When You Throw Mud, You Lose Ground.

That is a quote by Albert Einstein.  Saw it on my kid's juice box.  Inspiration can come from the strangest of places.  But ironically it made me think of them and an important lesson I have been trying to teach them.

I've mentioned before in my blogging that my boys are competitive. To be frank, I find it obnoxious. It's not that they are competitive and like to win.  It's that they are still children and think winning is defeating their own brother. They think making the other feel bad because they got the bigger slice of cake is the key to happiness and success. Somehow, their successes make them better than the other, instead of seeing them as a corporate win.  I always make them repeat, "We are on the same team. We will not fight."

For Christmas, we bought them tickets to the Dallas Stars vs. Edmonton Oilers hockey game. They were so excited.  The game was about 2 weeks after Christmas and everyday, Zachary, my youngest, would ask, "Hockey tomorrow?". When we got in our seats, they were mesmerized.  No smiles (they posed for the pic of course), just blank stares, as their senses were overloaded, but their hearts were stimulated with glee.

Daddy, Zachary (3) and Joseph (5)

During the game, two players from the opposing team made a colossal collide.  You couldn't miss it.  They ended up on the ground as everyone else sprinted for the Oiler's end of the rink.  The Dallas Stars had a 5 man-3 man advantage for what was only mere seconds but felt like much longer.  I looked at Joseph, my oldest, who I was sitting beside and said, "Great example of why you don't fight with your own team member." 

I understand fighting to progress forward.  We don't need to avoid conflict.  But throwing mud is not working through conflict.  Throwing mud is tearing another down or exalting yourself unnecessarily.  It is wasteful conflict that only makes one feel temporarily better but does nothing to build up the other.

Zachary worn out after game.

This life tool is know who's on your team- your husband, your wife, your kids, your co-workers, your partners, your friends.  When you tear them down, you are hurting yourself.  Maybe Albert Einstein felt like too much mud had come his way, and his inspiration for these words was to encourage himself not to quit.  After all, great minds are rarely understood by the masses until after their time. However you need the reminder today, use it to help yourself keep the ground firm beneath you.

One Tick of the Clock

The profound implications of one tick of the clock just gave the whole world a fresh start.  We said "later haters" to 2011 and rejoiced at the freedom we feel of letting go of our failed expectations of ourselves and others that the moments on the clock in 2011 did not fulfill.  Now, here we are with a renewed vigor and the gyms are packed again, excel has had an increased use for new created schedules, and people walk around lighter, happier knowing they've got another chance to do it better.  Just one tick of the clock...

Perhaps what we have missed is that tick of the clock comes every day, every week and every month.  I understand that as a human race we gather with pomp and circumstance around the change of the New Year.  I love it too.  And somehow since everyone believes it, it must be true that I really have a new start.  Yet each night as we rest and the clock ticks to a new day the lack of celebration does nothing to stir my emotional belief that I got another chance to do it again.  Even though it is true, that I got the same new beginning each night, each week and each month, it just doesn't have the same affect on my psyche as the turn of the New Year.

And that is my point.  That balls dropping, sparkling effects, champagne toasting, and the one time a year we stay up past midnight is all worth it.  But it isn't what actually gave you the new start.  The new start simply came with one tick of the clock.

So if you've already failed at your new resolve at the New Year or failed to set any resolve at all.  There is another tick of the clock telling you it is a new day headed your way.  And if time hasn't given up on you, then neither has God. There is still something to do.  Don't let the emotion of the holiday rob you from making the real change you want in your own life today.

And this life tool, my friends, I need every day.  New starts are not banished to only the New Year.  They are specially designed into each new day with just one tick of the clock.