It’s 2012. Twelve years ago, many of the civilized world thought the world was going to end at the turn of the century. History books refer to the phenomenon as Y2K. This year we have a new wave of anxiety over the Mayan calendar ending on December 21, 2012. I suppose you could live your life as if you knew the end of the world were known. I just wonder if the results would be as positive as they could be if we all woke up every day and realized it was a new day. A new chance to start over. I let you in on a little secret, you don’t have to wait until the end of a year to recognize the power and energy of things made new.

Several years ago I read a book by Dr. Deepak Chopra, entitled Ageless Body, Timeless Mind. This passage took hold in me:

“In order to stay alive, your body must live on the wings of change. At this moment you are exhaling atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen that just an instant before were locked up in solid matter…The skin replaces itself once a month, the stomach lining every five days, the liver every six weeks, and the skeleton every three months…By the end of this year, 98 percent of the atoms in your body will have been exchanged for new ones.”

That’s like getting a whole new body over and over again! How cool is that? If the physical body lives on change and is constantly renewing itself, what does that say for other elements of our lives? What a wonderful pattern to follow. It’s amazing what our perception of control and newness can do.

Last month I worked on my memorization skills. I’m a little ashamed to admit how rusty they were for lack of use. However, it was wonderful to realize that not only was I still most capable of memorizing, but that by committing uplifting literature to memory I felt not only enlightened I felt enfolded in the arms of motivational companions! I thank my darling husband for creating a new app to aid me in my efforts. Not only does his tool work, he’s got a great starting list of uplifting works to memoRISE! While the concept of memorizing isn’t new, reviving it in my personal life definitely qualifies as a renewing experience!

So the message for today is to think on one word: new.

About this same time six years ago (yikes!) I shared this article. It’s worthy of repeating. It was called: Point of View Truths.

Several years ago I received a copy of the following story. It hit me with deep impact. Maybe it was because my own mother taught me at an early age that a great person always argued a point from the opposite side before casting an opinion, or maybe it’s just because it’s a fantastic story. At any rate, it’s worth sharing.

~~~~~~~~~~
Limited Vision
Four people were in a barn and each one had a knothole to look through. One looked to the east, one to the west, one to the south and one to the north.

The person looking to the east saw the sun come up and said, “The whole world is nothing but sunrises”

The person looking to the west said, “You are wrong, the whole world is nothing but sunsets.”

The person to the north who could see nothing but a haystack said, “You are both wrong, the entire world is nothing but hay.”

The fourth person looking to the south said, “I can’t understand how all of you can be so stupid. The world is nothing but bales of straw.”
~~~~~~~~~~

From his own viewpoint, each was right. But, obviously, each one’s viewpoint was limited by the size and direction of the knothole through which he was looking.

Get on top of the barn, look in all directions before casting your certainty on a matter. Know that your ideas may be right, but this does not necessarily make the other fellow’s wrong. He may be seeing the same wide, wonderful world through a different knothole.

Ever have that sinking feeling? So did this truck driver yesterday when he delivered a load of rock to mom’s yard.

He might have made it if he hadn’t stopped to make sure he wasn’t sinking too much. But those few moments gave those front tires enough time to sink to a point the back ones just couldn’t push them out. Even lightening the load by dumping the rock wasn’t enough.

For better reference on the level sunk, check out Taylor standing outside, and then inside the spot where that front tire was.

Now, the positive in this sunken tale is the good nature of people. Upon getting stuck, the driver asked if there were any neighbors that might have a tracker to provide the needed pull. After a few calls, my mom found a neighbor who willingly came to offer help. Leaving what they were doing, literally dropping everything to come to help in that moment. That is awesome to me.

Are we really any different? Too often, we take just a moment too long before action and find ourselves sunk. We think we can fix it ourselves by just offloading something, only to find the more we attempt at our own recovery, the deeper we make the ruts. Maybe our situation isn’t physically visible, but I’d wager we all have some personal ruts. Sometimes life is going to find us sunk and it’s going to take a helpful pull to get out. Wouldn’t it be sad if no one came?

No matter which side we’re on - needing a pull or being able to provide one - I think there’s a lesson in this sinking feeling.

Where to start? I sat down in a race against the clock to blog a few thoughts running through my head on how today feels like an almost day to me. One of those moments when you feel like you almost reached the mark on so many things. As I was struggling to organize my thoughts, I decided maybe a definition or two might help, so I opened a new window to google the word. I started glossing over the page and then I hit the bottom link and stopped short. I think you’ll see why.

