Dance with the one who brought you

There’s something about when you owe something to someone, where it’s admirable when you repay their loyalty in kind. I think much of our culture has operated that way for a long time, even though it’s gotten to be less the case. It’s something of an old maxim when you repay a debt of loyalty by saying you ‘dance with the one who brought you’.

What that saying really means is that you don’t forget the people who have helped you along the way. It may be parents, friends, or siblings who have helped you get to where you are today. Those people who have made a sacrifice, or stepped out on a limb, to help you along the way. The most obvious example to me would be a business partner who was instrumental in helping you build an enterprise into a successful venture. If someone partnered with you in that way, and was a loyal friend along the way, you want to make sure that you don’t forget them regardless of the circumstances. That’s where the old saying, ‘Dance with the one who brought you’, comes into play. Unfortunately, it can sometimes be the case, especially when money is involved, that one of the two parties forgets the other’s involvement in their own success. It can be due to pride, or just willful ignorance, but they just don’t see all that the other person has brought to the table. And it can often be the case that that happens when money is involved.
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It’s unfortunate when it happens. You would think if anyone would appreciate someone’s involvement in their own personal success, it would be the person the closest to their success that would be able to see it. But sometimes our blindest spots are the ones right in front of us. Maybe it’s an over-emphasis on the negatives of the other person. That can easily happen. It’s easy to allow someone’s faults to overshadow the overall good qualities they possess. Maybe it’s an overemphasis on your own greatness. You get to be so big and you end up thinking that it was all you that did it anyway. You didn’t really need that other person to get to where you are. Maybe you just start to look at them as a charity case, and you were the benevolent party to even allow them to come along for the ride.

Whatever the reason, our judgement of another’s contributions can easily get clouded by an inaccurate view of things. Try as hard as we might, our own perspective can sometimes be the least objective. That’s why it’s important to remember the ones who have helped us along the way. We do that by including them in the process. And we do that by making sure they know they are appreciated. Whether it’s a business partnership or a marriage…..remember, that person made an investment in you because they saw something they believed in. And that shouldn’t be forgotten along the way.

…Let’s go deeper

WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Distortion)

Much of what we hear has to be judged and discerned with our own ears and minds. We have many different sources for information—some of them reliable, and some of them not as much. Usually, regardless of the source, we have to decide to believe what we’re hearing, or how much of it to believe. This can be a difficult thing. It’s especially difficult when the source may be deliberately trying to be deceptive. And that can be the case sometimes.

If you’ll remember in the big dust-up to the Iraq war around 15 years ago, there was a lot of talk about things like WMD’s—buzzwords like that were going around that indicated the need for a military presence in Iraq. In that instance, WMD’s stood for ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. Scary words, for sure. But I think there are even scarier words. I call them ‘Weapons of Mass Distortion’. I think the reason they are even scarier is because they can come from almost any source, and they can be so covert that they are extremely difficult to recognize. The distortion of facts can be the easiest way for someone to give a compelling argument for a case that’s full of holes. And sometimes that’s all it takes to distort a case—just ignore the parts that are full of holes.

This can happen on a personal level. We may have people in our own immediate circles that try to present us with a biased version of the facts. And these can sometimes be the most compelling arguments. If it’s from a friend, we have a natural tendency to want to believe them. I mean, why would they lie to us, right? Well, they may not be lying to us. They might actually believe it, but it’s just that they have been lied to themselves.
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On the largest scale, we have our different media sources to choose from. Some better than others. And I believe some do their level best to present the facts as they are. Others have a bias that runs as an undercurrent in everything they report. And others don’t even try to hide their bias. They just tell you straight-up from what perspective they are presenting things. Frankly, sometimes these are the easiest sources to get your news from. Since you know what bias already exists, you don’t have to figure it out for yourself.

But the difficult things is, at the end of the day, each one of us has to individually discern, on our own, what the truth is. The truth doesn’t always just come out and slap us in the face. It’s usually something that has to be dug up vs. something that falls in our laps. That’s why being aware of distortions is so paramount. The good news is that the more familiar we become with the truth, the more easily we can spot a lie. But it’s not always a bald-faced lie that we’re dealing with, sometimes it’s just a distortion of the truth.

