I have always been a firm believer that respect must be earned, not simply guaranteed to anyone. Having said that, I also believe that people sometimes use the wrong term when they are telling people to "be respectful" towards someone. I think in that context, it should be amended to "be courteous".
My issue has always been that I've known FAR too many "adults" that believe kids should always respect them simply because they are adults. These same people, however, don't believe that they need to show that same respect towards kids... that somehow the kids don't deserve the same treatment. I find that to be sad. It's the "kids should be seen not heard" mentality that I never could understand. I wonder if some of that thinking comes from the fact that adults feel kids haven't been around long enough, or gone through enough of life's trials to have earned their respect. But time is not the only factor in whether or not someone should be respected. It's what they do with their time that matters.
I spent two night this week being a judge for Thomas High School Senior Project Presentations. This is the 3rd year I've participated and each night when I come home, it reminds me of why I think kids should be shown their due respect. There are some very intelligent kids out there, with very good ideas and passions around a wide variety of interests. Those kids, when done pursuing their passions, will become amazing contributing members of our society, and that fact should not be overlooked. In reality, most I've seen are already contributing to our local community in ways that many adults have no idea is happening.
Here is a sampling of topics from the presentations I've been able to see in the last two nights...
Volunteering at Hope House, which is a local organization helping those in need with food/clothing/basic needs. The presenter wants to continue with this volunteering even now that the project is over as she was so touched by the people that came in and never realized there was such a need for this kind of help in her own community.
Internship at a company that makes virtual reality gaming, and the presenter is pursuing a career in gaming design.
Project as a Chem Lab Tech for the school pursuing an Chemical Science career.
Internship at a local TV station with passion for the production side of radio/tv.
Internship with an Update NY Congressman, definite pursuit in politics, but the experience made her re-evaluate at what level of politics she wants to pursue.
Internship with an Assistant District Attorney, originally pursuing a career as a DA, but now is adding to her future goals. Based on having met a number of Judges she now hopes to be a Judge after her DA career.
Studying how to write successfully and based on this project, wrote a 45 page fictional story that was accepted as consideration for a final piece in a contest at University of Texas at Austin. If one of the top 10 selected during the final round, would be published. That's huge for someone that just started down this path.
And these were just some of the presentations. All these kids worked all year on their projects, which required a specific amount of out of school hours with their mentors, written proposals and presentations, as well as this final presentation in front of community members for grading. This work was done while juggling their class work, sports, jobs, as well as preparing for their college applications, etc.
While I reflect on my nights of judging their live presentations, I realize that these kids are our future, and I for one, will certainly remember to give them the respect they deserve for all their hard work.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me
The above saying is one that I've heard so many times in my life and have always believed was absolutely true. And upon hearing it again recently, it brought me to my question of the day which follows later in the blog. If you can fool or manipulate me one time, you've done something not many can do because I'm pretty good at reading people and their motives for what they do. However, I can't say it makes you a very good person for even trying to manipulate people and/or situations in the first place. Then, if you can do it to me again, I'm an idiot. And that, I'm not. I catch on REAL fast to people. In my past life, there were those that hated the notion that I was that in tune to my feelings about people. Mostly the people that hated that about me was because they found out in the end that I was right. It just took them a little longer to get to that end game than it did me.
When I say I could sense things pretty quickly, that didn't make me change my behavior towards the person in general. I would always be polite and helpful if I could or the opportunity arose. Where the issue came, was that I couldn't respect them for their deceitful manipulative ways, and I couldn't trust them from then on. Once trust is gone for me, it's gone and almost impossible to regain. If I love a person, I'll give them the best shot, but if they are not someone in my life, but have done something to manipulate me or a situation that I'm involved with, all bets are off. The issue then is that EVERYTHING they do in the future is suspect to me and comes with me believing they are trying to manipulate something again. I will then ALWAYS be on the watch for it so that people I do care about, don't get hurt. The "mama bear" comes out in me for all people I care about.
So, the question is where do you go when you are in a position of highly suspecting that manipulation is happening, but not in a position of speaking openly about it? How do you handle situations that are so fragile that speaking up will only be turned around on you due to the other parties manipulation tactics? It's such a curious dilemma. I try to bring my kids up to be trustful of people, but also hope that they are not so trustful that they don't realize things are happening around them. I've asked them what they would do if they overheard a conversation about someone that the just didn't believe at all... or was outright told something about someone they didn't believe. Would they question the person doing the talking? would they confront the person that was being talked about? Far too often others just overhear and ignore, or worse yet pass the story on... or maybe even worse yet believe it and have it change their minds about someone without all the real facts.