Its link is purple because I HAD to click on that to see if it was really mine. It is! I’m down to 10 minutes to post this now and my mind is spinning in the oddity of seeing my own link come up on a search. Regardless of Google’s changes and internal patterns, seeing something of your own come up on a search page is pretty fun!

Almost: to nearly but not exactly achieve something. Do you ever have an almost day? A day when you reflect on how you’re almost at a new deadline, almost ready to take another step in a process or project? Or maybe just a reflection moment on how you almost reached a goal, expectation, etc.? I was having just this experience when I sat down to start this post; thinking on how we’re almost at the point of knowing what the future weeks and schedule bring regarding our upcoming move. How it’s almost time to pick up my son from school. How it was almost warm enough to enjoy being by the pool for an afternoon reading excursion.

I’m almost there in so many ways, and SO NOT in so many others. It’s a brain bender. So I’ll end this post with a quote that struck me with incredible impact the first time I saw it years ago in a commercial. The words were being spoken by the author and the reality of his words made a mark that EXACTLY hit the mark.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
~Michael Jordan

So here’s to the almost days, the many little failures that allow us to succeed. Here’s to success!

Life gets stale…check for freshness.

My thoughts run amuck this morning on this simple word.

It all began when I opened a can of sugar from my food supply yesterday. To say it didn’t smell sweet would be an understatement. I can’t even describe the smell beyond some horrible combination of musty tin and something utterly undefinable. Stale is the only word that comes to mind. Efforts are underway to determine if the sugar is salvageable, I’m hopeful that aeration will be all that’s required. This is the second time that smells have gone wrong in a 10 can storage container for me. The first was a 72 hour emergency supply kit where even the hard candy tasted like the small bar of soap in the same container - regardless of how many layers of sealed plastic bags were used to separate items. Make no mistake, smells matter and they’re powerful too!

This is about the time my thoughts start pouring out in all directions.

I think about how many things in life go stale quickly, how many of them we remain ignorant to because we haven’t checked on them in a long while, and how many are salvageable. This list is endless. In fact, one could define my inbox today as stale. Ironically, as I’ve been thinking on the need to clear it out again for the past week, I’d read this headline this morning: “It’s time to deal with that overflowing inbox” Fate? Coincidence?

I think most everything is at risk of becoming stale. From dreams to food and everything in between, it seems we’d do well to rotate these things on a regular basis to check for freshness.

With the foundation set, it’s time to bring the education players on the stage. Here’s a few lessons to share.

(These lessons apply to majority of people and homeowners in the U.S. today. If you’re lucky enough to be part of a grandfathered property and you, your ancestors and your posterity never have and never will move, pat yourself on the back and don’t bother reading the rest of this. Also, if you can buy a house outright with your own cash, you also qualify for an exemption. If you’re not part of this crowd, you probably should read this.)

Lesson #1) ‘Owning’ a home is a misnomer.
To own something signals to our minds a completeness, a finality if you will. You pay for something and then it’s yours to keep and control. To slap this description on a process that typically spans three decades is where the misnomer comes it. Until you’ve made that final payment you don’t own your home, you’re renting it. The owner is who you borrowed the money from to sign a contract allowing you to move in and become responsible for the property. Oh, and you’re also paying them for the privilege of using their money in addition to your rent. However, when it comes to maintenance and all other related costs, rest assured your ownership is immediate and complete. So what you really ‘own’ for 30 years (or until you’ve paid off your loan) is an expensive rental.

Lesson #2) The lender has one goal.
The lender’s reason for existence in this business realm is simple, they are there to make money. There are several ways for them to do this and they have several backups to protect their investment, some of which include:

• Mortgage Insurance: This can be collected in the event you are unable/willing to make your payments.
• Property Value: They can resell the property for it’s value price should you not fulfill your contract.
• Government Aid: This only applies to the current housing mess, but lenders are receiving bailout money for homes in foreclosure in an effort to keep them from going bankrupt.

When you hit the grand scale of lenders that are so common in the U.S. today, there is no such thing as people and common sense. It’s all business and numbers. Programs put in place to help the people don’t work because of this truth and this single objective. Banks have every reason to foreclose on homeowners, not help them. The point of this lesson is knowing the lender is not there to help you once the contract to secure the home is signed. In fact, after that point you’re on opposing sides of the game.