…Let’s go deeper

You make an investment, you expect results

Ask any investor—any real investor—they’ll tell you they expect to receive a return on their investment. When they go through the trouble and risk of putting down capital on a venture of any kind, they want to be rewarded for their risk. And it’s in that space of stepping out into unknown territory where the possibility of a return is realized.

In the realm of finance and investment expertise, there’s a wide range of advice to be given. It can become this confusing space where, in the multitude of options, clarity is lost. But this principle is always in effect: you want the greatest reward for the least amount of risk. It’s a happy medium like anything else. Advisors will tell you that when you’re young you can afford to take on more risk, because if an investment does go bad, you still have time to make up for it. Older investors, however, are advised to take minimal amounts of risk since the commodity of time is not on their side. The thinking is that if they get wiped out in their later years, they won’t have time to recover their loss. Good advice.

Regardless of any other factors at play, there’s always one thing that’s true of investors: no one ever expects to lose money on their investment. They always want to get something back for what they put in. In fact, they don’t want to just get back what they put in. That would just be a cookie jar fund. They expect to receive what they put in plus a return on that investment. That’s just as basic as it gets.
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Should an investor feel guilty for that? No, that’s what investing is for. It’s a relationship of mutual benefit for both parties. The company or person receiving the influx of cash is thankful to have the working capital in order to grow and conduct business. And the investor is thankful to receive a return for the use of that cash. It’s not gambling, it’s investing. Gambling is Win-Lose, but investing is Win-Win. This is really a principle on which so much of an economy is based. It’s a principle of growth, a principle of expansion, a principle of producing a fruitful environment. And economies are either doing one of two things: they are either expanding, or they are contracting. Expanding is better.

The question in any investment advice isn’t whether you should invest, it’s just a matter of what you should invest in. The idea of investment, itself, is a given. We just decide on what we are going to invest in. We decide on those things we see value in and then move on that idea with our resources. Sometimes our society has cast the world of finance with a negative connotation. It’s seen as a world of greed, or avarice. And it can be that. But it doesn’t have to be. It’s not meant to be a world of greed, it’s just meant to be a world of expectation.

…Let’s go deeper

The global pandemic of cognitive dissonance

Have you heard the term ‘cognitive dissonance’ before? It’s really the state of living where your life doesn’t line up with your stated beliefs. I’ve thought how that isn’t really limited to one area of the world. It’s really worldwide amongst the human race. If you think about it like a disease, it’s spread throughout the world. And as far as diseases go, it’s really a global killer.

Now, when I say global killer, I don’t mean that literally. People don’t usually die because they are living an inconsistent life. But what I do mean is that it’s killing a lot of people in terms of their potential, their aspirations, and just the direction their life is headed. What we don’t intentionally do to ourselves, we often do to ourselves through neglect and a lack of understanding of our life’s inconsistencies. We shoot ourselves in the foot, in other words. There is a disconnect between what we say we believe and what we really believe. One easy way to tell what we really believe is just by watching our everyday lives. What we actually believe is what we are living out on a day-to-day basis. Of course, we usually like to say we believe some things just because they sound good. For instance, we can say we believe in the values of diet and exercise, but our sedentary lifestyle in addition to our pantry full of potato chips and soda pop belies our claim. Opening the door and letting its contents fall out onto the floor reveals the truth. We’re busted. It is here where we are caught in cognitive dissonance.

That’s not a comfortable feeling. It’s really an area of unbalance in our lives. There is this tension between our actions and what we say. And even though it makes us feel uncomfortable, we live in this state for long periods of time—-this state of cognitive dissonance. We can even live in this state for most of our lives. What makes it so dangerous is that it’s so covert. What also makes it so dangerous is that no one is immune to this state of being. That’s why it’s so widespread. We are all susceptible to this plague.
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But our recognition of this state of being can help us to recognize when it’s happening in us. It can help us to recognize it in others so that we don’t develop that behavior ourselves. We might think, “I don’t want to become like that.” So, we start to examine areas of our lives where are inconsistent. The best cure for this disease is prevention. Prevention is done through self-examination. It means becoming more self-aware—being objective about ourselves. Through this objective analysis, even when a problem is discovered, getting our actions in line with our words will kill the disease at its root. It can never become a life-threatening illness because now our words are perfectly in line with our actions.

