main motivation was (probably) to have fun, to play.

However, as I mentioned in my post about reading, at some point my motivation became the need to satisfy a thirst for reading fun books, which I guess can still be viewed as to have fun.

A Young Adult’s Motivation

College for me was quite a long, circuitous path, because I did not know what I wanted to do for the longest time — I did not have the motivation. There was also the allure of making (okay) money at a dead-end job, money to pay for more expensive past-times (dates, trips, video games, and other grown-up “toys”).

A Parent’s Motivation

Now, I have a business I love, and my main motivation to do well?

To provide for my family. I know that when the time comes for me to leave this existence, I want to be able to answer in the positive to this question: “Did I do my best for my family?”

Motivations “Grow Up”

It’s interesting how my motivation for the longest time was: for the Self. It began as the basic needs, but I now realize that the rest of my “needs” over the years and the resulting actions (why we need to buy certain things, say certain things, perform certain actions) all derived from motivations that I acquired through learning from my parents, my peers, and the media. From time to time, I was able to re-evaluate my motivations and modify them.

Throughout a lot of my life, my main motivation remained geared toward the self. And although I didn’t think of it as much, it was a form of selfishness, a self-love.

However, once I got into a serious relationship, one that has developed and grown over the years, that main motivation has changed. I now do what I do to provide for my family, to teach the young ones and instill in them values that hopefully will remain and help them grown into good, productive young men.

I find myself teaching, and MOTIVATING them.

Have you thought about why you do the things you do lately?

If you liked this post, you may like:

• Sheer Force of Will

I’ve been slowly exploring the excellent blog, Zen Habits — one of the inspirations for this blog — and author Leo Bautista has a wonderful post entitled Best All-Time Children’s Books. It’s an extensive list, and I agree with his choices, at least for the ones I happened to have read.

I thought I’d write my own little post on books that I recall first borrowing from the library:

• Henry Huggins - by Beverly Cleary. I distinctly remember reading this book in 4th grade, when I first got my very own library card. It was great fun to imagine the seemingly ordinary life of young Henry Huggins, where nothing happens until the day he comes home with a stray dog. The various situations he gets in are fun, yet filled with the kind of lessons every child should learn. I believe these were the first books where I became fully immersed in the world of the characters, feeling what they were feeling, and experiencing their challenges and how they overcame them. I read many of the other books in the series (such as the Mouse and the Motorcyle, and really became aware of how to find books by author. Zen Habits recommends the Ramona series, which I have not read, but it seems anything by Cleary is good. I noticed that many of Cleary’s books have been recently reprinted with new illustrations. I’m partial to the original, but still, I would highly recommend any of her books.
• The Mad Scientists’ Club - by Bertrand R. Brinley. I was enthralled with books that really emphasized independence from adults. It was a chance to escape into a different world, into a kid’s world, and to see things from their perspective. Since I WAS a kid at the time, it was easy, and appealing. And in this book and others in the series, I got to do that. It really helps that the title was really enticing: mad scientists as in bwah-ha-ha-ha, and a exclusive club — how much more of an invitation does a kid need? In this series, a band of kids often uses science as a way to pass the time but sometimes achieving something more. Whether it’s pranks or something heroic like rescuing, the series is truly entertaining. If you’re really interested in learning more, there are a couple of websites worth checking out:
  • www.MadScientistsClub.com - looks like the official website by the author’s son, Sheridan Brinley
  • www.PurpleHousePress.com - a site dedicated to bringing back great children’s books from years past
• Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint - by Jay Williams and Raymond Abrashkin. Here was another series of books that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on: Danny Dunn. With young Danny always being headstrong — his strongest trait — and always rushing into things, his friends Joe and (later in the series) Irene who help him, and Professor Bullfinch the absent-minded scientist who’s usually the raison d’etre for the invention or “MacGuffin” in each story, each book presented a fun adventure replete with scientific premises and what-not. It was really, really hard for me to put any of those books down.
  

It’s a short list for now, but I would say these stories are great for ages 9 through 13 or so. I think the key feature for all of them was how engaging the stories were, how each world drew me in. There are a lot of great books today, but of course these were the ones I actually read as a child.

I actually remember getting my own library card in the 4th grade, and always wanting to visit my local branch every week or so — one might be hard pressed to find kids like that in today’s world of high-speed internet and Nintendo and Playstations.

I happened to drop by my old neighborhood recently and popped into the library on a whim, and everything is so different now: computer terminals everywhere, and it’s quite a bit more noisy than in the ol’ days.

