This is a story from childhood that involves a simple mistake that led to a lifelong regret. My parents were good friends with another couple, the Drabicks. The Drabick’s had a cottage up north in Algonquin Park north of where we lived in Ontario, Canada. The Drabicks invited our family to join their family for …
When I was 10 years old my father asked me and my brother if we wanted to take music lessons. I had taken piano lessons at 7 in elementary school. After piano lessons for one year at school I had to go up in front of a large audience and play Frere Jacques which was …
One of my first jobs was working for the corner fabric store, ‘Passmores.’ My job was to go each morning before school and lower the awnings so the sun would not shine in on the fabrics displayed in the store front windows. The sunlight would cause the colours to fade. I would also go in …
One of my favourite themes for books and movies involves a dystopia. Definition: “…an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.” It is not the suffering I enjoy about this theme. For me it is the futuristic setting. I get a glimpse into …
Maybe you have heard the expression: “Ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.” I seem to be the epitome of an example of someone whom never seems to learn certain lessons. It believe that I have come to learn and embrace certain truths. This includes facing painful truths about myself – …
When I went to Taiwan with my family our intention was to be missionaries in China. The plan was to land in Taipei, Taiwan where we could get some orientation and prepare for going into China. We had booked our flights through a travel agent (this was in August 2000 before most used online bookings) …
Some of you may be familiar with the Serenity Prayer: God grant me theSerenity to accept the things I cannot change,Courage to change the things I can, andWisdom to know the difference. Twelve Step Programs (For more history and the more complete versions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer) Here I present a variation: I oftentimes need to remind myself …
Something that I have struggled with my whole life is remembering names, especially of people I meet. This past couple of years I have made an effort to remember names and three things have helped me: 1) One thing that really helped me start remembering names is deciding I have been living a lie – …
I am Another concept relates to being ‘exceptional.’ I always have a big problem with this and it is part of my cognitive behavior. For some reason I think things only happen to me, or or wonder why something happened to me. It is a negative thought process, a type of sabotage as described by …
There is a slogan from Dr. Low of Recovery International that we learn as part of out cognitive behavior training (CBT) that states, “Lower you expectations and your performance will rise.” The basic idea behind this slogan is that if you set lower goals for yourself or lower what you expect to receive or achieve …
