New Year 2013 (In March)

It's been awhile since I posted.  Just the ups and downs of life.  But I am back :)

This post was started back in January and it was meant as kind of a New Year's Resolution.  Funny how three months can give you a different view.  So looking back, I had two resolutions.  One I think I have lived out better more than the other.  So below is what I wrote back in January:

Two things I plan to focus on this year.  Number 1:  to remember FIRST the things that are not measurable by any test. 

Things like:

1. initiative
2. humor
3. compassion
4. persistence
5. creativity
6. contentness
7. selflessness
8. living in the moment
   
And Number 2:  I want to focus on knowing that I can cope and survive whatever comes. 

I was reading a research book about optimists by an English author.  She cited true events that occurred in England.  A millionaire in England who committed suicide and an unemployed immigrant who saved someone from the freezing Thames River.  Asked why, the unemployed hero said, "because life is always worth living."

So now in hindsight with three months behind me, the first resolution about remembering the importance of certain things, I think I do a little bit better, though not because of any disciplined mental training.  It just happened little by little that I now see more (or is it maybe that I can appreciate more?) all the little things that the boys do.  They will share their snack with you no matter who you are or what they have.  S's insistence that he will grow up to be a race car driver and rifleman is backed up with daily cowboy pistol practice while ducking behind counters and imaginary races with his Hot Wheels cars.  N's creativitity and neatness shows in all the little cartoons that he draws, complete with speech bubbles.  They still have a their difficulties, but I think the only thing that changed is me.  Now I can see their initiative and humor and creativity and selflessness so much more clearly than when I was tormented by all their "deficiencies" and "behaviors." 

And as for the second resolution, I'm still working on it.  This is the one that I will definitely need disciplined mental training.