Lesson #3) The home as an investment is a misnomer.
While this is the number one selling point, it is untrue for the average homeowner. The reason this sell works is because generally we are slow and lazy with no desire to do the math. By definition, an investment provides a return or pay out equal to or greater than the amount spent. Some will argue that this is where your home equity comes in as you can leverage it to borrow still more money. That’s a hollow argument to me as borrowing money isn’t the same as earning it therefore your gain isn’t on the investment or net worth side, it’s simply an expense category item used to satisfy a need or want leaving you with still more debt. The greatest irony of this is the pattern of upgrading we so readily buy into. We believe that to be happy and successful we have to keep getting more which potentially leads us to a bigger house. We fail to recognize that more equals more - more commitment, more expense, more everything. So, to qualify as an investment your home has to provide you payout for ALL the money you put into it with an additional profit above that. And here is where we fail because we don’t do the math. If you’re fortunate enough to sell a home and reap the equity, you may feel like your home was an investment. The problem is you never factor in the rest of the equation which is balancing your gain against your expenses, you simply see money that didn’t exist before. That’s a wonderful thing, also something you never consider balancing with it’s opposite which happens when a home’s value suddenly drops through the floor and you can’t sell it even if you wanted or had to. In fact, it took this experience for me to really think on balancing the equation and here’s what I discovered for myself:

$432K (30/yr, 6% on $200k -$528k if 8%)
+$60k (General guidelines say 1% of a home’s value is a good yearly estimate for routine maintenance)
+$50k (30 years of repairs and major things outside routine maintenance - I know this is low but we’re just getting a framework)
+$50k (30 years improvements - again, low but it’s just a framework)

=$592k - or an even $600k for easy math. So this is the minimum you need to receive for your home to hit the break even point - not make money. Big fail for investment math.

Now if we flip this (and I’m not a mathematician and I don’t play one on TV so this isn’t accurate, just info to get you thinking) by saving that same money you were going to spend on the home (I’m not talking the necessary payment amount here, just that excess for maintenance and such) you’d not only do a great deal to increase your net worth you’d potentially earn enough money to buy a home outright in less time than it would take you to pay for one on the “regular” plan. Especially if you invested it wisely in some compounding interest money market account. Food for thought.

Lesson #4) When things go wrong, they go terribly wrong.
The saddest lesson in home ownership has come in recent years with the mortgage industry crash. The reality is, your home isn’t worth what you paid or even what the economy says it’s worth at the time, it’s only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. And the extension of this is it’s only worth what your lender is willing to accept. To further complicate things, a big mess, like the mortgage industry created with inflated values it couldn’t support, can result in a wave of consequential changes from new programs, to new legislation. The impact is far reaching and will be felt for years to come. The things you know and understand today may not be the same tomorrow. This is also the point at which I learned how the bank is actually on an opposing side from you. See, if they chose not to accept an offer when your home is upside down, you lose and there’s nothing you can do about it. And remember all those ways listed above for a lender to make money? They all work against the buyer. The bank will make more money by refusing or messing up a short sale offer and pushing the home into foreclosure than to help the buyer resolve the debt. Oh, and conditions of need over want in regards to moving - say for a new job, they have no influence. This is all about money and you’re on the short end of the stick. The worst part of all this is learning the hard way about the instability of what you thought was sound. It’s a rude wake up call to realize that circumstances completely beyond your control can change everything and leave you helpless. In fact, it’s a rotten feeling indeed.

Yes, it’s been a wicked learning curve. While we’ve successfully navigated away from the drowning Titanic, we’re still watching helplessly on the sidelines and feeling the waves of the aftermath. But we’re fortunate, we’re fine. Our credit will be marred by circumstances beyond our control, but we don’t need it to live and enjoy life as we’ve known it. We’ve been blessed to have a great job with a terrific raise, a comfortable and nice home we’re renting, money to meet our needs/wants and the knowledge that we did everything we could regarding our home in Arizona. Most people who have lost or are losing their homes today aren’t anywhere near as fortunate. I feel for them. We’re all wiser for our experience, but it doesn’t ease the pains of weathering the storm.

