My wife is always right... Except when I am.

Someone much smarter in the ways of marital harmony told me 5 things to remember when navigating “discussions” with your better half. My wife and I have employed these points, and have really seen the difference in our daily and overall happiness.

1. Be each other’s advocate. Be the spouse that talks highly of the other. It’s an incredible thing when someone wants to give themselves to you, to spend their life with you. Talk about them like you adore them, when you’re in front of them, and when you’re not. Defend them. They will adore you for it.

2. Acknowledge their feelings. This does NOT mean you have to agree with them. Every issue should be treated as “This is how it made me FEEL”, not “This is how it IS”. Too often we take positions of My Fact versus Your Fact…start to think of each situation as My Perception versus Your Perception. They have a right to their opinion, as do you, and it isn’t necessarily RIGHT. Minimally, respect that they have feelings about the situation.

3. Compromise. How hard is it to give in, even just a little? Don’t set your feet in concrete, remember : You are not “right”, you simply have a differing perception.

4. Do something different. Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result? Come at it from a different direction…acknowledge their feelings, soften your stance, try again.

5. Fix the system, don’t abandon the house. When a pipe breaks in your home, do you move? I know, it’s tempting… Don’t bring up divorce like it’s some pebble to toss at the fragile glass of your relationship. Address the system. Return to the steps, over and over, find a different way.

As you can see, the person who told me this is deranged. I am not wrong. Ever. Go forward and do likewise, gents. Be right. At all costs. Then decide on which 40% you want to keep.

Oh, this is gonna hurt...

Look at this kid… he has absolutely no idea what he has in store for me today. No plan, no intentions, just instinct and free will in it’s purest form. He didn’t wake up thinking “how can I drive Daddy to drink today?”, or “I am REALLY gonna pay him back for yesterday…”

He simply is a slave to his instincts, and utterly reactive to his surroundings. And that brings up and interesting point to ponder… maybe If I concentrate a little harder on his surroundings and activities I can illicit a different response?

And then I laugh. You gotta love the ego on me, thinking I could actually control chaos.

Today’s lesson in personal development:
Accept that the fit he throws today is not that bad, for 14 years from now, for some reason unknown to me today, he will tell me he hates me. And 14 years after that, he’ll be sorry for saying it.

Today, though, he loves me. And he loves me so much that I am the one he will want to hold him…while he screams his blessed head off.

Explain Yourself.

This year, I lost two.

Both were good...no, both were unmatched. They had achieved what I could only aspire to be.

Both made choices, and life turned unkind. They may have been flawed, but I never saw it.

Both leave questions, both leave holes.

They gave without knowing, and they are the easiest to depict...kind, gentle, infectious.

And if I had doubts before, they are compounded now by the stories of both.

For the life of me, I can't think how this is a better place now.

And I can't explain why others remain, though they are less, far less, than both.

Where is the sense in taking the best of us?

Why trust lesser beings to find meaning in the irrational?

Because we won't, will we?

If this isn't a clue, then please stand up, and explain yourself.

Steal my identity? You're dumber than I thought!

This week someone chose to steal my identity...I never laughed so hard in my life. Next time do your homework, moron. In fact, for any of you prospective cyber-geniuses out there, next time simply ASK me for a balance sheet and a family tree. If you still think I am the best choice for your life reassignment, have a ball.

Don't hate me because I'm rude...

A dear friend was sad recently, seems someone told her she was rude. She wrote, "apparently, i don't play well with others. i always thought i was just straightforward, but come to find out, i am rude and hurt people's feelings."

Now, I enjoy this woman for the exact reason she has been criticized. Someone who says it like it is should be revered, not chased from the village with torches and pitchforks. Being someone like her who doesn't enjoy deliberately hurting people's feelings, and often feeling compelled to act when I know I HAVE hurt someone, I empathize. But there is a key concept here...deliberate actions. She, nor I, say these things that are taken as hurtful deliberately, but we are still hated for the comment.

Take your neighborhood or family passive-aggressive personality that we all know and detest...we all have one or two lurking about at holiday gatherings, smiling at our hospitality, and then later blogging about their contempt for our lifestyle, child-rearing abilities, poor decorating taste or personal hygiene. One could easily argue that the decision to be passive-aggressive is a conscious and deliberate one, and yet to persecute these people is to kick sand in the face of the weakling. How is my deliberate action of saying what I am thinking worse than you keeping yours for delayed display when I am out of earshot??

Well, guess what...and herein lays the lesson...I could care less.

I will rarely deliberately hurt you. If I do, I am sorry. I said what I thought, I told it like it is, I have that right. Like the Dixie Chicks, sometimes we are all gonna say the wrong thing. Ask yourself, "Was it deliberately hurtful? If not, move on. I have.

Now...the REAL trick is, nobody is allowed to hurt you. Yup, easier said than done, I am aware...but that is the true lesson. We only get hurt because we gave someone the power to hurt us. If you consistently give people the power to sit in judgment over you, you will be hurt.

Square one is...I LIKE me. If you don't, well, each to their own. My mother, my wife, my kids and quite a few friends and family like me quite a bit, so it sounds like you might be missing a big plus in me. Regardless, I'm gonna look for the good in you.

And I'm gonna like you until you give me good reason not to.

So, I'm 40.

During a recent bout with morbid curiosity, I spent some time with a Life Expectancy Calculator, trading facts about my physical and mental past for...a number. A number which absolutely plays into the category of, “If you don’t want to know, seriously, don’t ask.”

So lets have a look at my scoresheet of suspect decision making to-date:

I smoked for roughly 17 years until the pretty girl I was courting said she would never marry a smoker.

I’ve had a weight swing of roughly 40 lbs in the past 20 years, and the swing rarely comes down…that damn gravity…

I spend the better part of my career in traffic, and when you couple that choice with a fairly significant and nagging case of ADD, my odds of a fiery demise are pretty well astronomical as compared to the norm.

And, I love you Mom, but you’re British. Your DNA isn’t gonna do me any favors, nor is Dad’s. Unless…do you want to share any deep dark secret about abducting me from a Russian couple on a yogurt farm outside Vladivostok?

Computing…

72.

As in, holy shyte ........... 72.

Let’s set aside the really emotional stuff for now, like the chance of missing a father-daughter dance, a grand-birth, or leaving my wife so early that she feels she HAS to replace me, and deal with the purely selfish. Time is no longer endless, like it was when I was a kid... you couldn’t move the clock no matter how hard you tried… couldn’t make Santa come but once a year, couldn't stretch summer to feel like it lasted more than a couple of days. Now, especially with kids, time moves exponentially, horrifyingly so.

72 means I’m well past halftime, and I only just realized. And clearly I haven’t been paying attention, and therefore haven’t been planning. Haven't been learning my lessons, haven’t been applying them to avoid the ones to come. If there were ever a time to start to do it “right”, it’s now.

So, at the tender age of 40, I'll call this lesson number one. Get with it, already.