Early this year, I read from Time magazine an article, saying “For 60 years, Elizabeth II has been a model of propriety and duty. Five things Kate can learn from her.”

Of course, I was curious to know what these five things are, even though I believe Kate can very well just be her unique self, one of a kind, without the need to imitate anyone at all. After I read them, I think the first two are good advices to all people. Here are the 5 things.

(1) Resist the lure of celebrity and cultivate humility.
(2) Stay with your look and be consistent with her style; it shows confidence and reassures the public.
(3) Master your brief.
(4) Embrace the countryside and its pursuits.
(5) Support William without overshadowing him.

This is the third and final part of the training. Here are some quotes from the training.

(1) I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care.
(2) “The customer you lost holds the information you need to succeed,” The Loyalty Effect by Frederick Reichheld.
(3) Service recovery is treating the customer well when something goes wrong.

Openly expressed disappointment can be a gift to an organization because research shows that the trust of a person is strengthened if the problem is handled properly.

Conflict resolution steps:
Take the HEAT
Hear them out –If somebody yells at you, you tend to get defensive. If you interrupt someone, he tends to get louder and madder.
Empathize –put yourself in customer’s situation
Apologize — say I am sorry when you should
Take responsibility for action.

I like this customer service training because I have learned something that I can apply to other human interactions like parents to children.

Poor customer service is expressed through intonation, disrespect, showing slight, making customer feel less important by not having the full attention, and other non-verbal body language. On the other hand, good customer service means respect others by giving full attention, keeping eye contact, smile, caring tone, and self-introduction.

I remember sometimes my daughter gets upset when she talks while I am not giving her full attention. Now I know this is called not showing due respect.

Key principles of good customer service include:
(1) Maintain or enhance self-esteem — you get your self-esteem from feedback from others, other people contribute to it. You praise people for something specific in order to enhance his self-esteem. e.g. “How can we do without you?”

(2) Listen and respond with empathy –listening, response, eye contact, put yourself in other’s shoe. Validate the feelings of others.

(3) Involve the customer. Involvement means empowering, release anxiety, give them control or options.

The wonderful part is you can actually use these principles in all human dealings.

On 4/10 I attended a training in customer service, a required one by our work place. I learned many interesting things there. First of all, customer can be defined as anyone we interact with. That’s a broad one. Here’s another one on customer satisfaction.

They are largely four types of customer reactions:
(1) Patron – a happy customer but has not expressed this verbally
(2) Praiser – a happy customer who either sends a thank you letter or verbally expressed it.
(3) Walker – an unhappy one but says nothing about it, just walk away and never return.
(4) Talker – an unhappy one and let you know immediately of his unhappiness by verbalizing it.

At first, I thought the kind of customer reaction is more determined by one’s personality, the out-going customers being more verbal while introverts tend to be either patron or walker. I was surprised to learn that 9 out of 10 unhappy customers are walkers.

I think it is in the culture that people avoid confrontation and choose passive aggressiveness when they are not happy. In fact, you can see the same pattern of response in all human interactions, including within a family. The introverts tend to walk away without a word when they are upset, but the unhappiness is still there. The out-going ones will shout and yell and let the world know their unhappiness. Very interesting.

One of my colleagues has very low threshold for stress and pressure.  She would get flare-up if she perceives a lot of work. Many people feel overwhelmed by too many tasks on hand. Some simply give up trying.

On the other hand, some people feel depressed when they suddenly find themselves having nothing to do with their time. Having nothing to do tend to create a sense of meaninglessness, as if life had no purpose. This often happens among people who just retire or right after you complete a big project.

To be sure, for some people, their minds are so delicate that they need to maintain a well-balanced work load, not too busy, not too free.

While my daughter tends to feel overwhelmed by having too much things to take care of, I have the tendency to go the opposite way.

It means seeking common ground on large issues and let go minor differences among people.

