Self-Improvement

When you look back on the history of this great nation, it was built by people who also wanted self-improvement but self-improvement was defined very differently then. Today we have so much that self-improvement is defined as attaining more or being better. In years past, self-improvement was defined not as the attainment of things but the opportunity to better yourself through work and sacrifice. For many years people sought personal fulfillment through work and through the labor necessary to survive.

As I listen to educators tell me about their daily trials, one said something that really struck me. “We just need our kids and our teachers to remember what it meant to be nice.” Nice is a simple sounding concept and in fact it’s a pejorative in some athletic circles that deride niceness as term of weakness. But that wasn’t the nice she was speaking of.

There are just too many people in this world for anyone to have to feel alone. Maybe we can take being nice, add listening to it and make loneliness a lot less consuming.

It is so hard to believe that Thanksgiving is upon us. Even though the weather turned cold and the days have definitely gotten shorter, it just hasn’t quite felt like the holiday season yet. But I am not worried. Between long-basting a ham and the smell of stuffing and turkey and pies and the sound of football and family – the holidays are almost here.