I haven't always been a big believer of confrontation, but based on my life and things that have happened in it, I'm now a big believer of confronting people. If that can help clear up an misunderstanding, then great. I think most people would say "just get rid of those doing it". But what if you can't? What if you can't for fear the retribution will just bring more manipulation? Maybe that's when you have to start believing in Karma. Either way, why can't people just be honest and upfront about their intentions. Let people know exactly what it is they are trying to get out of their manipulations and put it out on the table. It takes great character for people to be honest. I wish more people had that kind of great character.
When I say I could sense things pretty quickly, that didn't make me change my behavior towards the person in general. I would always be polite and helpful if I could or the opportunity arose. Where the issue came, was that I couldn't respect them for their deceitful manipulative ways, and I couldn't trust them from then on. Once trust is gone for me, it's gone and almost impossible to regain. If I love a person, I'll give them the best shot, but if they are not someone in my life, but have done something to manipulate me or a situation that I'm involved with, all bets are off. The issue then is that EVERYTHING they do in the future is suspect to me and comes with me believing they are trying to manipulate something again. I will then ALWAYS be on the watch for it so that people I do care about, don't get hurt. The "mama bear" comes out in me for all people I care about.
So, the question is where do you go when you are in a position of highly suspecting that manipulation is happening, but not in a position of speaking openly about it? How do you handle situations that are so fragile that speaking up will only be turned around on you due to the other parties manipulation tactics? It's such a curious dilemma. I try to bring my kids up to be trustful of people, but also hope that they are not so trustful that they don't realize things are happening around them. I've asked them what they would do if they overheard a conversation about someone that the just didn't believe at all... or was outright told something about someone they didn't believe. Would they question the person doing the talking? would they confront the person that was being talked about? Far too often others just overhear and ignore, or worse yet pass the story on... or maybe even worse yet believe it and have it change their minds about someone without all the real facts.
I haven't always been a big believer of confrontation, but based on my life and things that have happened in it, I'm now a big believer of confronting people. If that can help clear up an misunderstanding, then great. I think most people would say "just get rid of those doing it". But what if you can't? What if you can't for fear the retribution will just bring more manipulation? Maybe that's when you have to start believing in Karma. Either way, why can't people just be honest and upfront about their intentions. Let people know exactly what it is they are trying to get out of their manipulations and put it out on the table. It takes great character for people to be honest. I wish more people had that kind of great character.
Church generalizations and headaches
Wow, has it really been this long since I've blogged anything. Trust me, it's not for lack of interesting events in my life, rather maybe my lack of blogs are in spite of all that's been going on for me. Best not to discuss some of it. But today, I think this is going to be one of my typical "I just don't get it" pieces.
I attended church today and the normal pastor was away. But not to fear, there was a guest speaker that was very entertaining... more about that later. First, there was a very brief mention of the fact that all the churches all over the country were praying together for God's Kingdom and for leadership in this week of National Prayer Day... which is on Thursday for those that don't know already. National Prayer Day in itself was great to hear mentioned as so much has been made lately of the fact that President Obama was trying to abolish National Prayer Day, which is completely false. But I digress.
My issue was not at all that all churches were praying together as I think that's great. The more the merrier. My concern today was with a specific statement that was made by the pastor (again not the normal one) that "our freedoms are slowing slipping away from us and that we need to all pray that our leaders of the country WILL FIND God and come to him for help". My concern isn't that our leaders would know God and have a relationship with him, but that this pastor assumed that they don't already KNOW or have a relationship with Him. The pastor doesn't know if that's the case, and it's generalizations like that, about many topics, that tick me off so much. Forget the fact that preaching about our freedoms being taken away seems like a move out of the fear play book, but I don't like it when people so simply lump people into categories that they don't even know are remotely accurate. I've been lumped with people that "aren't doing their belief correctly" because I don't like the hypocricy of many supposed Christians I've met and have to deal with in my life, when oddly I think the fact that the notion that I hate the hypocricy and intolerance of so many, means I actually do get and live by what Jesus teachings were all about. Anyway, it's just very disappointing for me to hear these kinds of things, and some times, I just need to rant about it.
