Punk Economics Lesson 4: Irish Referendum Preview

In a poker match, if in 3 minutes you don’t know who the fool is, more than likely it’s you.

How grateful are you?

Issue 79: Nov. 2011   Australian Institute of Management

The new book The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk suggests that today’s smartest businesses have moved forward by looking back to a time when the benefits of saying ‘thank you’ were better understood.

The author explains that a few generations ago a lack of graciousness would have ended the career of a village or local shopkeeper. In the 21st century’s social media driven teenage years negative virtual word of mouth can have the same devastating effect.

Vaynerchuk is not alone in his call for a thank you revival. A number of trendspotters claim gratitude is a wildly under-utilised business tool, one that can inspire both greater workforce productivity and keep customers coming back for more.

Overcoming gratitude deficit disorder

A recent poll on etiquette found five out of every 10 people don’t always say thank you. And herein lies the problem: it’s a fundamental aspect of the human condition that people are hungry for recognition of their efforts, both large and small.

With regard to customer or client service, an array of studies reveals that when thanked customers both spend more money and tell their friends how happy they are about an organisation’s service.

eBay offers a powerful example of gratitude in action. Because eBayers rate each other’s service there is an abundance of gratitude involved in most transactions, something that’s forgotten in many business transactions because there appears to be little incentive to show thanks.

Gratitude is also a smart management tool for organisations of all sizes. Quite simply, it makes employees feel useful and, as a result, more invested in their work. The process also helps the giver of thanks with research showing grateful people are more energetic, optimistic and social.

How grateful are you? Take the test here.

Making gratitude happen

Embedding gratitude within a business won’t happen by ordering staff to thank customers sincerely or broadcasting a series of vague ‘great work team’ platitudes. It’s a process that must be driven from the top down and carefully tailored to each situation.

Of course most managers make an effort to give positive feedback yet this tends to be reserved for ‘above and beyond’ moments only. A better approach, according to this HBR post is to recognise those smaller tasks that help make a company hum.

While hitting the right tone when offering appreciation doesn’t come easily to everyone, the ability to give sincere feedback can be learned. It all starts with some self-reflection in order to build greater empathy for those around us.

According to The Wall Street Journal it’s worth trying out a Buddhist exercise called Naikan, which asks people to ponder daily: What have I received from…? What have I given to…? and What trouble have I caused…?

The pitfalls of an appreciative approach

Building a thank you culture in any organisation has two dangers.

The first is that insincere thank you gestures or praise that is not shared evenly may be met with cynicism. And secondly, gratitude must be part of a clearly articulated strategy that helps to shape the organisation in the long term.

Building a grateful enterprise is not an easy or quick process, but it’s certainly a worthwhile one when you consider the benefits of showing that you fundamentally care about colleagues and clients.

Or as Gary Vaynerchuk puts it:

“There’s only so low you can go on price. There’s only so excellent you can make your product or service. There’s only so far you can stretch your marketing budget. Your heart, though, that’s boundless.”

Tips for implementing a thank you culture

Be specific – general compliments are usually well received but specific feedback is more meaningful

Process driven – rather just mentioning a positive outcome show your gratitude for the process an employee has undertaken to achieve success

Write stuff – a hand written note trumps a verbal or emailed comment as it provides workers with a keepsake of your appreciation

Thank complainers – more than anything else complainers want to be heard, thanking them for their feedback can stop them spreading negative viewpoints

Offer a value-added thank-you – consider different ways of showing thanks, such as sending a colleague a whitepaper or article that’s relevant to them

The once a week rule – set a reminder in your calendar to thank an employee each week to keep up the momentum of your gratitude

Go social – if your business is active in the social media space appreciation is particularly important as customers demand a bespoke peer-to-peer gratitude

Original article here
With thanks to the Fatherhood Foundation!

49 Gratitude Quotes and A Poem of Thankfulness
More here

Numbers 6:24-26  The LORD bless you, and keep you; The LORD make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.’

Philippians 1:3  I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,

Thankfulness

by Martin G. Collins
Forerunner, “Bible Study,”

Published on May 9, 2012 by ThePianoGuys

Adultery is particularly abhorrent to the Almighty – invoking His anger.

Why is Adultery So Bad?

Yitro (Exodus 18-20)

Some years ago a rabbinic colleague of mine in Chicago was giving a class on the Ten Commandments to a secular audience. Not one given to apologetics, he staunchly defended the death penalty the Bible prescribes for adultery. The rabbi argued that society as a whole, even today, would be a much better place if adultery was a capital crime.

Everyone in the class vociferously disagreed, saying that the Biblical punishment was too harsh. Except for one young man who sat there silently. This fellow had suffered through horrible teen years in large part because his father had been involved in an adulterous relationship. When he spoke up, all he said was “I see nothing wrong with the Torah’s penalty.” His words brought the rest of the class – who knew of his background – to immediate silence.