I have found from my role as contributing columnist there are some people who seem in their nature very antagonistic. No matter what you write, they can always pick a fight and come up with something very negative. And very often they comments are full of personal attacks like this “This pundit is incorrect again. (for the umpteenth time IMO)”

When I talked to my daughter about this, I summed up the damaging effects of such negativity.
(1) It creates a rather unpleasant reading experience. I always feel dreadful reading these comments.
(2) It put people on the defensive as soon as you start attacking them.
(3) Worst of all, be antagonistic never helps clarify the issue.
(4) It only serves to fuel up negative feelings against each other.

I think of daily interactions with people and I think of this Chinese saying.

Yesterday I went out with my daughter in the evening. It was nice and cool outside. I shared this experience with her on the way.

An acquaintance of mine told me she worked hard to lose weight but was not successful. “It is hard, you know,” she told me. I could see she did try to eat healthy and stay active, but still showing no sign of improvement.

This reminds me of what I learned about fluff pounds, which are the temporary weight gain you get during holiday seasons when you eat too much food for a day or two. Good thing about fluff pounds is they will be gone in 1-2 days IF you return to your health diet and make timely effort to get rid of the extra pounds.

On the other hand, if you wait for a week or so and do nothing about fluff pounds, it will be harder to lose than if you work on them in a day or two. The unpleasant fact is the longer you keep your fluff pounds, the hard it will be to take them off. By the time they are no longer fluff pounds, they tend to stay in your body relatively permanently. That’s what happened to my acquaintance.

I told my daughter, “Same thing can be said of habit. The younger you are, the easy it is for you to form good habits.”

On 3/14/2012, after work, I went to Barnes and Noble’s where my daughter was doing something. I read Scientific American Mind magazine, which we used to subscribe when my son was home. There is an article on Mar/April issue, “The Secrets of Self-Improvement: Meet Your Goals with Research-Proven Tips and Techniques” by Marina Krakovsky.

“It seems to be human nature to aim high and fall short.” Well, the title looks attractive. The article details some tips that can help you on the track to your goal.

(1) Maintain realistic expectations
–visualize your success along with the specific obstacles you will face.
–avoid situations that trigger the habit or behavior that you want to break away from.
–forgive yourself if you slip up. Keep moving forward.

(2) Find what motivates you most
–think about how making this change will help you become the person you aspire to be.
–try to come up with fun ways to work toward your goal.
–imagine how achieving your aim might strengthen you.
–find a way to measure your progress and track your accomplishments

(3) Take baby steps
–set short-term, achievable objectives that add up to big change

(4) Formulate action plans
–prepare yourself for specific situations “If I want to quit….. I will say”
–frame your intention as positive actions
–picture yourself carrying out your plans

Here are the quiz.

Rate yourself from 1 to 5, that is from strongly disagree to strongly agree
(1) In a crisis or chaotic situation, I calm myself and focus on taking useful actions.
(2) I am usually optimistic. I see difficulties as temporary, expecting to overcome them.
(3) I can tolerate high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity.
(4) I adapt quickly to new developments. I am good at bouncing back from difficulties.
(5) I am playful. I can see the funny side of rough situations and can laugh at myself.

(6) I am able to recover emotionally from losses and setbacks. I have friends I can talk with. I can express my feelings to others and can ask for help.
(7) I feel self-confident, appreciate myself, and have a healthy concept of who I am.
(8) I am curious. I ask questions. I want to know how things work. I like to try new ways of doing things.
(9) I learn valuable lessons from my experiences and from the experiences of others.
(10) I am good at solving problems. I can think in analytical, creative, or practical ways.

(11) I am good at making things work well. I am often asked to lead groups and projects.
(12) I am very flexible. I feel comfortable with my paradoxical complexity. I am optimistic and pessimistic, trusting and cautious, unselfish and selfish, and so forth.
(13) I am always myself, but I have noticed that I am different in different situations.
(14) I prefer to work without a written job description. I am more effective when I am free to do what I think is best in each situation.
(15) I read people well and trust my intuition.

(16) I am a good listener, I have good empathy skills.
(17) I don’t judge others, and I am comfortable with many kinds of people.
(18) I am very durable. I hold up well during tough times. I work well with others, but I also have an independent spirit.
(19) I have been made stronger and better by difficult experiences.
(20) I have converted misfortune into good luck and found benefits in bad experiences.

