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Better Building Blocks



The dictates of popular culture for December 26th:  you’ll be dragging your Christmas tree to the curb, buying lots of organizing bins at Target, buying liquor for a New Year’s Eve Party, and reading lots of end of year articles online. Those articles will be divided between the “Ten Top” whatevers and the “Be Better in 2019” New Year’s resolution type.

My recommendation for you comes from The Capital:

A new year doesn’t need a new you by Dr. Benna Sherman

The premise of her piece is that real self improvement comes from an assessment of what you have done right and building upon it, rather than beating yourself up about what you have done wrong. As a parent and an early childhood educator I know this to be true. So what don’t I treat myself this way? Why do I berate myself in a way I’d never do with my family or my students?

There’s a belief held by many people that being hard on yourself will make you a better person. For most people it works the other way. Being had on yourself...is discouraging and depletes you of the will and energy to grow.

 So how can we make this apply to our greater community? How can we we best look at Columbia/Howard County so that we can build on the good we have done so that we can take on even bigger challenges in the year ahead? We tend to throw up our hands and say, “Everything’s all wrong!” When we do that, it seems the only alternative is to burn everything down and start over. And that is a very daunting prospect indeed. Then it is quite understanding that we give up and say it’s too big for us to fix.

Not too big to complain about, mind you. Just too big for us to know where to start to make things better.

Dr. Sherman closes her article by saying:

If you want to build a better you, first affirm that you’re already pretty good.

 So, how about it, Columbia/HoCo? What are some of the good things we’ve accomplished over the last year? What are the values we want to keep affirming? What will give us the strength to undertake the big things ahead?



Comments are welcome here:

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