* * *

This week’s Torah portion, Yitro, tells of the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Why did God single out these ten? In analyzing the Decalogue, many commentaries note how the Ten Commandments focus primarily on relationships: between God and man, between man and man, between children and parents. Central, to any successful relationship is fidelity, loyalty. Without that, any relationship is bound to flounder.

Let’s examine some classical commentaries on the commandment prohibiting adultery.

Nachmanides (13th century Spain) describes our relationships as a “ladder of love.” He says that a person must first love himself before he can successfully love his spouse. Then, if he has formed a solid relationship with his spouse, this will help develop his relationship with the Almighty.

The converse, however, can also be true. A man who is disloyal to his spouse will most likely be disloyal to his God as well.

The Midrash Mechilta says this idea is alluded to by the placement of different commandments on the two tablets. The seventh commandment, the prohibition against adultery, appears opposite the second commandment, “Do not have other gods before me.” Suggests the Mechilta, this positioning is not accidental. It is to hint to us that one who is disloyal to one’s spouse will eventually be disloyal to God.

* * *

Another Midrash observes that the Hebrew word for adultery, “tinaf,” can be split into two words, “ten af,” which translates as “giving anger.” The Midrash explains that adultery is an action particularly abhorrent to the Almighty – which particularly invokes His anger. The hallmark of the Jewish People has historically been the stability of family life. One who commits adultery violates and ignores this hallowed tradition.

Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra (12th century), says that adultery also violates the commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself.” Adultery is a grievous sin against one’s neighbour – treating the neighbour in a way that one would not want oneself to be treated.

Maimonides explains adultery in powerful, eternal terms. He says that the entire purpose of creation is to establish “Shalom Bayit” – harmony between husband and wife. The adulterer destroys that harmony and, in the process, undermines the very purpose of creation.

http://www.aish.com/tp/b/app/48948696.html

Related Links

http://niv.scripturetext.com/exodus/20.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitro_%28parsha%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahmanides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekhilta_de-Rabbi_Shimon

http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/a.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_ibn_Ezra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalom_bayit

Hate is not a family value

http://steveblizard.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/hatenotfamilyvalue.jpg?w=300

Original article here

An amazing song

Being trustworthy is about self-alignment and truth. It is the surest way to respect.

By Steve Wickham

High Court Family Judge Sir Paul Coleridge says family breakdown is the ‘scourge of society’

By Melanie Phillips   UK Daily Mail   30 April 2012

At last, a member of the judiciary has broken ranks to warn of a social disaster that has taken place on the courts’ own watch.

Tomorrow, a High Court family judge, Sir Paul Coleridge, will launch a foundation to promote marriage and to warn of the catastrophic consequences of family breakdown.

Britain is blighted by serial divorce and a corresponding erosion of marriage. In 2010, there were some 241,000 marriages in England and Wales, fewer than a century ago, and 120,000 divorces, up by almost 5 per cent on the previous year.

This has gone hand in hand with a galloping increase in elective lone parenthood and cohabitation, whose own high rate of breakdown has poured petrol on to the flames of mass fatherlessness.

An appalling 3.8 million children are now caught up in the entrails of the family justice system, with as many as 320,000 new children each year being sucked in.

Sir Paul does not mince his words. As he so rightly says, family breakdown is the ‘scourge of society’.

Families do not recover from the fundamental shock it administers. Children dragged into such cases may never recover from the emotional upset, and the cost to society of clearing up the mess is calamitous.

Yet as he also says, obtaining a divorce is ‘easier than getting a driving licence’.

People think they can just dispose of a spouse because they fancy someone new or different. And he calls upon couples not to have children unless their relationship is stable — which means not cohabiting but getting married.

How refreshing to hear someone in public life so robustly tell the un-PC truth like this. As a family law specialist barrister for some three decades before becoming a judge in the family courts, Sir Paul has personally stared into the heart of this particular darkness.

So, too, have the other lawyers who have joined him as patrons of his foundation, including Baroness Butler-Sloss, former president of the High Court Family Division, and Baroness Shackleton, who acted for Prince Charles in his divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales.

This is not, however, just a group of people who happen to be particularly knowledgeable about the effects of divorce. The courts and the legal world they represent are directly complicit in this disaster.

Indeed, Sir Paul even likens his own profession to ‘cynical arms dealers’ making a living from weapons of family destruction. All credit to them, therefore, for biting the hand that has fed them.

At the core of this devastating social problem is that what should be regarded as a misfortune to be avoided has become reconfigured as lifestyle choice — one which is immune from criticism.

This has normalised the free-for-all of family breakdown and caused a rising tide of damage and misery for men, women and, above all, children. For more than three decades, lawyers and judges have led the way in bringing about this seismic cultural shift by progressively liberalising the practice of family law.

Judges declared they could not ‘look into people’s souls’ to decide who was actually to blame for the breakdown of a marriage. So the courts in effect decided that no one was to blame.

