When it comes to marriage, there are some things you just don’t say…that is if you want a long happy life. Things like: “Gee honey, those jeans really do make you look fat.” “I told my dad there were some things you really could learn from him.” “I don’t think your cooking will be ever be as good as my mom’s.” You just don’t say things like that in a marriage, unless you’re ready to lose both a spouse and a limb.
How well do you adjust to change? Do you embrace it or fight it. Do you find yourself going with the flow or wishing things were like they used to be? It’s been said that the only constant in life is change. So, if you want to learn how to make the most out of life you need to learn how to make the most out of change…because things change.
Question: How do you know if a person needs encouragement? Answer: If they’re breathing. In other words, everyone needs encouragement. Young or old. Rich or poor. Famous or unknown. Introvert or extrovert. If a person is breathing, they need encouragement.
This goes for your spouse. If they’re breathing…and hopefully they are…they need encouragement.
No, this isn’t a post about raising your IQ, as in your intelligence quotient. (I’m not the brightest bulb in the box, so I wouldn’t feel qualified to write about that anyway.) This is about raising your IQ, as in your impact quotient.
We all want to make an impact in this life.
When I was out for a walk the other morning, I found a small Batman action figure facedown in the middle of the road. It had been run over and was scarred and marred. I picked it up and set it to the side of the road so the child who owned it might find it. Then I walked away a little sad. Why?
“Why am I here?” I find myself asking this question a lot. Sometimes, it’s just because I’ve walked into a room and have forgotten what I was there for. But the older I get, the more I’m asking that question on a deeper level. It’s a question that ranks right up there with, “What is the meaning of life?” It’s a question that begs to be answered.
Who doesn’t want to have power and influence? That’s why people rise through the ranks, store up wealth, connect with the right people, and change things around them. It’s a desire to attain some sort of power and influence. That’s not necessarily bad.
But people often overlook the two things that would make them most powerful and influential.
Verbs are action words that gives life to a sentence. Think of the sentence, “Dick and Jane played.” If you take away the verb, all you have is “Dick and Jane.” Without the verb, it’s boring and goes no where.
The same is true of marriage. The right verbs breathe life into a marriage.
Wisdom. Who doesn’t want to be wise? Everyone wants wisdom, especially when there’s an important decision to be made.
So why is it wisdom sometimes eludes us? We can all look back at decisions we made or paths we took and say, “That wasn’t very wise.”
Maybe it’s because we tend to think of wisdom as a natural, innate ability that you either haver or you don’t.
Next time you attend a funeral, listen to the conversations about the deceased. I’m not talking about the carefully crafted, flowery words of the eulogy. I’m talking about the side conversations in the hall ways and outside the building. These are the conversations that reveal who the person was and the impact they had on others.