On the plus side, once I was annoyed, the guest speaker came up. He was a very FUNNY man... and by funny I mean humorous. The kind of speaker that keeps you engaged and caring what he will say next. However, it was all in how he said it that hurt a little. When I say hurt, it wasn't emotionally, it was physically. He had that TV Evangelist voice, but a bit louder and he spoke so quickly it hurt my head to try to keep up with what he was saying. As a little background on me specifically, I'm a bit OCD as many people know. My brain really has trouble staying engaged in only one thing so typically in church, I need to doodle while the sermon is going on. Most people who see that probably think I'm board and don't care what's being said. It's actually quite the opposite. I doodle because it helps me pay attention to what is being said so much easier because it's not the only thing I'm doing... my mind won't wander if I'm engaged in something else at the same time. But today, the guest speaker talked so fast with so much being said, that I couldn't even doodle as I couldn't concentrate on his first sentence before he was into the 3rd on the topic. And it was amusing me that I couldn't keep up. Even my girls were kind of giggling just listening to him ... but it certainly kept them engaged too. Another particular funny part of it that struck me is that my ex-husband used to always say he couldn't fight with me because he couldn't keep up. I could always think of what I needed to say in about 1/2 of a second and he said he couldn't think of things until the next day to reply to them. That's how I was feeling in church today. So, all in all, I was very entertained. I think the message he was giving was good, but I think I missed every 3rd sentence of it. I'd love to get my hands on a tape of the sermon and see if I could play it in slow motion :)
I attended church today and the normal pastor was away. But not to fear, there was a guest speaker that was very entertaining... more about that later. First, there was a very brief mention of the fact that all the churches all over the country were praying together for God's Kingdom and for leadership in this week of National Prayer Day... which is on Thursday for those that don't know already. National Prayer Day in itself was great to hear mentioned as so much has been made lately of the fact that President Obama was trying to abolish National Prayer Day, which is completely false. But I digress.
My issue was not at all that all churches were praying together as I think that's great. The more the merrier. My concern today was with a specific statement that was made by the pastor (again not the normal one) that "our freedoms are slowing slipping away from us and that we need to all pray that our leaders of the country WILL FIND God and come to him for help". My concern isn't that our leaders would know God and have a relationship with him, but that this pastor assumed that they don't already KNOW or have a relationship with Him. The pastor doesn't know if that's the case, and it's generalizations like that, about many topics, that tick me off so much. Forget the fact that preaching about our freedoms being taken away seems like a move out of the fear play book, but I don't like it when people so simply lump people into categories that they don't even know are remotely accurate. I've been lumped with people that "aren't doing their belief correctly" because I don't like the hypocricy of many supposed Christians I've met and have to deal with in my life, when oddly I think the fact that the notion that I hate the hypocricy and intolerance of so many, means I actually do get and live by what Jesus teachings were all about. Anyway, it's just very disappointing for me to hear these kinds of things, and some times, I just need to rant about it.
On the plus side, once I was annoyed, the guest speaker came up. He was a very FUNNY man... and by funny I mean humorous. The kind of speaker that keeps you engaged and caring what he will say next. However, it was all in how he said it that hurt a little. When I say hurt, it wasn't emotionally, it was physically. He had that TV Evangelist voice, but a bit louder and he spoke so quickly it hurt my head to try to keep up with what he was saying. As a little background on me specifically, I'm a bit OCD as many people know. My brain really has trouble staying engaged in only one thing so typically in church, I need to doodle while the sermon is going on. Most people who see that probably think I'm board and don't care what's being said. It's actually quite the opposite. I doodle because it helps me pay attention to what is being said so much easier because it's not the only thing I'm doing... my mind won't wander if I'm engaged in something else at the same time. But today, the guest speaker talked so fast with so much being said, that I couldn't even doodle as I couldn't concentrate on his first sentence before he was into the 3rd on the topic. And it was amusing me that I couldn't keep up. Even my girls were kind of giggling just listening to him ... but it certainly kept them engaged too. Another particular funny part of it that struck me is that my ex-husband used to always say he couldn't fight with me because he couldn't keep up. I could always think of what I needed to say in about 1/2 of a second and he said he couldn't think of things until the next day to reply to them. That's how I was feeling in church today. So, all in all, I was very entertained. I think the message he was giving was good, but I think I missed every 3rd sentence of it. I'd love to get my hands on a tape of the sermon and see if I could play it in slow motion :)
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