There seems to be more broken about our system than works. Did you know you can’t start a short sale process until you are behind on your payments? For us that meant we had to deliberately not make a couple months of payments to qualify for the only way we could sell our home. Some suggested renting in hopes the value would increase to the point we could sell it. Unfortunately we could never rent it for anywhere near the monthly mortgage payment and a partial payment is looked on the same way as no payment. Further, the recovery time looks to be about 12 years. Two mortgage payments are out of the question, especially when one was already our limit and we moved to one of the most expensive areas in the country. So with no option, we hired a real estate agent to list the home, agreed to maintain our utilities to the property and skipped a couple months of payments. We were encouraged when the bank approved our status for the government short sale program and although that was a bugger of paperwork and red tape, the offer was submitted to the bank. All was looking great until the bank decided they wanted more money and countered asking both seller and buyer for more. That did two things, first it caused the buyer to withdraw their offer and second the added paperwork and process delayed the process. To our disappointment, the next thing we learned was that our approval had been disapproved because of timelines not met - not met because the bank delayed the process. The ray of light was that we had a second offer ready to submit and while it would be a pain to restart the application and approval process for the short sale program it could be done. Well, it was supposed to be an option until we received foreclosure notices in the mail yesterday. Now we’re told that because the process is too far into foreclosure short sale is no longer an option. Apparently, while the left hand of the bank was processing our short sale program, its right was simultaneously pursuing foreclosure procedures. I am so saddened for our good neighbors too. Our home had the potential to be inhabited with new owners and continued home care. Now I fear it will fall into a state of ugly abandonment and for absolutely no reason. While we’ve always known we’re at the complete mercy of the bank and system, it is still utterly disappointing to see it work against us.

So let’s recap. A program is devised to alleviate insurmountable challenges with relocations. Approval is granted and two offers are obtained. The first isn’t accepted and the second isn’t considered. Bank forces both credit damage and foreclosure as a result. Epic fail - definitely broken. Is there any wonder that our legal system is now littered with lawsuits over messes like this?

The fine print is something I’ll not miss again. I may never own a home again - by choice. If I do, it will be when it can truly be an investment because it’s paid for from the start. But through all this, I feel we have been truly blessed. The weight of the ball and chain are gone. The mess isn’t cleaned up yet and I have no idea how long it will take with the bank running the show, but it will eventually be cleaned up. A whole new world is open to us with these cables of home ownership keeping us anchored. Maybe we’ll end up in Spain for employment yet. Regardless of where we go in the future, the knowledge that we can, and the freedom and ability to reallocate our income to our advantage are liberating and wonderful. Life is good.

Chalk it up to lessons learned. One very, big lesson to be exact: home ownership and what it really is and isn’t. Now, to be fair, this isn’t a news flash lesson but it is definitely a course correction and eye opening learning curve. Think of it as an expanded view. I literally feel like I just climbed on top of the barn and got a whole new perspective. This is good, this is a sign of growth and if I can keep it in my memory a sign of potential wisdom.

To understand where I’m coming from I must back up the train about 18 1/2 years ago, for this is where the seeds for independent living and home ownership began. The time is spring of 1992 and I’m engaged. Blake and I are talking about our new life we’ll be starting together in May, we’re making plans, dreaming, plotting our future course and such. One of the topics on the burner is where we’ll live. While apartments are the most common and expected avenue, we start thinking that if we could get into a little duplex we’d have something to show for the 4 or so years of expected rent. Problem: we have no money for a downpayment and we’re going to be living in a new and unfamiliar place. Extension of the problem, we can’t convince Blake’s dad, our only source for a solution to the problem and super smart accountant, that this is a wise investment. He counters that we don’t know where we’re going to be after graduation which is only a few years out and thus staying flexible with renting makes more sense. Hindsight shows this would have been very wise indeed, however all is not lost as through this exercise Blake’s younger brother received the fruits of planting these seeds a few years later. You’re welcome, Ryan. ~wink~ But I digress. The point of this share is that even before I was married I had a belief in the value of owning a residence; an accepted social truth that it would be an investment instead of flushing money down a toilet never to be seen again.

Blake and I spent the next 5 years spending every possible downpayment dollar on taxes. We were DINKS (dual income no kids) and we had no deductibles. It was most disheartening and we grew accustomed to the reality that we were locked into renting. In our 5th year of marriage we moved back to Idaho where Blake had taking a job for a start up company. This was a turning point as after 6 months, Blake’s dad asked us why we weren’t settling down with a home, which would be a wise move. We explained the lack of downpayment and this time he offered to help which made it possible for us to purchase our first home. ~Thanks Dad!~ It wasn’t anything fancy, only 1,000 sq. feet and $65k, but it was ours and it felt wonderful. We spent the next six years making it ours, creating a yard and increasing it’s value. When we moved in 2002, we felt it payed off as we were able to sell it for about $87k. The point of sharing this is the reality that our fist expectation of ‘making money’ or receiving a return on our investment was achieved.