Marriage breakdown thus became something that just happened, like an act of God; with no one said to be responsible, a principal social constraint on ending a marriage fell away.

As the family law expert Baroness Deech, one of the foundation’s patrons, herself observed many years ago, this liberal approach by the lawyers created a political and legal ratchet effect.

As the restrictions on divorce or fatherless families fell into legal disuse, law reformers and politicians then proceeded to bring the law into line with changing attitudes — and their new laws were in turn liberally interpreted by the courts, creating pressure for further liberalisation.

The institutionally liberal Law Commission recommended one liberalising family measure after another, such as easier divorce, ending the stigma of illegitimacy or establishing equal rights for cohabitants, both gay and straight.

At the same time, New Left thinking about radical and non-judgmental ‘lifestyle choice’ swept through the intelligentsia. One baleful result was that supposedly objective research itself became corrupted.

The truth became not only unsayable but unknowable, as government researchers airbrushed the category of marriage out of official statistics, making it impossible to quantify the effects of different kinds  of relationship.

Academic researchers who tried to tell the truth about the devastating effects of divorce on children found themselves professionally ostracised and at risk of having their grant funding cut.

The actual damage to children from divorce and elective lone parenthood was further masked and minimised by other researchers, who were either consumed by guilt over their abandonment of their own children, or cravenly chose to go with the flow.

Meanwhile, research carried out mainly in the U.S. which produced overwhelming evidence of the relative harm done by family breakdown in virtually every area of children’s lives, was wickedly brushed aside.

Of course, there are many lone parents who do a heroic job against all the odds raising their children well. And there are some situations where it is indeed best for truly warring or abusive couples to part.

But research has shown that most marriages are not broken by such extremes but merely by grumbling dissatisfaction.  And in that kind of situation, it is usually better for the children if the parents stay together.

To which liberals have sneered that staying together ‘for the sake of the children’ is a cruel and heartless doctrine.

But since when was putting the welfare of their children ahead of parents’ own interests considered cruel and heartless? Only since society decided that children were an inconvenient obstacle to the right of parents to live lives of unfettered selfishness.

Now Sir Paul has decided someone has to break through all this lethal nonsense.

This is a move that is not without risks. Judges are not supposed to express their opinions, and his trenchant remarks may well cause some sharp teeth-sucking below the grandest of the wigs.

For sure, the last thing we want is politicised judges. But Sir Paul likens his initiative to a doctor alerting the public to an epidemic he has discovered, in the face of which it would be irresponsible to remain quiet.

Moreover, this is an epidemic for which the courts themselves bear no small measure of responsibility.  Now, aghast at the consequences they see, Sir Paul and his colleagues want to bring everyone to their senses.

The importance of such a statement by such a group is not to be underestimated. But it won’t be enough if politicians refuse to follow their lead.

The Prime Minister has consistently promised to support marriage, and the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is tirelessly trying to reverse the welfare state’s role in accelerating  family breakdown.

But to rescue marriage, you have to criticise and discourage un-marriage, or elective lone parenthood — and that is something Mr Cameron is notably reluctant to do.

Indeed, thanks to the family-wrecking Lib Dems the Government hasn’t even managed to get off the starting blocks in supporting marriage through the tax system.

Too many who should have known better have simply sold the pass on the toll of childhood misery and social harm inflicted by family breakdown.

For evil to triumph, it only needs good men to stay silent. Thank goodness Mr Justice Coleridge has decided he will not be one of them.

Original article here

ARE parents who divorce selfish?

• Bettina Arndt  From: The Australian  26 April, 2012

ARE parents who divorce selfish? This interesting question is on the social agenda in Britain following a provocative article in The Times by social commentator Tim Lott. He explained that whereas previously he had convinced himself that his children wouldn’t want to grow up exposed to an unhappy marriage, he could no longer use that comforting belief to justify the essential selfishness of his divorce.

His experience has taught him children want their parents to stay together in almost all circumstances, apart from when there is physical violence.

This colours his perception of his decision to end his marriage: “I put my psychological self-preservation in front of the welfare of my children.”

There has been a surprising level of support for his stance. The head of an exclusive school spoke out against “self-indulgent” divorcing parents putting their children’s education at risk.

A panel of four prominent writers on Mail Online voiced agreement: “Are those who divorce selfish? Of course they are,” pronounced Fay Weldon. “They think their own happiness is more important than that of their children and the child knows it.”

Many of the most critical voices came from people who had put their children through family break-up, such as writer Neil Lyndon, 57, who claimed that his generation of baby boomers had been, as parents, a “near criminal waste of space”. His remorse is obvious: “When we are in our wheelchairs, we deserve to be pushed into the canal by those children we neglected and abandoned.”

