Which are you? Do you mumble things under your breath as you turn around juuuuuust loud enough for you to feel like you said it to the person it was meant for or do you look them in the eye and have the guts to say it?
A passive aggressive person is not my favorite kind of person. The person who says “I was just joking” is the person who isn’t convicted in their own words and shouldn’t be saying them to start with. The person who says “I was talking to myself” when it was clearly meant for you to hear is the kind of person who lacks confidence.
Say what you mean and mean what you say. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. And if you intend to hide behind selling your own words as a joke or offering up a manipulative apology WHEN the things you say can’t be defended by your own thoughts, maybe just don’t say them.
If you are going to be any kind of aggressive, think it through, be willing to defend it, and formulate it with open conviction.
A chain is made up of many links, it’s what makes it strong, and adding more to it is what makes it long. A kink in a chain interrupts that process, weakens it, makes it unpredictable, and sometimes makes us throw that chain away or at minimum cut the bad part out.
Information flows the same way. Information is either passed as a whole link with truth or room for truth, or it’s passed as fractured or manufactured truth with a spin to control the narrative. When we bind our communications with others to weak information, the relationship gets weak and unreliable just like a kinked chain.
So if given the choice, we can cut out the kink or do our due diligence in being a link at all. We can have personal responsibility before we add to a bad chain. It may mean digging for truth before we weld our link and it may mean refusing to align at all.
Loyalty to truth and the duty to trust but verify our part in any chain before we’re a part of it is what keeps chains strong, reliable, and integrous.
Sometimes being a mama means giving your child the info, providing them with the perspective of the bigger picture that comes from your wisdom through experience, and letting them earn their OWN wisdom through experience.
The life lessons I’ve learned the most from are the ones I experienced on my own with the guidance of those who love me and a little/lot of trial and error.
A few nuggets I hope my children take on as their own are:
Look at & smell things before you eat them. There could be something nasty in there.
People will spend your money if you let them. Don’t let them.
Telling someone what they want to hear might shut them up, but if it’s not true it also makes you a liar. Don’t be a liar.
“Love” is a choice, keep that in mind when the one who “loves you” doesn’t choose you. Not cool.
God is always teaching you something very important when you’re in a struggle. Be patient and pay attention and you’ll figure it out.
Always wear sunscreen. Always. Nobody is exempt from cancer.
Not everyone is going to be happy if you’re successful. Don’t feel bad about that.
Invest in a good bra & a good mattress. You spend at least 35%- 65%of your life in both. Be comfortable.
Not all insurance policies are the same. Read them before you choose the cheaper premium.
Bible verses should not be used as weapons. Or accepted as them, either. Use them to lovingly teach and lift up.
Have you ever received something that had so much thought put into it, that the effort was more valuable than the thing?
It’s why my grandmother kept this awkwardly shaped Alabama pottery I made as a 3rd grader for over 30 years and why looking at this orchid every day makes me so happy. It’s why these handmade masks, this beautiful card with a kind note dropped in the mail, and this Christmas ornament designed with my heart in mind make me smile so big when I see them. And as a result of these efforts, each of these people are special to me.
Effort is loving. Consideration is loving. Selflessness is loving. An orchid is delicate, but it can survive on 3 ice cubes on Thursdays and keep its vibrance. That requires very little effort on my part but is critical for its blooms. It just doesn’t take much to brighten someone’s day or to be loving.
If you knew you could spend a few minutes or a few hours on someone but the product of that was multiple days or even years of good feels, would you do it?
Ignoring guilt that leads to correction is turning a slip into a fall. We must realize our actions have a ripple effect because we don’t sin in a vacuum & a “whatever” attitude will cause us to fall short in our relationships.
It’s healthy to imagine how our actions will impact others & react accordingly, but walking around shameless & cold hearted is an immediate sign of something very wrong. Listen to the people who love you, consider the possibility that they see something in your blind spot so you can avoid the face plant that’s much harder to recover from.
“So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.” Ephesians 5:15-17 NLT
My favorite plot twist. 18 years old, married to a guy I wasn’t in love with, carrying the boy I’d love forever, dreaming of the daughter I’d make his sister, and getting ready to take my real estate exam because lawschool no longer made sense. And it all worked out juuuuuuust fine.
Proof that God’s plan is bigger and you can do very little to mess with it once you turn your life over to Him. He always makes things good for us.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6
“I don’t know what happened!” “That’s crazy!” “I didn’t notice.” “You should probably talk to _____ about that.” “Huh, that’s weird!” “I have no idea!”
