Survival of a family

"Have we met your family?"Natalie asked me. "Perhaps both our families should go on a trip sometime soon."

Raising a family isn't something I put on my resume, but I have to ask myself, would I apply for the same job? I would do it again and again and again.

It is hard work. It is a lot of of crud details. Why do we continually test one another's patience, loyalty and love? Could it be that's what the survival of a family is based upon?

Losses are inevitable

"Last year was not good for me," Alex said solemnly. "My nephew was 20 years old when he was struck and killed by lightning in December."

The reality is that all relationships inevitably will be dissolved and broken. Like the rise and fall of the ocean tides, disruptions of human relationships occur throughout life, such as loss of parents, death of a mate, divorce, marital separation, death of family members, children leaving home, death of close friends, change of neighbourhoods and loss of acquaintances by retirement from work.

Diffrent people react and respond to losses in different ways. While we may react with anguish to a divorce or loss of job, another individual may hardly be affected.

Definition of Divorce: Future tense of marriage

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My husband and I divorced over religious differences

He thought he was God, and I didn't

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A golden opportunity

"A well-handled problem usually breeds more loyalty than you had before the negative incident," Richard said, quoting Tom Peters.

Customers who are upset can be very animated, vocal and emotional. For this reason, many salespeople would agree that dealing with an irate customer is, at best, an unpleasant experience.

On the other hand, I have found that dealing with an irate customer is a golden opportunity to turn him/her into a customer (or even advocate) for life.

The delicate balance

"Did your son enjoy Tokyo?"Jason asked cheekily. "There are lots of funny stuff that goes around there."

My wife and I tried to walk that delicate balance between shielding our kid from the worst of life, while also exposing him to life lessons. It is not an easy balance. There is no way to shield our kid from the trash of the world. It hangs like haze in the air. There is no formula for doing this.

What really matters is what path our kid chooses when we can no longer walk the path with him.

Kids will do as we parents do

I watched "The Blind Side" last night. It's about Michael Oher, a homeless African-American youngster from a broken home, who is taken in by the Touhys, a well-to-do white family who help him fulfill his potential. It stars Sandra Bullock in a potentially award-winning role.

The point here is that for good or ill, we, the parents, are establishing the framework for our child's worldview, character development and choices.

This is not to say that a child's future is inevitably determined by his/her homelife. There are kids who grow up in very rocky home situations with very poor role models who nevertheless turn out to be really neat people. On the flip side of the coin, there are kids who had great parents but nevertheless choose to embrace a very sinful lifestyle.

But both common sense and evidence tell us that - generally speaking - loving and moral homes are far more likely to produce loving and moral kids. I notice that kids tend to imitate the attitudes and actions modelled by their parents.

A match made in heaven?

I watched "Love Happens" on the flight from Narita to Changi. It's the story about a self-help author arriving in Seattle to teach a sold-out seminar. He met a girl who was able to help him help himself.

There is no such thing as a match made in heaven. Rather, God has chosen to grant us a match made in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur or wherever we happen to live. It is all very earthly, with lots of ups and downs, stupid arguments and hurt feelings.

A great relationship is not when the "perfect couple" comes together. It is when an imperfect man and an imperfect woman come together, crazy for each other and learn to accommodate, and even to enjoy their differences.

Making progress in 2010

"My New Year Wish" Today's Straits Times Life section reported 10 newsmakers looking back at 2009 and telling their hopes for 2010.

Every January, a slew of resolutions are made. From losing weight to financial savings, to areas of relationships, career and spirituality.

Why is it that so many of us seem unable to transform resolutions into habits?

The thing is, you and I both know that 12 months ago, we were talking about practically the same issues. And next year, there will be more or less identical resolutions. Regardless of what areas of our lives we would like to transform, there is a gap between desire for change and actually creating real and sustainable change.

The truth is this: diets don't fail. We fail at diets. Savings plans don't fail. We fail at savings plans. relationships don't fail. We fail at relationships.

That's not because we want to fail. We don't go on diets to gain weight. We don't get married to get divorced.

I think it is because we focus too much on the desired outcome and not enough on the progress we are making. Last year, I focused on the progress I was making in the gym and those advances encouraged me to persevere in achieving my goal. In the past, it was when I lost sight of my progress that I became discouraged, and it was discouragement that landed me back into my old self-defeating habits.