Nice guys finish last. ~ Leo Durocher
Some of us are habitually victims, doormats, "poor things." No matter what, we never say no. The more we practice being nice guys the less able we are to cope creatively. we place the blame, along with the responsibility, elsewhere.
James is a good example of this: He is well past fifty and has been divorce for 2o years. Yet he is still seeking sympathy for what his wife - and God - did to him all those years ago. He had inherited a sizable amount of money from his parents' estate and little by little his alcoholic, food-addicted wife managed to spend it all. It wasn't that he gave her the money or failed to manage the money himself. What happened was, he explained, she "just spent it all up! How could she do that?" The obvious, healthier question never occured to him: How could HE allow a sick person to eat up a small fortune?
The moral of the story is that being "too nice" isn't the real problem. What measures of irresponsibility have you been filing under other names?
~~
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Losing Your Marbles
This is a story that's been around for awhile, but I think it helps give some perspective on setting priorities...seeing what's really real in our lives.
An older man was giving some advice to a younger man.
"It's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much," he said. "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities. You see, one day I sat down and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in his lifetime.
"It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail," he continued, "and by that time I had lived thru over 2,800 Saturdays. I got to thinking if I lived to be 75, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. "
He went on to explain that he bought 1000 marbles and put them in a clear plastic container in his favorite work area at home. "Every Saturday since then," he said, " I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There's nothing like watching your time here on earth run out to help you get your priorities straight."
Then the older gentleman finished, "Now before I take my lovely wife out for breakfast, let me tell you one last thing. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time."
We don't know how much time we will have, whether we'll get extra time or there will be marbles left in our container. We can't choose that, but we can choose what we do with the time from here until then.
Peace and blessings.
~~
An older man was giving some advice to a younger man.
"It's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much," he said. "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities. You see, one day I sat down and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in his lifetime.
"It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail," he continued, "and by that time I had lived thru over 2,800 Saturdays. I got to thinking if I lived to be 75, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. "
He went on to explain that he bought 1000 marbles and put them in a clear plastic container in his favorite work area at home. "Every Saturday since then," he said, " I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There's nothing like watching your time here on earth run out to help you get your priorities straight."
Then the older gentleman finished, "Now before I take my lovely wife out for breakfast, let me tell you one last thing. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time."
We don't know how much time we will have, whether we'll get extra time or there will be marbles left in our container. We can't choose that, but we can choose what we do with the time from here until then.
Peace and blessings.
~~
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