…Let’s go deeper

I’m OK, you’re OK…wait, maybe we’re missing the point

It’s OK to build up someone’s self-esteem, but it’s not good to do that at the expense of the facts. That’s sometimes what we do when we try to make people feel better about themselves. This is what can happen when we go to therapists or use some kind of self-help. The effort is to get someone to feel comfortable and feel free to divest themselves of their problems. The problem comes, though, when we make them so comfortable to talk about their problems that we end up making them feel like they don’t have any.

The reality is, we have a boatload of problems. Maybe that’s the one thing we all have in common. We’re not OK, and that’s the point. The ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ mantra was only meant to subvert the fact that we really aren’t ‘OK’. If my therapist told me that, I think I would be quick to say, “But I’m not OK. If I were, I wouldn’t need to be sitting here talking to you.”

The point is, we can help people feel comfortable and let them know they have a safe environment to talk about themselves, while at the same time calling them to get better—to be better. It’s OK to accept people where they are, it’s just not OK to let them stay that way. You could say that a friend loves you just the way you are, but maybe a true friend loves you too much to let you stay that way. We tend to think that if we are really friends with people then there shouldn’t be any confrontation or conflict—ever. However, there are times that if we are going to call people to a higher level, it’s going to require some uncomfortable conversations.
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Done in the right way, it doesn’t have to become a ‘fisticuffs’ situation. Because sometimes it can become this verbally even if it isn’t always physically. Our advice can sometimes be the verbal equivalent of punching someone in the face, and kicking them in the gut, and then we say in conclusion, “Feel better, my friend.” Not too helpful. You can still get your point across while taking off some of the rough edges. Words can wound as much as anything.

While we may not be OK as we are, we all have the goal of getting to that point. It takes each of us varying amounts of time to get there. And we all have different backgrounds, so that makes this more complex than any of us realize. We don’t have to be offensive to get through to someone, but we don’t have to live in a land of pretend like nothing’s wrong, either. There’s a middle ground where we can call people to a higher level, while not condemning them for where they are. Everybody has to start from somewhere. And all of us have to start from where we’re at right now.

…Let’s go deeper

 

The value of patience

Standing in line to order coffee at the local coffee shop, I was flanked on my right side by a young father and his 2 year-old son. He had just filled up the large-sized dish with some frozen yogurt and was waiting to pay. I watched as the young boy stood reaching for the not-yet-paid-for prize being held in his father’s hands, letting out small cries of anticipation. The father finally yielded and let his son hold the dish in his hands. He further bargained and said, “You can hold it, but you can’t eat any yet.” The young boy held the dish, which in his hands looked the size of a popcorn bowl. Being prepared to relinquish my spot (since I was next in line), when the girl behind the counter attempted to take my order, I gestured to this father and son pair and said, “Oh, you can help them first.” The young dad said, “Thank you, sir.” I responded, referring to his son, “He looked like he was in a hurry.” “Well, yeah. I would be too”, he answered jokingly. Continuing on, after this brief interlude, I proceeded to let the clerk take my order.

This small addition to my wait in line wasn’t really that big a deal to me. I wasn’t in a big hurry. Now, do I deserve a gold star for this—some kind of medal, perhaps? Certainly not. Although, I would have settled for a free cookie from the clerk. But none was offered (sigh).

Why did I do this? Well, I could tell that waiting, at that moment, was a much bigger deal to that 2 year-old than it was to me. At his age, he hadn’t yet learned the value of patience—and isn’t expected to. It comes later, bit by bit, a little at a time. I knew he would get a greater deal of gratification in receiving his item first than I would in receiving my coffee. After all, how could I stand in the way of a 2-year old and his FroYo?
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I also watched, during this time, how the barista was frantically working behind the counter to make three separate drinks for the previous group of customers. She was working by herself, so she had a lot to handle. I guess I felt some compassion for her as well. I didn’t want to appear to be just another impatient customer in line, only adding to the pressure she had on her. So, I guess my kind gesture really had a two-fold purpose.

What I’ve learned in my life, so far, is that trampling over the flower bed to get to my destination isn’t always the best way to go. The flowers are there for a reason. They’re meant to be enjoyed. Just like life—it’s meant to be enjoyed. And it’s hard to do that when you’re always in a hurry. Something that this young boy will learn himself someday. But he doesn’t have to learn it today. Until then, he can happily enjoy his FroYo.