How interesting to see this turnabout, this public self-flagellation from prominent members of the me generation previously captured by platitudes about good divorce being better for children than a bad marriage. So many of us, myself included, came unstuck, as we witnessed the misery of offspring who failed to demonstrate the resilience we were so sure would protect them.

Sydney family law professor Patrick Parkinson, in his recent research paper, For Kids’ Sake, summed up the extensive evidence showing parental separation posed a significant risk factor for children’s long-term emotional wellbeing and educational performance.

“It is almost inevitable that children will experience some loss, emotionally and financially, from parental separation,” he wrote, suggesting that in low-conflict situations it was usually better to stay together for the sake of the children.

It is encouraging, then, to see the statistics showing that married parents seem to have taken this to heart. Since the 1960s there has been a dramatic decrease in the proportion of divorces involving children, from 65 per cent in 1966 to 49 per cent in 2010. That’s the good news. Sadly this positive trend is undermined by increases in the numbers of children born to co-habiting parents, where relationships are less stable than marriages.

Analysis by Lixia Qu from the Australian Institute of Family Studies suggests the almost threefold increase between 1980 and 2006 in the proportion of babies born outside marriage is mainly due to children born to cohabiting couples. A two-year study by Qu and her colleague, Ruth Weston, found these families were three times likelier to break up than married parents.

Is there any point making divorcing parents feel guilty by branding their actions as selfish? Well, it certainly doesn’t hurt to encourage parental responsibility if the drop in divorces involving children can really be attributed to public knowledge about the consequences for kids.

There’ll always be plenty of people keen to let parents off the hook. In the US, there has been a parallel debate with well-known blogger Penelope Trunk (blog. penelopetrunk.com). Last month she posted a similarly tough message, arguing, for instance, that divorce is for dumb people. She says the US divorce rate is plummeting among smart, educated parents; that children hate not having a home and that divorce is the ultimate example of just running away.

Within days the internet was full of people taking her on, such as happiness expert Christine Carter on Huffington Post. Carter suggested the worst situation for kids was to live with distressed parents. Divorcing well takes great maturity and courage, she offered reassuringly.

Such nonsense aside, it’s a plus if parents splitting up assume this isn’t in their children’s interests and it’s up to them to minimise the damage. That means not fighting over the children: using mediation to make child-centred decisions and staying away from the courts; mothers not pushing Dad out of the children’s lives; fathers not wriggling out of child support and committing to caring for their kids.

That means constraints on personal freedoms: not moving kids away from the other parent even if it means missing out on better jobs or family support. And not exposing children to numerous new partners or dragging them through blended families and still further break-ups. Parental guilt may just help them do the right thing.

Bettina Arndt is the author of What Men Want.

Original article here

Divorce is immature and selfish.  Don’t do it.
By Penelope Trunk

Divorce is always on my mind because I got a divorce four years ago. Not that I wanted to. In fact, when I thought we were going to a couples therapist we were actually going to a divorce mediator. And then, when it was clear that we were going to have to get a divorce, and I had all the money to fund it, my lawyer finally said to me, “If you drag your feet any longer, you’re going to have to get a new lawyer because I’m retiring.”

So we got a divorce. I hated it. (And of course, I blogged about it the whole time.) Subsequently I have become a vocal critic of divorce. I think it’s an incredibly lame and selfish route to take. Here are five reasons why:

1. Divorce is a cliche among people in denial. 
I see divorce in every story. For example, as soon as I heard about the school shootings in Chardon, OH, I got stuck on the fact that the kid’s parents had just gotten a divorce and left him with his grandparents. I blame the parents.

Heather Armstrong is a great blogger who I have followed for years. But I’m really stuck on the news that she just announced a separation from her husband.

Armstrong supports her family with her blog, dooce.com, which is about herself, so of course, I watch her really closely. In her post announcing that she had asked her husband to leave, she said the two common, and delusional things we hear from divorced parents all the time:

“I can’t be a good parent if I’m not happy and I’ll never be happy in this marriage.”

and

“The kids are doing so well. Kids are really resilient.”

I’ve heard those things so many times. From parents who are getting a divorce who are full of shit.

The dad who tells everyone he got a divorce because his wife is crazy and then leaves his kids with the mom. Newsflash: if your wife is really crazy, then you are crazy for leaving your kids alone with her. In fact, you are not crazy, you’re willfully negligent. And if your wife is not really crazy then get your butt back to the house and raise your kids like an adult.

The mom who says the kids are fine. What does that mean? Do you know that if you ask kids who are living with a crack addict mom if they are fine, they’ll say yes. They’ll say they want to stay. Because kids are trying to survive.

2. Divorce is nearly always terrible for kids. Your case is not the exception.
Kids do not break down during a divorce because they see their parents breaking down. The kids see that one parent just abandoned them. Of course the kid is not going to have a compete fit and push another parent away in anger. Read The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, which is Judith Wallerstein’s 25-year study of children of divorce. It’s the only study that covers such a long period of time, and she concludes that divorce is absolutely terrible for kids over the long-term. And a wide range of studies have concurred.

