The Stuff No One Talks About

This week’s topic is “ Attitude ”. Again, one of my favorite topics. I know, shocking, right?!?! This has got to be one of my biggest life tenets and I’ve preached to my kids since the moment they were born. You cannot control much in life, but I firmly believe you can control your reaction to whatever happens. There are so many things that we can’t change or control. For example: when you go on a vacation and have all these great plans, do you sulk and complain when the weather doesn’t cooperate or do you still go out and have a great time or adjust your plans so you can still get that thing done at a better time? Your attitude sets the stage for whether you have a great time or not.   My dad was/is a person who lives a closed-off/guarded life * . No, you don’t here me talk about my dad. I was 11-12 when my parents split. It made me grow up fast.   * “And all around your island There's a barricade It keeps out the danger It holds in the pain”     ...

A couple of weeks ago I was sharing a list of the favorite quotes I’ve assembled over the years with Kimberly and she encouraged me to send something out each week until I’m done in January. I don’t usually think I have that much to say or great insights into things, but I thought… “what the hell, I’ll give it a go”. I’ll try to group topics together each week with quotes, stories and lessons learned/advice. Think of it as assembled ramblings from my 30+ years in services and almost 50 years of employment.   This week’s topic is “ Hard Work ”. It’s one of my favorite topics. I started working at age twelve to help support my mom, brother and myself. I did Mike Rowe-type dirty jobs… nasty, smelly and hard. The types of things others didn’t want to do – clean public bathrooms, empty and clean restaurant grease fryers and traps, clean walk-in freezers, retrieve lost golf balls in water hazards at the public golf course (BTW, they paid 5 cents/ball), etc. This gave me a foundation of...