I got this result, “You are more resilient than most. You are probably able to handle most of life’s challenges well.” I am wondering if everybody got the same thing.

On 3/8/2012, I took a resiliency quiz provided in chapter two in book The Resiliency Advantage by Al Siebert. It reveals how well one bounces back from setbacks, loss, stressful situations, frustration, and any unexpected or unfortunate or unhappy events in life.

People who are resilient recover quickly from disruptive change, illness, or misfortune without being overwhelmed or acting in destructive ways.

The quiz calculates your score based on the statements you choose. The calculation is based on those personality factors—such as flexibility, self-confidence, creativity, and ability to learn from experience—that make people more resilient.

Continued tomorrow…

ON 2/22/2012, I read this interesting poll on medscape site. The poll question goes like this. My best mood boost comes from–
No.1 Maintaining a routine that fits me
No.2 Changing up my ensemble
No.3 Shaking up the routine
No.4 Exercising

The result:
62% of response vote for exercising
27% for No.1
6% for No.3
5% for No.2

Of course, the winner is exercise. Because we all should have known by now the benefit of exercise on our brains. And we also know following the same routines allows us to live with the old habits, go through the same pattern of familiar daily activities, no risk, no surprise, and of course routines provide comfort.

What surprises me most here is the impact on our mood when we shake up our routine and change up ensemble. There must be something that is biologically hard-wired in us and that makes us stick to the old routines, the familiar environment and avert the strange experience. Is this also the effect of inertia in us? This leaves me all the more respectful of those who choose a different path and challenge themselves with the unknown and uncertainty in life.

I read this early this year from London Express. Here are some of the tips on keeping our grand promises at the beginning of the year.

(1) Be realistic. Most of resolutions are about breaking bad habits and creating new ones. Just as constant dripping wears away a stone, so will our constant effort and daily attention help us reach our goal.
(2) Get organized. Be strategic. For example, in order to curb “comfort eating,” have an alternative ready to meet your next craving.
(3) Visualize success. Hold that sparkling vision of a new you and hold it everyday of the year.

Below is from our office’s internal circulation on how to implement New Year Resolution.

(1) Set more specific and realistic goals. Commit to doing something everyday to reach your goal
(2) Don’t beat yourself up. There is a reason we only make New Year’s Resolution once a year –
they can’t be accomplished all in one day. Realize that anything worth doing takes time
(3) Celebrate the little accomplishments. Find a way to reward yourself for a good job done
(4) Get support. Find people who will support you as well as remind you to get back on your feet
when you have fallen short.
(5) Make plans in advance and with others. This way, you are less likely to give up.

If you don’t want to set and forget, come back to your promise at a fix date every month. There is nobody out there checking you, hence you got only yourself to check on you. Isn’t that scary?

On 2/6/2012, I started working on the tasks that I set for myself on my New Year Resolution of 2012. One of them is to learn Tai-chi. The next day I shared it with a friend of mine at office. She talked about learning Tai-chi last summer and has not started yet. She asked me if I took classes from some Tai-chi master.

I told her it was home schooling, self-taught by following the video. I figure if I cannot learn it from a video, I would be too dumb to follow a class instructor. One-on-one instrutor is more expensive than piano teacher. I think if it is a challenge, it is a good one and I believe I can take it on. Just as I learned roller skating a few years ago.

She said, “Anything worth anything at all requires practice and patience, I think. If it is too easy, you give it up too fast and it doesn’t mean as much.”

I shared this view with my daughter. She agreed with my colleague. In fact, she is going to be my cheerleader in my endeavor.

By the way, there are 24 forms in simple tai-chi. It took me two days to learn the first one. At this rate, it will take 48 days (24×2) to learn all of them. 48 days can pass very fast even if we don’t learn anything. I thought I might put a little bit value into them and get something out of them.

Yesterday morning, my daughter and I went out for a walk. I told her one of my discoveries that I made during my daily morning exercise.