It’s completely obvious how Wallerstein gets to her conclusion. Think of it this way: Two parents decide they don’t like living together and they want to start over. They can’t meet their needs by simply living together and making the best of it. They want a new chance, in a new household.

Where does this leave the kids? They don’t get a new chance until they grow up. So now they have to shuttle back and forth between two homes so that their parents can get another chance. Meanwhile, the kids don’t get a second chance at their childhood. And the most damaging thing about divorce is that the kids don’t have a home; to say a kid has two homes is the same as saying the kid has no home. Because a home is your basecamp. If you have two basecamps you don’t have a home.

And anyway, if having two homes really worked, then the parents who are so upset about living together can each have a different home during the day, while the kids are at school, and then come back to their other home. But no one would do that, right? Because having two homes sucks.

3. Divorce is for dumb people.
In case you are thinking that divorce is normal among smart, educated parents, you would be wrong. The divorce rate is plummeting among educated women. For example, among Asian women with a college degree the divorce rate is one percent. Divorce is for people who can’t think ahead enough to realize that the cost to the kids is so high that it’s not worth the benefits the parents get.

4. Divorce reflects mental illness.
I have been reading tons of books about borderline personality disorder and parenting, and I’m surprised that no one has pointed out that the decision to divorce is similar to the decision making process that you get with borderline personality disorder.

For example, a parent with BPD is often unable to separate their own wellbeing from their child’s. The person with BPD is afraid of not being loved and makes all their decisions based on that fear.

So, the person decides they are not receiving proper love in their marriage and then decides that the children would be better off if the marriage were over. The marriage being over is not good for the children. But that is not the issue.

Why do we treat people with BPD as mentally ill and people getting a divorce as adults making adult decisions?

5. Divorce is often a career issue. I can help with that.
So many times I have been coaching someone who thought they need a divorce, but really, the marriage has a career issue. So, look, when there are no kids, I don’t think there’s a lot of collateral damage when two people want a divorce. But maybe I can save a few children’s childhoods by telling you some common problems and how to solve them:

The woman is pissed that her husband hasn’t gotten a good paying job in years.
This type of woman feels overly responsible for taking care of the family. And she feels taken advantage of by the guy because she thinks he could get a job if he wanted to. (This is probably where Heather is coming from since her husband, who has been working on her blog for years, announced he is looking for a job.)

The problem, though, is that the woman married a guy who doesn’t want to have a big career. She knew this before they got married, but she chose to ignore it. There was probably something she liked about him, something she needed from him, that he provided. Now she wants something different.

The solution is to stop being angry at the guy for not getting a job. Remember that the kids love him and remind yourself the reasons you loved him when you married him. Those things are still there. If you get a divorce you are not going to be able to miraculously stop working. So bite the bullet and accept where you are and finish raising the kids.

Bonus: If you start loving your husband again you will probably love your job again because you’ll feel good that the job allows you to create a happy family.

The guy who thinks his wife is holding back his career.
Oh, god, I hear this so many times. The guy is not where he wants to be in his career. He has so many ideas, so many dreams, and he is really unhappy where his is.

The answer here is: tough shit. You had kids before you fulfilled all your career dreams. Unless you are independently wealthy, you have to scale back your dreams when you have kids because you can’t take wild financial risks with your family’s wellbeing.

So you have kids and a wife, and you have to get a reality check that you are not going to be Mark Zuckerberg. It’s okay. Just focus on being a good father and a good husband and stay with your wife and kids.

It is incredibly selfish and immature to decide your kids should have to shuttle between two families so you can take another swing at a home run. It’s time for you to be a good dad. That’s your job now. You owe it to your kids.

Bonus: Once you start taking pride in being a good parent and a good husband, you will have better self-esteem and your career will get better as a result of that.

The person who is bored and wants out.
So many people get divorced because they are bored. This blows my mind. Your kids are not bored with your marriage. Your kids need boring at home in order to have the necessary foundation to fly outside the home. If your kids are focused on creating their own stability bouncing between two parents then the kids can’t focus on figuring out who they are while they grow up. They have to spend their time figuring out who their family is. And that’s not fair to your kids.

A job absolutely 100% cannot make you happy. A happy family can make you happy and it’s possible that nothing else really even comes close to making a person happy.

So instead of messing up your family in order to make yourself happy, keep your family together and use your job to address your boredom problem. A fun job can make your life more interesting. Your spouse is not in your life to make you feel interesting. Your spouse is there to love you and raise your kids with you. Don’t ask for anything else.

If you want to feel more interesting then go do something more interesting. And come home for dinner.

The person who says they are a victim of violence.
Two-thirds of divorces take place in low-conflict homes, and in those cases, the kids are much better off if the parent just stick it out.