…Let’s go deeper

 

Evil isn’t the opposite of good, it’s the absence of it

We often get the wrong idea about good and evil. We think that they are these two opposing forces caught in this epic struggle, battling back and forth. The reality is, there’s more to it than that. Much of what we see represented as good and evil today in movies, the media, and culture at large show this battle between equal but opposing forces. The most blatant example would probably be comic book and super hero-themed movies. But what’s the accurate view of good and evil?

The most basic way to say it is this: “Evil isn’t the opposite of good, it’s the absence of it.” See, we don’t need to deliberately choose evil, we just need to stop choosing what is good. The evil will creep in on its own. We can see this being played out every day. We see it in legislation proposed and passed by our lawmakers. Instead of choosing the law that stands for right, we choose a law that allows just a little bit of what’s not right. Instead of standing for what is right, we start to waver and bend to allow what only seems right. Instead of embracing the good, we start to question the good.

How does this play out in our personal lives? Well, it sneaks in bit by bit. We don’t actively go looking for outright evil. We start by letting in some things that are ‘on the fence’. We think, “This isn’t really good, but it isn’t so bad.” ‘On the fence’ is only where it starts. Give it enough time and you’ll be on the other side of the fence. And give it even more time, unless the encroachment into the darkness is halted, you’ll find yourself so deep in into it that you can’t even see the fence anymore.
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Morals erode over time. It’s not an overnight thing. It’s a slow fade to black. We see it when good people, good influences, and good principles are removed from any situation. See, if you don’t understand how the darkness works, it can so easily creep into your life. Here’s the simplest and best illustration for good and evil. They operate just like light and dark. When you are entering a dark room and you turn on the light, the darkness recedes. It’s the presence of the light that causes the darkness to be expelled. When the light is there, the darkness can’t remain. It has to flee. It’s no match for the light. But all that is needed for the darkness to come back is for someone to turn out the light.

Can we find our way back? Yes. That’s the good news. If we’ve allowed some things in our lives that we shouldn’t, we still have the ability to choose. We can make changes to start to choose what is right. But mostly, we can make changes to start to pursue the one that is right.

…Let’s go deeper

Change your thinking, change your life

The direction of our lives will inevitably go in the direction of our most predominate thoughts—an obvious, even undeniable truth, but still one that we tend to miss. We sometimes aren’t ignoring our problem areas, they are ever present in our minds every day. The difference is in the way we address those things. Many times our problem area is a problem area because we are looking to the problem for our solution. So, it’s not that we aren’t thinking about it, we’re just thinking about it in the wrong way.

The first step to examine our thinking is to examine what we’re thinking and ‘why’. Regardless of how obvious this seems, we still don’t do it much of the time. But the more we examine these things, the more the truth comes out. It’s not as elusive as it seems. It’s not rocket science, but we seem to make it into rocket science. Don’t complicate what was meant to be simple in the first place. What we subconsciously know sometimes has to be brought to the surface by active thinking. It’s kind of like digging for gold in a location where you know it’s located. You know it’s there, but you still have to do the digging.

Sometimes we need help with this. And that’s OK. We can go to counselors that will help illuminate some of the things we’re not seeing. In that case, they’re just a partner in the digging. In this case, you’re just saying, “I’m looking for some gold. Here, grab a shovel.” Some well-trained counselors are good at asking the right questions that can help us to get to the heart of the issue. Those things that have become problem areas in our lives aren’t really the problem. Usually they are just a symptom of a much bigger problem. It’s a peripheral effect of an abstruse cause. When properly pursued we can usually come to the point where we have an ‘ah ha’ moment. What once was obscure has now become so clear.
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Friends can also be valuable resources in these things. What we can’t see about ourselves they might be able to see about us. And that’s because they know us well enough to see it. Close friends not only have the advantage of perspective, but inside knowledge as well. If we can convince them to be objectively honest with us, it can yield some productive results.

Ultimately, once we come to an understanding of the root cause of our problems, we then need to take the next step of actively changing our thinking about that area of our lives. That can be one of the most difficult things. But you have to be persistent. That can be where the hard work comes in. But if you really commit to changing your thinking it will eventually yield results. It’s not automatic. It will take some practice. But I would wager that if you commit to doing it, the results you begin to see will provide the further motivation you need to keep going.