Anyway, I feel these books really helped shaped and developed my appreciation for fun, involving stories, and set the stage for my my burgeoning childhoold curiosity of science.

If you have some favorite childhood books, I’d love to hear about them.

I hope to continue writing about them as periodic topics in the future.

Over the holidays, I had the pleasure of putting on a puppet show with the kids.

It was my honey’s idea was to engage the kids in something different than their everyday Bionicles or videogames. They were first resistant to the idea, and during rehearsals everyone got frustrated, but in the end everyone agreed it worked out well.

The Steps to Putting on a Home Puppet Show

First of all, it’s hard work. We had to:

• Build a puppet stage - my honey did most of it, constructing a serviceable puppet stage out of cardboard that she had saved.
• Write a script - again, here my lovely partner came up with the script. She said it was actually the hardest part, to come up with something that was easy for the kids to say or read, and that also had a good lesson for them to take away.
• Rehearse -Rehearsing got a bit frustrating at times, but the idea was to instill in the kids that everything worthwhile takes effort and practice. The more you practice, the better you get.
• Let me take over - The original idea was for the kids to do the whole show: read the script and act with the hand puppet. However, it turned out that was a lot harder for them to read and emote with their spoken voices AND try to remember they’re supposed to manipulate the puppet as well. The younger brother actually kept turning his hand toward himself, meaning that Winnie-the-Pooh always had his head turned away from the audience. In the end, I stepped in to do the puppetry. Luckily, I was raised on the Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Mr. Rogers and so things worked out. It was a lot of fun, actually.

The Effects of a Puppet Show

Afterwards, when I reflect on what we did, it’s clear that kids can learn a lot from puppet shows because (and why Sesame Street has been around so long):

• It’s entertaining - so it’s easy to broach different ideas and not seem like you’re trying to preach. It’s no wonder shows like Sesame Street and such are popular.
• It’s memorable - in this case, because the kids were directly involved in the production, I think it will be a fondly remembered experience in years to come. We shall see. At least they love watching the video of the show.
• It teaches them timing - Well, at least they were introduced to the idea — they can still use a lot of practice, but now they have at least one beginning lesson on how to emote and act.
• It provides a sense of accomplishment - Again, because they were involved, it was obvious the experience provided a big boost to their self-esteems. They were beaming during the applause.

It was hard work, but a lot of fun, and I’m glad for the experience, both for myself and for the kids.

We’ll have to see if we’ll do more in the future.

Okay, we all know that smoking is an unhealthy habit. We know that smoking usually leads to health problems and a probably an early death (unless your first name is George and your last name is Burns).

We also know that it’s often glamorized in film and other media, and that nicotine is highly addictive, blah, blah, blah.

I’m not here to talk about all that, although I just did.

What I would like to point out is the bigger picture on why one should not smoke:

Smokers are Litterers

Smokers litter like there’s no tomorrow — probably 8 out of 10 smokers will throw their butts on the ground. Ech! Quit smoking and you’ll be beautifying not only your lungs, but the environment you share with fellow humans.

Smoking Profits Others at Your Expense

Smoking is one of the ultimate exploitation of the masses. When you think about it, whoever owns the tobacco fields, manufactures the cigarettes, distributes and sells them also know the ill effects of their products (if they say they don’t, they’re lying). But they don’t care about you, they only care about profit for themselves. Therefore, if you are someone who is totally against big corporate “evil”, then quitting smoking will make you less of a hypocrite (even more so if you’re a doctor).

Smoking is the Ultimate Selfishness

So odds are that smoking will put you into the hospital at some point. For lung cancer or emphysema or heart ailments — whatever — you’ll be in one of those rooms, lying in bed, on a respirator no doubt.

BUT, guess who else will be there, if you’re lucky: your loved ones.

Not only will you be suffering, but they will suffer even more if they truly love you (but maybe they don’t, but that would mean you have other issues). You will see the pain and sorrow in their faces as they look over you.

When you smoke today, it’s a sure investment in a loved one’s future anguish (and that return on investment is a pretty sure thing, better than some Internet stocks, I’d wager).

That, my friend, is the final reason to quit today: Don’t just quit for yourself, quit for your loved ones.

I have never smoked, but have often thought about the people I’ve known who do (or did). I hope that you find these ideas different from all the other information out there on how quitting smoking would only benefit you.

In the end, our own actions often have a ripple effect, and smoking is something that truly affects other people as it does the smoker. As such, it’s something over which you totally have control, that is, if you want to.

If you need help quitting, try these sites:

• CDC site
• WhyQuit

If you wish, please comment, and if you like to keep reading about ideas to live a more positive life, subscribe to my RSS feed.