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Kids and Their Phases

I’m convinced that almost every kid goes through pretty much the same phases as their growing up. Here’s just a small sample:

  • Whining
  • Throwing fits
  • Expecting something to be bought for them every time you visit a store
  • Not sharing
  • Hitting
  • Biting
  • Sneaking things that they know they should ask for
  • Not picking up after themselves
  • Eating constantly

You get the idea. I made a point to only mention the bad ones. There are a tons more, some of them positive. For the bad ones, parents asks themselves “what did I do to make my kid do that?” or “what did I do wrong?”

Most people don’t encourage their children to whine when they’re younger. However, since I’m convinced that almost every kid goes through the same stages, I’m also convinced that how long they stay in each one and whether they’ll reach other phases is based on how we react to them.

Will your kids whine when they don’t get a car at age 16? I don’t know, did you buy them whatever they wanted when you went to the store when they were younger?

Will your kids experiment with drugs and alcohol, or go behind your back without telling you? How much did you let them get away with when they were younger without noticing?

We know how we want our kids to turn out when they get older. The question is whether we’re using these “opportunities” to shape them into becoming the people we want them to be.

I know personally, I probably fail when the opportunity presents itself to shape them more often than I succeed, but at least I’m trying and I realize what’s at stake.

Photo by libertygrace0

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A World of Entrepreneurs

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if the world was filled with free thinking, independent entrepreneurs.

When you think about it, many people work for someone else. What if they all went out and started their own thing? Would it be a world of chaos or a world of great innovation?

Many of the items you use every day are put together in a factory – by people. If they weren’t there, would you be able to get the products you use every day?

It’s quite possible that the clothes you wear would be sewn together by someone you know. Most of the items you buy would likely be local. The car you drive probably wouldn’t have a nameplate that you could find on another car 1000 miles away.

So, if everyone was a independent entrepreneur would the world crawl to a complete stop? Probably not because entrepreneurs have a way of innovating to find solutions to the world’s problems.

I know that being an independent entrepreneur isn’t for everyone. Some people want the illusion of security that a job provides. (I say illusion because whether you have a job and create an income is up to the people you work for.)

However, the world would certainly be a different place if more people adopted an entrepreneurial mindset. Creative solutions to complex problems would abound. On top of that, people could use the resources of their employer to pursue these solutions.

I know for me, I’m thankful for my opportunity as an employee. It’s given me experience that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to gain if I had jumped right into being an entrepreneur. It’s also given me ideas for things I can create to improve other people’s lives.

Someday, when I’m ready to transition to full time, independent entrepreneurship, I’ll still be grateful for those who are working hard in any position that brings me the conveniences I’ve come to enjoy everyday.

 

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Why do we let what other people think bother us?

Recently I posted something on Craigslist that ended up being flagged and deleted by a user after being out there over a month. When I posted in the Craigslist forums to figure out what I had done wrong, the responses I got were note what I expected.

Out of all the responses I got in the forums, many of them had a negative tone towards my original posting. (For what it’s worth, it wasn’t an item for sale.)

While the base of what many of the people in the forum said may have been correct, the way they worded their responses was rude and discolored the heart of what they were saying. It was almost like they were waiting for the next fish to jump in the piranha tank.

The worse part about it is that it was making me feel like I was the bad person. Why is that? Why am I letting people I don’t even know make me feel like I’m a bad person or did something wrong? Why is the rudeness of others causing me to feel like less of a person and like what I was trying to do was wrong?

It seems like we can be moving along on our journey and things are going well, but we allow others to knock us off the path of success (even if we don’t know them personally). We could have 10 people say something positive to us, but it only takes 1 to tear us back down.

We can harden our hearts so that others cannot penetrate it and cause us pain, while possibly blocking the good things that happen, or we can soften our hearts and allow everything in, the good and the bad.

What do you do? How do you handle negative experiences when they come up?