2002 was an ugly year for us. Our business had gone under, I’d suffered a medical disaster that stretched over 3 long months building a mountain of medical bills and there was no work for Blake in the small Idaho town. Suffice it to say it was a miracle we were able to purchase anything when we moved back to Arizona. We found an affordable townhome for about $120k. It took us 5 years to dig out of the hole we’d dug with our financial disasters, but toward the end of year 4 our home provided us some additional help with a home equity loan that helped us clear our consumer debt. In 2006 we were blessed with a nice salary increase for Blake. This coupled with our cleared consumer debt gave us a new lease on life. We decided it was time to really “settle” and bought our first dream home. I describe it this way because the first two homes we bought were choices made by lack of options more than anything. This time we went looking for something we wanted and we found it. A great home, nice sized yard, pool in the backyard, everything we thought we wanted to live the good life and be super happy for the rest of our lives. We had added confidence as the townhome we’d bought 5 years before had nearly doubled which fueled our ability to purchase our dream home for $374k. The point of this share is multi-faceted; 1) we gained experience with the process of buying and selling, 2) we were able to use home equity to help us make progress on financial goals, 3) we capitalized on selling high returning more profits, 4) we followed the typical ‘American Dream’ pattern of upgrading.

So far so good right? I thought so too. However, my lesson was just beginning.

In fairness, things were really good for about the next three years. When the dust settled, our monthly house payment was about $500 more a month than promised when we purchased the home but it didn’t kill us. However, when Blake took a job he really wanted that let him work from home we sacrificed some monthly income and in the 4th year we’d have some bigger home maintenance and growing kid financial needs. We didn’t actually see the results for about a year, when we started noticing the consumer debt had crept back up to compensate. Naturally, this would be about the time the nation would experience financial distress and our area was hit with the demise of bank mortgage disaster. The long and short is that the value of our home fell to half what we paid for it. For the first while this was disappointing to be sure but it wasn’t a show stopper. We had no intention of moving so we figured we’d weather the storm and eventually the value would come back up to what we’d paid for it - by all practical and realistic projections about 7-12 years. I was blessed with a work opportunity about this time that would allow us to tackle the consumer debt and with some diligence we’d be back on top of things soon. If you’ve read many stories, you know this is the point where the curve ball comes. And sure enough it did, Blake got recruited for an amazing job opportunity in a different state. The point of this share is unforeseeable consequences can come from circumstances and factors beyond your control and vision.

So let’s recap the history:

• I believe in the theory that home ownership is a wise investment and will provide a return for monthly money spent on housing.
• I experience this ‘return on investment’.
• I gain experience with the process of buying and selling, am able to see the value of home equity, made a high return on our home sale and followed the upgrading pattern.
• Unforeseeable and uncontrollable events generate substantial consequences on the home buying decision.

I’d keep writing, but I’m exhausted so I’ll break this post out into two parts. I’ll tackle the wealth of knowledge gained and my personal thoughts as a result in Part 2.

It’s a lesson I have to keep teaching myself: it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.

Allow me to expound. I’m impatient, plain and simple. I want what I want and I want it right now. I tend to get frustrated when this plan is interrupted. Enter the lesson of the journey - the interruptions are the entire point; the very reason and way we learn from this life and all we experience here. It’s why the advice “Come what may and love it” is so choice. Easier said than done, makes this the very reason I used the word “keep” to describe my process of learning this lesson.

The amazing thing is to realize how much stress is created by the simple plan of instant gratification. I find it also feeds procrastination and failure. Here’s how: Take any project/journey and think about the end result you want. The natural instinct is to not only want it complete, perfect and finished but consequently to put off any report on progress, etc. until that point is reached. How often does that result happen? Therefore both procrastination and failure are fed by the mere anxiety to have instant, complete, perfected and finished results not to mention the level of blood pressure and stress generated around the frustration of this impossible goal.

Case in point, this month my family moved to a new state and a home. A big task to be sure, but the bigger giant is my battle against wanting so much to have everything “done” - a reality, that when examined shows that there is no such thing! Here’s the good news, several years ago I wouldn’t have been willing to post or share anything of my progress because I would have been waiting for the finished, perfected end result first. This incidentally is why my photo albums and journaling efforts fall flat.

Here’s the skinny, it’s not all done. I have several things that are awaiting the next step like purchasing some canvas boxes to help create a pantry and other storage areas for all the things I can’t quite find a spot for yet. But progress is being made. Who knows, maybe this process will even result in some posts and shares about creative ways I found to store a lot of stuff in not so much space! In the meantime I am reminding myself to smile with each step in the journey.

