Tag: USA

Mid-Life Learning

Mid-Life Learning.  We got to mid-life and became who we are at mid-life, by many things we learned as a child.

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE……

If children live with encouragement, they learn to be confident.

If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.

If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.

If children live with acceptance, they learn to find love in the world.

If children live with recognition, they learn to have a goal.

If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous.

If children live with honesty and fairness, they learn what truth and justice are.

If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those around them.

If children live with friendliness, they learn that the world is a nice place in which to live.  — Dorothy L. Nolte

To teach is to learn twice.  Who will you teach today?  Carpe diem, jeff noel  🙂

PS.  Here’s the full version of her poem.

Mid-Life Gift

Mid-Life gift?

“If you give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm”.  — Bruce Barton

Amen.

I realize that some of you are not parents, and some will never be parents.  Maybe we could be open-minded and creative enough to say, “If you ever give a child a gift, let it be enthusiasm”.

How contagious is enthusiasm?

How contagious is the lack of it?

I rest my case, your honor.

Make it a GREAT day!  Carpe diem, jeff noel  🙂

Outward Bound 1980

Spring break, 1980.  Road trip.

My University offered The Outward Bound School as an alternative to the beach, or home, during spring break.

Here is a profound quote that has stayed with me since.  It was in the Outward Bound handbook each participant received.  Here it is:

.

“You cannot stay on the summit forever.  You have to come down again.  So why bother in the first place?

Just this: 

What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above.

One climbs, one sees.  One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen.

There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up.

What one can no longer see, one can still know”.

.

What does this mean at mid-life?

What we have seen in ours lives can help us move forward with the next part of our lives – the part that descends from mid-life.

What we no longer see, we can at least still know.  What we do with this experience makes all the difference, in my humble opinion.

Carpe diem, jeff noel  🙂

Mid-Life Parenting

I’m a mid-life parent.

My wife and I have been married 26 years and we have an 8-year old son.

This morning we are headed to one of his doctors, a Gastroenterologist.

Just before his 4th birthday, and right after we returned from our summer vacation, we started to notice some unusual physical complications.

We tested him for many things.  Leukemia, IBD, JRA, etc.

A litany of blood tests and x-rays, including a barium x-ray and a full-body scan (45-minute x-ray).  Specialists.  Challenges.  Screaming.  Worry.  Despair.  Hope.  Faith.  Love.

He also had three colonoscopies between his 4th and 5th birthdays.

Anyway, one of the benefits of having a blog is that you can write what you feel, when you feel like it.

I just did.

Hope you have a great Tuesday.  Carpe diem, jeff noel 🙂

Happy Mid-Life Birthday jeff noel

June 8, 1959.

Happy Mid-Life Birthday jeff noel.

Finally.  It’s here.  The Big 5-0.

In everything give thanks.  That’s common wisdom in some circles. Certainly in my circles.

I’m celebrating in many ways, big and small.

Check out Lane 8 for one of the big ways.

And in small ways, I celebrate the start of each day.  Quietly, in the dark, and, on my knees, I begin each day with my three favorite prayers.

“We come to understand the true meaning of our birthday, when we learn to celebrate it everyday”.  —jeff noel