I found it was a lot easy to keep on jogging than stopping for a second and then resuming it. Once I stopped, I found it hard to resume it. She said it was called inertia. The strange thing is while I am running, I don’t find it hard to stop. In fact, I always welcome the idea of stopping. It seems inertia works only one-way, that is, you encounter resistance only when you move forward or move from rest to action or from an easy stage to a difficult one.

It seems our natural tendency is to slip into an easy stage whenever possible, just as water flows downward effortlessly. It takes some effort to reverse the inertia or natural downward movement.

For me, I have learned it is better to keep the momentum if you don’t want to encounter inertia and make an extra effort to conquer it. No wonder people say it is better to get all the degrees you want in one breath instead of taking a few years off.

P.S. we went to Nelson Atkins Museum of Art yesterday. It was a delighted experience.

Last Thursday, 1/19/2012, I went post office to pick up a package that my daughter ordered online. There were plenty of customers with only one postal worker around. To make things worse, this one talks with a foreign accent.

I saw a young lady got impatient when there seemed to have a misunderstanding between she and the postal worker. The postal one seemed to answer a question that was not what the lady asked. “Oh, never mind, forget it.” With that, she left, looking more than upset with the postal worker. The postal worker looked hurt and red-faced.

I feel sorry for the postal worker, who actually speaks much better English than I do. I am sure with a little patience she has no problem communicating with her customers. Back home, I shared this part of experience with my daughter, hoping she could be patient when she talks with people with foreign accents.

To my children–

If you fail in a test,
If you lose a contest,
If you get a bad grade,
If you have not made it to the top,
If you were not happy with one course,
If you are given a need-improvement evaluation,
If you think so much depend upon but you didn’t make it,
Remember these words–
Never say never,
Never give up,
Resilient and
Keep trying.
The future is yours, as long as
You don’t give up, as long as
You always give your best.
You are never lost until you stop trying your best.

Life is a skyscraper,
Its bricks being the tests we face everyday.
Build it with the best-quality bricks, for
Life itself is the biggest test of all,
Graded not by any teacher but by yourself.

I have posted something on this topic before, probably with exact wording. Still, I think it worthwhile to be posted again as I can never overemphasize those brain formative years in one’s life.

The article appeared on BBC News, 10/19/2011 — IQ ‘can change in teenage years’ By David Shukman.

“Intellectual performance can both improve and deteriorate in adolescence. The mental ability of teenagers can improve or decline on a far greater scale than previously thought, according to new research.”

“… tests conducted on teenagers at an average age of 14 and then repeated when their average age was nearly 18 found improvements – and deterioration.”

If you fool around and waste away those precious teenage years –drinking, smoking, too much hanging out, rebelling against any authority simply for the sake of rebelling — when you finally wake up from the abyss of your stupidity, you will surely find yourself suffering from IQ loss for life, which is the cost of immaturity and teenage stupidity.

Scary but true. I wish more teenagers realize this.

“The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.”
― Michel Foucault

It is this time of the year when we both look back and look forward. On 12/17/2011, while my daughter and I were at the Barnes & Noble’s bookstore, I shared with her Foucault’s word. I said, “In other words, you are a different person from the one you start with.” To be sure, these few words are open to interpretation.

Still, I find his statement very much fitting for this occasion, that is, if you can re-word it like this — the main purpose of New Year Resolution is to become, in some way, someone at the end of the year that you were not at the begining of the year, or a better version of you.

On 10/25/2011, I received an email from a friend of mine. I thought it so true. Here’s my translation. I am not sure if my translation brings out original meaning. I do hope my children could read Chinese, one of the hardest things for me to do.

The hardest thing to keep is time;
The hardest thing to seize is opportunity;
The hardest thing to do well is detail;
The hardest thing to deal with is human relations;
The hardest thing to get rid of is habit;
The hardest thing to obtain is heart;
The hardest thing to distribute is interest;
The hardest thing to control is mood;
The hardest thing to conquer is self;
The hardest thing to find is true friend;
The hardest thing to resist is temptation;
The hardest thing to enhance is one’s inherent quality.