…Let’s go deeper

The degree to which we admit truths about ourselves is the degree to which we’re free

Being free from falsehoods, at the end of the day, means being free from falsehoods about ourselves. If we can truly be honest with ourselves, we’ve achieved something. There are many areas where I don’t know the truth. I have to search them out to find them. The truth about myself, however, can be discovered if I have the courage to do it. The truths outside myself just takes the effort to find out. The truths about myself take some effort, but also a complete willingness to be honest with myself. That willingness to be honest can be the hardest part.

I guess I’m kind of addressing a recurring theme here. What I wrote yesterday kind of goes along the same lines. In talking about being rational, it can be the case that the area we are the least rational are the areas that have to do with us and our character. Our biggest blind spots often involve the ones where we have to look at our own reflection. A flaw someone else easily sees in us might not even show up on our own radar. One of the biggest causes of these blind spots is pride—also fear. But pride and fear are kind of two sides of the same coin. The reason we are prideful to begin with is based on our fear of being insignificant. We falsely inflate our sense of self so we can convince ourselves that we matter. We do matter. But this is just us trying to attain that significance in a false way.

The things that we ignore and overlook are the bars that hold us in and keep us bound. It’s counter-intuitive. We think we can ignore them and just move on. But that’s not the case. We can’t move forward to true freedom until those things are addressed. We may try to pretend, we may try to walk on like nothing’s wrong, but we’re really just dragging a cage of bars along with us. As cumbersome as that is, we try to convince ourselves that we can do it.

I admit some truths about ourselves are tough to address. Although it’s a really simple concept, no one ever said it would be easy. But I do think we underestimate the value of being truly free from the things that are holding us back. We’ve yet to realize our full potential when we have fully left behind our hang-ups and hindrances—those things we start to scrape off like barnacles on a boat. It can’t be just ignored. Eventually they slow us down so much that they have to be addressed. It’s OK if it takes us some time to do it. We may have to come in to shore for a while for a bit of an overhaul. But if we take that time, we’ll reap the rewards and be able to head back out to sea unencumbered.
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…Let’s go deeper

 

 

 

How do you reason with the unreasonable?

There’s something we run into sometimes where, despite our best efforts to reason with people, we run into a brick wall. It’s a strange phenomenon, especially when the clear case of logic is on our side. We may be making all the right points. We may have the facts on our side. We may even be completely unbiased in our position, but somehow the light of the facts isn’t breaking through.

The undeniable truth of logic seems to always be the uncompromising hinge on which everything else pivots. In reality, it is. But in some people’s minds it’s not always their primary consideration. To them, it may be of primary importance for some things. It may even be for most things. But there is probably some area where they are not open to hearing the unvarnished truth. And this may be the case for all of us. We may all have some area where we just don’t want to hear it, no matter how true it is. Often times this can be the case when there is some emotional aspect to the situation. It can be due to deeply held feelings, or an emotional trauma, or something that is just too painful to confront.
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As a rather minor and rudimentary example, I found this to be the case with a cousin who I spent quite a bit of time with when I was growing up. See, he had developed an unhealthy fear of dogs. Of course, this fear didn’t develop out of thin air. Apparently, there was an incident where he had been attacked by a dog. The memory of that bad experience had scarred him and his relationship to dogs. Knowing this fact, the fear he had developed of dogs wasn’t irrational. However, what did make his fear irrational was that he wouldn’t even go past a residence with a dog in the yard. I mean, just a dog tied up, or even contained in the yard. I remember this happening one time where we were riding our bikes in my neighborhood. We came upon a place with a dog that was leashed in the yard. There was no way the dog would ever be able to reach us. But, immediately, my cousin wanted to turn around. And no matter how many times I told him it was safe, there was just no convincing him. I could have tried to reason with him until I was blue in the face, but it wouldn’t have mattered. I just couldn’t understand it.

To be fair, by bringing up this example, I’m not calling my cousin irrational or unreasonable. Not at all. But in this one area, reasoning with him wasn’t going to help. Sometimes the worst way to appeal to somebody is by just appealing to their head. You need to appeal to them on an emotional level. There’s that old saying, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” If you just let them know that you are there for them, it can be the first step to helping them climb out of that ditch, at least in that area of their life. You can’t always address these things head-on with logic. Sometimes you need to come at from a different angle—address the emotional aspect of it first.

…Let’s go deeper