All responses of people pretending and hiding behind their choices when they actually did play the lead role in a bad choice. So is pretending to be stupid a good defense?
Kids do it all the time. Addicts do it. Cheaters do it. And grown folks who want the benefit of your relationship without the consequences of their actions do it.
The problem with it is we WANT to believe people. We truly have a desire to think people act within the model we’ve created for them in our heads. It’s a reasonable expectation to think people will have reasonable explanations.
Some don’t. Some people don’t think about the implications of their behaviors and then wrongly believe you’ll overlook them if they tell you they’re not important or gaslight you into thinking they don’t exist.
So what do we do when this happens? It’s not hard to figure out little Johnny ate all the chocolate before dinner when there’s chocolate all over his face. It’s not hard to see the alcoholic showed up drunk. It’s really not hard to deduce a lot of things that people deny doing, so that’s when you have to rely on your intuition. Trust and also verify.
If it smells like a duck, walks like a duck, looks like a duck, but talks like a pig…it’s just a bilingual duck but it’s still a duck.
I’d tell this little girl she is beautiful, smart, sweet, sassy, and that God loves her bigger than the whole sky. I’d tell her she is going to be a leader, a big sister to 4 amazing humans, have 2 exceptional children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren.
I’d tell her that her parents are her two biggest fans and mentors and her grandparents will always give the best advice and wisdom and to pay attention so she’ll remember. I’d tell her to spend as much time with those people as she could because their love is the biggest.
I’d tell her she is capable of anything, she is strong and resilient, that she has guardian angels who will help her her whole life. I’d tell her to trust her intuition, that those feelings are her superpower of truth just like Wonder Woman’s magic lasso she plays pretend with.
I’d tell her God will bless her with so many wonderful friends she won’t believe it and even more children to love on just like her grandmother and “they will call you Dee from your name like you call your grandmother BJ from hers” and watch her sweet smile get bigger when she imagines that and giggles.
I’d tell her one day she’d have her very own company and one day she’d be the boss just to watch her brown eyes light up and say “Really?” “Yes, baby. Really!”
I’d tell her those ideas she thinks up and dreams she has are real and she should follow them. I’d tell her when she wonders if she can’t do something all it means is she hasn’t figured it out yet, but she will so don’t stop thinking about it. I’d say to her “People will tell you you’re pretty, but you are really, really smart and that’s more important.“ so she never forgets to use her brain as her most valuable tool.
I’d tell her she is something special and I’d tell her that every day. I would breath life into her so she’d never forget her own potential. I would say all the things my parents said to me.
Why don’t we talk to our adult selves every day with the gentleness, promise, and grace we would speak over a child? Why don’t we remember we are God’s child and listen to the way He has always spoken to us? We should.
Chess moves involve multi step thinking, multi tool moves, and past today outcomes. Can you win at checkers with simple moves? Yes, absolutely yes. Can you do the same in chess? Hard no.
So when you think about people and business and why you do what you do and the cause and effect of those moves, you’ve got to think past tomorrow. This is otherwise known as a pyrrhic victory.
Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/ (listen) PIRR-ik) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.
So if your decisions are emotional, short sighted, and long term cause you more harm than good, that’s a net negative. And that’s bad math.
It doesn’t matter if your pride misdirects you or if your ignorance leads you, bad math is bad math. Keep people around you to offer perspective, grounding, and accountability. Having yes people around you is not the way to win at chess. Have people who tell you “that’s short sighted”, “that’s not a good idea”, or “No”. And then listen to and trust them.
“A chaque oiseau, son nid est beau.” Translation “To every bird, its own nest is beautiful.” Little quotes you find in New Orleans years ago that earn meaning with gained perspective.
I’ve been in hundreds, maybe even thousands of homes throughout my career. The one thing I’ve noticed in every price point is the amount of sticks, bricks, and amenities that make up a piece of improved real estate is not what make true happiness for the people who own it.
You can have the same family in a 932 ft2 house and put them in a 9857 ft2 house and the only thing that will change is how far they can spread out. The amount of love they have won’t change, the way they talk to each other won’t change, the consideration for each other won’t change – it’s literally the same family in a different house.
Families change when the people in those families change. So it’s no surprise to me when I walk into a quaint home with a very peaceful feel to it, that I see the pride in its ownership and feel the love in its walls.
It’s no surprise to experience the same thing in a larger house, too. It’s the love in the house that makes a house a home. So no matter how much money you have, no matter how successful you become…the happiness of the place you call home will be tempered by the people you share it with.
And the lack of happiness, too. Love on your people in a way so that they never forget where their home is.
Deeper Than a Puddle 