It may make you feel good when you scream out your frustration.
It may make you feel good when you throw out hurtful words without any regards toward other people’s feeling.
It may make you feel good when you smash at something hard to let out your anger.
It may make you feel good when you always have the last word in quarrel.
It may make you feel good when you solve your problem with a powerful fist.
It may make you feel good when you indulge yourself in your favorite unhealthy food.
It may make you feel good when you smoke as you are so addicted to.
It may make you feel good when you drink as an alcohol does.
It may make you feel good when you lie in bed instead of venturing out in the morning.
It may make you feel good when you are just purely selfish.

But you know what, do the right thing always, because, by the end of the day, doing the right thing will make you a good person and that should make you feel good.

If you ask why I write this piece, it is because I am fed up with too many selfish persons.

I told my daughter task alternation might reduce mental fatigue and enhance productivity. That is, you work on one subject for an hour and another one for the next hour instead of dragging on for hours on one subject as she often does. Even though she knows its benefits, she often resists alternation. Actually she is not alone here.

I have also found myself having this tendency to stick to one task as long as I can and any slight change seems a challenge to me. Call it brain inertia. I think this inertia originates from our aversion to change.

Because change means we need to put in more energy to get started and become familiar to the new task. We like to be energy efficient mentally and biologically.

That’s why I set a timer when I was cleaning around in kitchen. I pack it up and go once time is up. When I check email, I set timer. This way, I don’t get hooked on one task and let a whole chunk of time pass before I realize it.

That co-worker sees criticism as personal attack or a challenge to her judgment and intelligence. Every time I see people raising their voice and getting hot-headed and rather energetic on self-defense upon a slightest criticism, I think of that co-worker and how people never care to contradict her, and how much she has lost because of this.

My co-worker presents a sharp contrast to this Chinese saying, “Being delighted when people bring up our weakness.”

It is a matter of attitude and interpretation. I am sure we will benefit tremendously if we can tuck in our useless pride and see kindness and positive factor in people who care enough to make us see our blemish.

Imagine how you feel if I see an used band-aid stuck to the back of your hair and walk away without telling you, tyring to cover my smirk at the same time. That means I-dont-care. How sad that would be!

When I was at our SW clinic back in 2009, one of the co-workers was a genuine headache. If someone points out her mistakes, it is like poking the hornet’s nest, she would make a scene and put her whole self out in self-defense. She takes it very personally.

Once I saw she used pencil on inclusion/exclusion document and the wonderful part was our doctor even signed on it. This is like inviting trouble. Still, I would poke that wasp nest by telling her this. Indeed, when the monitor asked her to write it in ink and ask doctor to re-sign it, oh-boy, she was so mad that the air was filled with f-word spitted out from her mouth.

I observe the reactions and attitudes of people around her. I mean nobody cares to put out her mistakes. Once I noticed she committed a major protocol violation, I only confirmed my discovery with another friendly colleague and just watched from a safe distance.
To be continued…

When I was in China, my sister told me the story of her friend’s daughter. The girl just came back from America after a year’s stay there as a high schooler. Her parents had to find an English tutor here to help with her English.

I think it ridiculous that she still cannot carry on daily conversation after living in America for a year. I should not be surprised over it as I realize this is not an isolated case.

What often happens is this. The Chinese students jump into the circle of their country folks, their comfort zone, as soon as they arrive in America. They have as little as possible contact with Americans outside classroom. The more they fail in English, the more they seek refugee in their mother tongue, thus perpetuating the vicious circle and forgetting what they venture out for.

As with everything in life, it is actually in human nature that we tend to take the easy option whenever that option is available. It takes some courage and maturity to break away from one’s comfort zone and enjoy a giant progress.

“A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior.” from wiki.

I wrote about this story before, but when I asked my daughter about it. She totally forgot. This happened during my years of sociology teaching. There were a few Jewish boys in my class who already excelled in my class but still worked hard. When I asked one of them why, he told me these words which I will never forget, “Since God gives us such smart brains, we would waste them if we do not use them.”