So let’s look at high-conflict homes: It takes two people to fight. And there’s great research to show that if you picked an asshole the first time, you’ll pick the same type of asshole the second time. (Which is why divorce rates for second marriages are so much higher than first marriages.) So instead of getting rid of your kids’ parent, figure out why you picked a person like this, and then get good at drawing boundaries.

Really, good boundaries can save even the worse marriages. Taking care of your own contribution to the mess can single-handedly stop the mess.

This is especially true of violence. At this point in the history, where women have so much earning power, women are equally as responsible for men for the violence in a household. In fact, the US Centers for Disease Control reports that most domestic violence today is a 50/50 thing. Both parties are responsible. Which means that even if you have one of the worst marriages, you have the power to fix it.

And if you don’t use that power—if you don’t fundamentally change how you are in the marriage in order to stop the craziness, then you will not only recreate it in your next relationship, but you will continue to model it for your kids.

So look, I don’t see any reason left that makes divorce ok when there are kids. Personal responsibility always trumps running away. And yes, here are the links to my own marital violence and my decison to stay and fix it. I’m practicing what I preach.

I’m working really hard at keeping my own marriage together. It’s a cold, lonely place to be in life. But it’s better than the alternative.

Because divorce is the ultimate example of just running away. And, while your kids probably will not pull out a gun in the school cafeteria, long-term sadness and a lingering inability to connect to other people is an irrefutable result of divorce. It’s something that you can prevent.

Original article here

A new study finds that a toddler's temperament can predict his or her risk of later developing addictive behaviours like problem gambling or drug abuse.

By Maia Szalavitz | @maiasz | 26 April, 2012   Time Magazine

Children’s behavior at age 3 offers some surprising clues about their risk of developing addictive behaviors like problem gambling or drug misuse in their 30s, according to data from an ongoing study of nearly 1,000 people in New Zealand.

The research, which has so far tracked participants’ psychological, economic and intellectual life course from birth to age 32, involves virtually all of the children born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between April 1972 and March 1973.

The new analysis, which was published in Psychological Science, found that children whose temperament was deemed “undercontrolled” at age three were more than twice as likely as well-adjusted kids to have problems with gambling at age 21 and 32.  About 10% of the children exhibited this type of temperament at that age, which involves a lack of self control, including rapidly shifting emotions, impulsive and willful behaviour and relatively high levels of negative feelings.

The association held true even after controlling for factors like IQ, gender and socioeconomic status. And when these children were assessed as adults, they still rated high on feelings of alienation and continued to express high levels of negative emotion. They also tended to be less conscientious and less socially agreeable than their peers.

(MORE: The Key to Health, Wealth and Success: Self-Control)

Long-term studies like the Dunedin project are critical for sussing out the roots of addiction. A key question that has long plagued addiction researchers is: Do factors like problem drug-taking or gambling lead to impulsive behaviour — and depression — or are people who start out feeling low and acting impulsively more vulnerable to getting hooked?

“This can help to tease apart chicken-and-egg-type questions — that is, which came first,” says Wendy Slutske, professor of psychological science at the University of Missouri and the lead author of the study. “In this case, we have firmly established that undercontrolled temperament comes before any involvement in gambling. This is an important piece of the puzzle in developing a theory of the development of problem gambling.”

Howard Shaffer, director of the division on addiction at Harvard Medical School, who specializes in problem gambling and was not associated with the study, described the study as an “important contribution to the field.”

“There are few longitudinal studies,” Shaffer says, “and, in addition to providing a longitudinal study, this research extends the opportunity to examine predictors downward to a very young age. This research also is important because it begins to clarify the nature of the many important non-gambling variables that contribute to excessive and disordered gambling.”

(MORE: Mind over Mind? Decision Fatigue Saps Willpower — if We Let It)

Researchers aren’t yet sure why the undercontrolled temperament is linked with addictive behaviour. Some people with this temperament may enjoy gambling because it allows them to escape from their elevated levels of negative emotions; others may simply be at higher risk because of their reduced impulse control. Both factors combined would be riskiest of all.

Slutske notes some additional explanations: “One possibility is that there are genetic factors that are related to both low self-control and gambling or problem gambling. Another possibility is that children who are low in emotional and behavioural control tend to associate with other undercontrolled children who introduce them to gambling activities.”

Once an individual develops a gambling habit, Slutske says, their low emotional and behavioural control may lead to worse decision-making while gambling, or losing control during a gambling session, which may in turn lead to gambling problems.

Gambling isn’t the only addiction risk associated with the undercontrolled temperament. An earlier analysis of the Dunedin population found that children with the most undercontrolled behaviour at ages 3 and 5 had more than three times the risk of becoming addicted to multiple drugs as young adults, compared with those who had exhibited the highest levels of self-control.

The findings underline the idea that some people are innately more vulnerable to addictions than others — not because they seek extra pleasure, but because they have a pre-existing excess of negative emotions and an inability to control them.