So I’m walking out of my son’s elementary school this morning and I hear the beginnings of the national anthem. I can’t help but reflect on this concept of independence.

In general, I’m a huge supporter. I love American history and revel in readings of the stories, personalities and events that shaped our nation. I believe with all my heart that there was divine direction in the creation of this land of the free, and I’m grateful for this land that I call home. I’m grateful that our forefathers had the determination and courage to stand up against those who would oppress them and their freedoms. I proudly support what they stood for and the legacy they left us.

Where I have problems with independence is in the teen department. My problem isn’t with the concept of independence, it’s with the attitude teens propagate in general - that to declare their independence they must first declare war. *sigh* I read an article as a youth which left lasting impressions on me, in fact, it’s where this very phrasing of declaring independence came from. The author shared a story of a man trying to help a bee escape his office in an effort to save its life. However, the more the man did to help direct the bee to the safety of the open window, the more feisty the bee became, not only refusing the help but fighting against it. The result was a dead bee on the floor the morning after. The point of the story was how like the bee we often are, resisting and fighting back unnecessarily against those that would help us; in the end destroying ourselves. I knew then I didn’t want to be like that bee.

For years I’ve shared this counsel and story with youth I’ve worked with. Now, my daughter is entering the troubled waters of independence. I wish I could say it was going the way I wanted all the time, but alas the entire point of this life experience is to figure things out on our own. This morning she stormed out of the house murmuring a familiar reprise of the overly restrictive parent and a desire to escape. The culprit? A stupid item of clothing. In her mind, mom is making way too much out of it, the shorts aren’t too short and she should be allowed to make her own choices. In mom’s mind the shorts break school dress code and were only purchased by permission with her own money on the agreed compromise that this argument would never come up - that they would only ever be worn at home for play purposes. I wish I could help her see that her anger is really targeted at herself, that mom’s an easy scapegoat in the world of peer pressure. But wishing won’t make it so.

I find myself echoing the familiar words of choosing to stand for something. I worry that our youth today don’t really understand this, that they mistakenly believe that being part of the crowd is just the way things are and doesn’t really impact them or their future. When something as simple as how you dress can cause so much distress, I worry for the big items the future holds. Every person needs a strong sense of self and self worth to survive this crazy world. You don’t get that by succumbing to the pressures of following the crowd. You get it by being able and willing to stand up for all the things you believe in and that make you who you are, right down to your ’shorts.’ You can’t be ashamed to be who you are, even if it defies the loose standards of all those around you. The sad part of the shorts story is that it’s not really what my daughter wants or believes in but she can’t see that. She’s so blinded by the season of life and influence of friends and peers she can’t see how this belief is undefined, far from unique and not even her own. Yet she’s ready to enlist in a battle for it, to join the chorus of youth in defiance of rules and restrictive authority. I question now my giving in to any compromise at their purchase months ago. Maybe I should have said no way no matter what. But then how could she learn of consequences? How could she learn of making her own decisions and avoided the fateful trap of resentment which leads to a desire of rectifying to the ultimate extreme the day she’s completely free to make all her own choices? There’s a recipe for disaster, making decisions on purely emotional premises, worse premises imagined and exaggerated - this is the future of the feisty bee. I don’t want my daughter to be the bee, and I don’t want her to want to be the bee.

Now I know my daughter is young, I know these years are formidable and critical, I know she’s a good kid and I know that her wanting to wear short shorts is a drop in the bucket of real and serious issues. The problem is I also know that the adversary also knows she is young, that these years are formidable and critical and that she’s a good kid. He’s neither young nor good, and this frightens the snarf out of me. If she starts adopting the views, attitudes and beliefs of those around her now the chances of surviving these tumultuous years without scarring are nil. The saying goes that if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything. I believe this simply analogy of the shorts is why, after all it all starts somewhere and it doesn’t start with fireworks; no it starts with the tiniest bit of wear and tear to weaken the fabric. Today it’s shorts, tomorrow it’s something bigger. Sadly, it’s all wrapped in the lies that there are no consequences, no accountability. The short shorts so typify all this, and so ends my analogy of the shorts.

But that’s all that ends. My efforts to help my daughter wade through the waters of independence will never end. Her learning life’s lessons of accountability are just beginning. Agency is given to all, but independence is earned. Earn it wisely my young friends, earn it wisely.