The theory goes like this. It is this belief that has motivated them to work hard. As the result of their working hard, they got good grades which further reinforced their previous belief–they were given smart brains.

This works in all aspects of life. It can initiate either a good or a vicious cycle. e.g. if you believe exercise can help you lose weight, you go for it, with big stride and highly motivated. When you see the fact that you have lost weight, you are more convinced and motivated for more of it. If you want to be chained in a good cycle, hold fast to positive belief, no matter what you engage yourself.

Before the final merge of our company into KU system on 6/20, we were asked to do a health risk assessment. To be sure, it was interesting going through the list of questions. By the end of assessment, we were given some advice on how to be our healthy best, which sounds like a sound advice for all goal-setting. I make sure my daughter pays special attention to this when she makes hers, no matter what plan she does.

(1) Decide if you are ready to change
(2) Choose one lifestyle action you wish to improve

(3) Set goals leading toward changing this behavior. Think of where, when and why you have this habit.
(4) Work on one goal at a time

(5) Be realistic. Set yourself up for success. Goals that you don’t really care about or that are set too high may be un-reachable. Then you may give up.
(6) Choose positive goals.
(7) Plan measurable goals.

Fortunately, it is possible to strengthen our mental resources and turn our impulses for good. The following are tips and methods which can help bolster self-control.

(1) Become aware of the risks and long-term negative consequences of undesirable behavior.
(2) Increase your personal engagement by, e.g. telling friends or family members about your goals.

(3) Transform abstract overarching objective into reachable intermediate milestones.
(4) Take pleasure in achieving partial success and reaching intermediate milestones.

(5) Formulate “If then” resolution to deal with critical situations.
(6) Replace old habits with new good ones.

(7) Change your impulses by learning to associate the mere sight or thought of temptations with negative stimuli. e.g. chocolate with a pig.
(8) Identify situations that poses a particular risks and avoid them as much as possible.

(9) Train your working memory.
(10) Plan enough breaks and relax periods to prevent depletion of your mental resources.

Finally, know yourself and proactively avoid damaging temptations of all forms.

There are two different information-processing systems in our brain fighting for control of our response to temptation.

(1) Our impulsive self makes fast associations– vending machine equals to chocolate and to the pleasurable experience of its taste. It scans the environment for potentially pleasurable stimuli and sets habitual actions in motion… Impulses aim at immediate gratification, often at the cost of long-term objectives.

(2) Reflective thought draws on reasoning and planning; it comes into play whenever someone sets a long-term goal. It helps us hold back instant gain in order to pursue a long-term objective. Compared with impulses, reflection is resource-intensive, demanding time and memory. It affords us a good measure of control over our actions.

Here we see the dichotomy between impulsive and reason, short-term and long-term, which may well be the dividing line between losers and winners.
To be continued…

“Mental strain, stress and the influence of alcohol can impair an individual’s ability to bypass temptation.” Fatigue and stress can exhaust cognitive resources, such as working memory and will power, and render us less able to withstand temptation.

My daughter has this experience. When she is tired during those midnight hours, she is very prone to wandering away on the internet and easily going down to next morning over some homework, which she could get it over in much less time. When she is not stressed out during the day, she can better concentrate and not yield to the temptation of the short-term fun of internet surfing. This also explains why people tend to gain weight when they stay late at night.

“Self-control is the exertion of will power in the interest of long-term objectives.” The two key elements are will power and long-term. This reminds me of marshmallow experiment and delay gratification. Without will power and long-term view, a person easily succumbs to the temptation of the moment for the meager short-term gain.
To be continued…

On 4/30/2011, the last day of the month, like every Saturday afternoon, I was sitting at HyVee’s dining center, reading magazines and waiting for my daughter’s drawing lesson nearby.

On that day, I read the current issue of Scientific American Mind magazine, May/June 2011, article “Control Yourself!” by Wihelm Hofmann and Malte Friese. I found it interesting and helpful to most of us who need self-discipline to get things done. Hence, I took some notes. Here they are.