(MORE: Can Food Really Be Addictive? Yes, Says National Drug Expert)

The research also highlights an often-overlooked truth about addiction: it is not simply the result of exposure to an addictive substance. “This study reminds us that exposure to gambling is insufficient to explain the emergence of gambling disorders. Disordered gambling requires a relationship between gambling and gamblers who have certain characteristics,” says Shaffer. “This is not to say that some people absent these traits might not become disordered gamblers or that all people with these characteristics will become disordered gamblers, but there is an important association beginning to emerge from longitudinal research.”

Indeed, an earlier longitudinal study in California suggested the same kinds of associations, finding that preschool children who had less impulse control and higher levels of emotional distress were more likely to develop drug problems later. Interestingly, in that study, the healthiest preschoolers were not the ones who ended up abstaining from all drug use — in fact, abstainers showed high anxiety and poor social skills from the start. Instead, the youth who had the best behaviour as preschoolers turned out to use marijuana moderately in adolescence, but did not have difficulty controlling their use.

The New Zealand and California studies add to the increasing scientific evidence that addiction is not the result only of drug use or experience with activities like gambling, but rather that the minority of people who do become addicted overwhelmingly have pre-existing problems. At least half of addicted people have another mental illness, such as depression or an anxiety disorder, and these data suggest that those conditions or the temperaments that predispose people to them are key contributors to the addiction.

This means that treatment for gambling or substance problems cannot focus solely on the addictive behaviour. “Clinicians must address the full spectrum of issues that tend to cluster with disordered gambling. It is not enough to focus exclusively on gambling activities. Key player attributes will need attention as well,” says Shaffer.

(MORE: Is Twitter Really More Addictive than Alcohol? The Vagaries of Will and Desire)

Slutske cautions, however, that it is by no means inevitable that undercontrolled children will develop gambling problems or addictions. “Although it is remarkable that one can predict whether one will develop a gambling problem in adulthood from a 90-minute observational assessment at age 3, it is also important to understand that an undercontrolled 3-year-old is not doomed to become an adult problem gambler,” she says. “They are just at increased risk. This means that there were many undercontrolled children — in fact, the majority — who did not have any gambling problems as adults.”

Nonetheless, another implication of the research is that targeting self-control — rather than particular substances or activities — might also be an important part of prevention. Interestingly, many undercontrolled children “outgrew” their self-control problems over time, and learned to rein in their impulses as well as their peers who showed earlier mastery.

“I think an important observation about self-control is that it is much less stable than other traits, such as intelligence,” says study co-author Avshalom Caspi, professor of neuroscience at Duke University. Noting that a correlation cannot be larger than 1.0 — which in this case refers to a factor in childhood being the same in adulthood 100% of the time — Caspi explains that the stability of IQ from childhood to adulthood is around 0.8, while the stability of personality traits like self-control is far lower, at 0.3.

“This tells us that over the course of life, there is quite a bit of change in self-control, and perhaps that potential for change can be harnessed more deliberately by people,” he says.

MORE: Instant Gratification: If Obesity Reflects Poor Long-Term Thinking, Why Isn’t Joel Stein Fat?

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer for TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland‘s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

Original article here

The Ancient Paths – Chapter 1

Craig Hill     Family Foundations

Consequently, important spiritual, emotional, financial, family, and health needs seem to go unmet day after day.  As a result, as verse 13 tells us, we become very self-focused and greedy after gain.  When his/her needs go unmet, a person tends to become selfish and greedy.  It is impossible to tell a drowning man not to be so greedy for air, or a starving man not to steal for food.  As verse 13 tells us, greed and deceit are bound to operate when crucial needs go unmet.

Full chapter here

http://69.15.88.51/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=151

How do you recognize abusive leadership?

When You Should Flee Your Church
Trevin Wax  The Gospel Coalition

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the response I’d received from my article in Tabletalk - “Not So Fast” - which basically encourages most people to stay with their congregation during a difficult church situation rather than flee. Based on the notes I’ve gotten, some have misunderstood my suggestion not to be hasty in leaving a church (hence the title “Not So Fast”) as a hard, fast rule against ever leaving a church, no matter what happens.

Then Jonathan helpfully points out some examples of abusive leadership:

How do you recognize abusive leadership? Paul requires two witnesses for a charge to be leveled against an elder (1 Tim. 5:19), probably because he knows that leaders will be charged with infelicities more than others, often unfairly. That said, abusive churches and Christian leaders characteristically

• Make dogmatic prescriptions in places where Scripture is silent.
• Rely on intelligence, humor, charm, guilt, emotions, or threats rather than on God’s Word and prayer (see Acts 6:4).
• Play favourites.
• Punish those who disagree.
• Employ extreme forms of communication (tempers, silent treatment).
• Recommend courses of action that always, somehow, improve the leader’s own situation, even at the expense of others.
• Speak often and quickly.
• Seldom do good deeds in secret.
• Seldom encourage.
• Seldom give the benefit of the doubt.
• Emphasize outward conformity, rather than repentance of heart.
• Preach, counsel, disciple, and oversee the church with lips that fail to ground everything in what Christ has done in the gospel and to give glory to God.Original article here

Shame Based

Research indicates that this type of leader may have been affected by shame at some point during their childhood.  Due to it’s deep rooted nature, shame is not easily detected, so most do not realise they have been personally impacted.  Shame is not guilt.  One key to identifying shame is when behavioural signs of narcissistic personality disorder are displayed.  Narcissism appears to be an inbuilt defense to cope with shame.   Theologically, this can be linked to idolatry.  This is not healthy, if unaddressed long term.  The good news is that this situation is not unredeemable, as confession of the idolatry will bring change and healing in the life of the leader.  James 5:16,  1 John 1:9   Psalms 100:5

Disease Within The Church – Spiritual Narcissism

First, let me say that the title of this piece deals with each one of us as individuals, and individuals within the church; however, we are all members of the body of Christ, and as such what affects one of us, affects us all.  Paul addressed the subject matter here to the Church in Galatia, and some of us have learned very little about grace in over 2000 years.

The need for justification starts in us as small children–we learn to do things looking for the validation of our parents and our peers. As we grow older, many of the dire circumstances and tragedies in our lives come from a feeling of not being justified by our job, friends, peers, and spouses. We seek validation, or the “stamp of approval”, in our lives.  We all long for it, and many times when we do not receive it, we become angry and bitter, but such is not the case in Christ.

In life we are constantly working hard looking for a passing grade for our lives. We see it in self-help books, seminars, and programs, but when it comes to our salvation, there is nothing we can do to add to what Jesus has already done for us.  There are many of us within the Body of Christ who think that things are riding on our own abilities.  We look to our own activities with God to work out our salvation. This leads to what I call “Spiritual Narcissism”.  Let me explain it like this–if we acknowledge what God has done in Christ Jesus for our salvation, and think that we can add to grace by the things which we can do, this is “Spiritual Narcissism”. There is nothing we can add to that which has already been done.

Paul explains it in Galatians 3:3 How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?

What Paul is saying here is–don’t be fools, quit acting crazy. For only a crazy person would think they could complete their own salvation by their own efforts because it was already done by God. If you weren’t smart enough, strong enough, or righteousness enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it now? The only righteousness we have is in Christ Jesus. It is only God’s amazing grace that gets us in–no matter how hard we try by our own blood, sweat and tears–nothing we do keeps us in, perfects us, or makes us pleasing in the sight of God. It is the enemy that wants us to think that we must do things to be closer to God, and “earn” our salvation. It is this thinking that leads many astray with cults and false religions. Spiritual Narcissism at its core is based on our own efforts and activities as a way keep us pleasing in God’s sight–not true.

Today’s modern church is full of activity. Many seem to think that the busier they are filling their lives with activities and doing things for God will keep them in His good graces. Again, not true. Our value to God is not connected by how much we accomplish for Him, or do for Him. Many of us do these things looking for justification, validation, or a stamp of approval from God, but these things are of no value to God for our righteousness, as our righteousness is found in Christ Jesus alone, in the grace that He provides freely.

Much of our own self-worth and identity comes by what we can carry out. I myself have faced this in my own life. But in grace there is nothing we can do to add one iota to the sacrifice of Jesus. There is nothing–no matter how pious our efforts–that we can do to add anything to our salvation.

If you hear, Jesus paid it all, but you need to do . . . that is a lie of the enemy. Jesus paid it all–Period!

The underlying sin of all sins is that we as the redeemed cannot trust the grace which was poured out for us at Calvary, and we think that we must help our own cause by taking matters into our own hands and do things to earn our justification from God. That is “Spiritual Narcissism”–thinking that we can add anything at all to grace. Many times we look at ourselves as disappointments and failures and think that we must get things done by own efforts, by our own hands. This is thinking outside of grace, and it is wrong. This kind of lie from the enemy enslaves, making us try to perform and accomplish those things which cannot save or redeem, as only Christ is our salvation. He alone is our Redeemer.

Understanding who we are in Christ will guide our lives to be at peace with the grace which has been given unto us. We need not look at who we used to be, who we are now, or even who we will be in the future as a result of our own efforts. It is not about looking inward, it is about looking outward, looking to Christ and His finished work alone–He paid it all.  God does not keep score.  In Christ it is done.  Finished.  Over.  We are justified, validated, and given God’s stamp of approval by the blood of our Savior Jesus.  Jesus paid it all, while we were yet sinners, Jesus died for all of us.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God

On a personal note-  I am one of the ones who many times in life thought I had to do something proactive to help validate my salvation. As grey now sets into my temples, I have now comfortably settled into His grace . . . Darrell

Original article here

I NEED YOU TO BE MY IDENTITY by Kutless [music video]