“Withstanding temptation takes self-discipline–no easy tricks when immediate gratification plumbs our sense of well-being. But it is well worth the effort. Self-control saves us and other people from embarrassing or, worse, damaging consequences.”

The damaging consequences go far beyond those embarrassing moments when we have one too many and our tongues go out of control. So many foolish things can be accomplished when we let go of our self-discipline and let our pleasure-seeking impulses take control. One small example is when we fool away a large chunk of the day aimlessly surfing the internet and allow it happen everyday. Imagine how much you could accomplish if you put to good use of these hundred of hours.
To be continued…

I place this posting in the category of emotional intelligence because we choose whoever we want to be with and our company in turn comes back influencing us.

We had a site initiation visit from a pharmaceutical company on 4/11/2011. The company sent four people over for the task. One of them is a PharmD and the director leading their biotech oncology clinical research and development. They talked about our study drug, the design and the study protocol.

The person talked with such an intelligence and clarity that it was almost refreshing hearing her explanation.

When I reflected the meeting and these intelligent speakers, I felt motivated and wanted to make more time for my pet project, which was started in 2008. I have no doubt that I could have made more progress if I were working with these people. It reminds me of the invisible influence of people around us.

As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and began. “Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach… but mostly your friends. I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I am going to tell you a story.”

I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the story of the first day we met. He had planned to kill himself over the weekend. He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn’t have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home.

He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile. “Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable.” I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment. I saw his Mom and Dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile.

Not until that moment did I realize it’s depth. Never underestimate the power of your actions. With one small gesture you can change a person’s life. For better or for worse. God puts us all in each other’s lives to impact one another in some way. Look for God in others. “Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.”

I hope parents will share this story with their children. The simple message is this: Good deed matters. Do good whenever possible. After all, we don’t have the chance to do good everyday even if we want to.

Continued from yesterday
…
“Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said, “Boy, you’re gonna really build serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!” He just laughed and handed me half the books.

“Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends. When we were seniors, we began to think about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown, and I was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business on a football scholarship. Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the time about being a nerd.

“He had to prepare a speech for graduation. I was so glad it wasn’t me having to get up there and speak. Graduation day, I saw Kyle. He looked great. He was one of those guys that really found himself during high school. He filled out and actually looked good in glasses. He had more dates than me and all the girls loved him. Boy, sometimes I was jealous. Today was one of those days. I could see that he was nervous about his speech. So, I smacked him on the back and said, “Hey, big guy, you’ll be great!” He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled. “Thanks,” he said.”
To be continued…

On 3/27/2011, my daughter’s birthday, I shared this story with her. She said she read it before, still she read it again, believing it was a touching one. I am sure some people have read it before. Still, I love it and will share the story here.
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“One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his books. I thought to myself, “Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd.” I had quite a weekend planned — parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon — so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.

“As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes. My heart went out to him.

“So, I jogged over to him and as he crawled around looking for his glasses, I saw a tear in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said, “Those guys are jerks. They really should get lives.” He looked at me and said, “Hey thanks!” There was a big smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.

I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before. He said he had gone to private school before now. I would have never hung out with a private school kid before. We talked all the way home, and I carried his books. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. I asked him if he wanted to play football on Saturday with me and my friends. He said yes. We hung out all weekend and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him, and my friends thought the same of him.
Continued…

We take care of lung cancer patients everyday and are fully aware of the deleterious effect of smoking on these patients. Some of my colleagues announced that they would quit smoking cold turkey. Last week when I went to CBO, I saw one of them still smoked outside the building. I feel sad for her as I know she has tried many times to quit but no success so far.

Some bad habits are as addictive as smoking and drinking. You know they are detrimental to you and you even hate yourself for possessing these habits, but you simply cannot break away from them. These habits include procrastination and aimless browsing or any undesirable time-consuming soft addictions.

Of course, the best policy is to never allow yourself to go that deep in bad-habit-trap, even though it is so easy to get into one of them. Hence, constantly and carefully watch yourself against any habit-forming behavior. Otherwise, master enough will power and take the cold turkey challenge.