Why I Pray In The Shower

I really try and stay away from politics these days but…. Whether we agree or disagree that a Mosque should be built 2 blocks away from where the Twin Towers were, I hope we can agree on one thing.  The government at the time should have focused a lot more on rebuilding the site, the area, our country and the nation’s hearts after the attack on 9/11 instead of eventually invading Iraq. My heart goes out to the families of the 911 victims, but it also goes out to the families of all the soldiers who lost their lives in a war that I feel should have never been started. I love my country because it was a melting pot of people from all over the world who came here to live because of what it stood for. We can be that country again, but we first need to stop arguing about which religion or political party is the best and find a way to start getting along with each other. Science tells us we’re all made of the same matter and in that sense we’re all one. Now it’s just a question of acting that way towards one another.

Share and Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Tags: 9/11, all one, matter, togetherness, twin towers, unity, war

There’s a difference between being arrogant and being self-confident. And there’s also a difference between being vain and loving yourself enough to be happy with who you are.  My self-confidence isn’t always at its highest and I can struggle to regain it on some occasions, but I never struggle to love myself. I’ve learned that being happy with ourselves is the key to being happy in life and I have certainly earned this happiness. As I pass through life I will continue to grow in my self-confidence and hopefully never display arrogance, but if the love I have for myself comes off as such I won’t apologize. It took me quite awhile to love myself unconditionally and I believe this type of love will help me in my effort to love others unconditionally too.

Share and Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Tags: key to happiness, self love, self-confidence, unconditional love

I wrote a post here nine days ago about teen violence and although it wasn’t necessarily a negative commentary on today’s youth it still wasn’t as positive as I would have liked it to be.  A lot of people think the majority of our youth don’t care about anything today and that drug use among teenagers is more prevalent than what it really is. Because I don’t want to add to these misconceptions I want to say this. Many of the troubled teenagers I worked with in the past and the majority of teenagers I talk with today are doing well and aren’t getting into trouble or taking drugs, and this is despite any lack of parenting and the way the world has changed over the years. I talked in my book about how much I loved all the teenagers I worked with and explained how negative and extreme changes that began in the mid eighties has made an impact on many people today and not just our teenagers. I know there are some teenagers who make the news today in very unflattering ways and some don’t seem to have the best education, but it certainly doesn’t help when others talk about it as if that’s the norm. Perhaps having been a troubled teenager myself it strikes a nerve when I hear people talk badly about our youth, but it’s more to it than just that. I understand and believe in our youth today and am living proof that anyone can turn out to be a good and decent person no matter what type of teenager they were.

Share and Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Tags: believing in todays youth, helping teenagers, teenagers, why i pray in the shower, working with teenagers, youth of america

I have the fortune to talk to teenagers on a regular basis at a local youth center near where I live. Some are in a shelter part and some in lock up. There’s a difference in the two groups I talk with. The teenagers in lock up who are both male and female are more rigid in their views about life. This makes it very hard to gain their trust and help them understand how their choice to live the way they do and do some of the things they’ve done isn’t the way they need to live in order to feel better about themselves. One young man I talked with killed someone and another had held people up at gun point and even pistol whipped a few on occasion. Both told me they understood why they were locked up, but admitted it took a long time to see any error in their actions. Some important needs we have in life is to feel loved and that we belong with others.  When these needs aren’t met by family, some teenagers look to have them met in the wrong type of friends and even gangs.  We live in a country where many of us, especially our youth has been desensitized to the things that use to be shocking to us and unfortunately some become so effected that they act out in ways that hurt others and not care about it.  Esteem needs are also important ones to have met. They include our need for self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others and respect by others. I suppose in some groups, violence does somehow fulfill these needs. I also believe that these needs are not being met by the parents or parent. However, if you look how our world has changed over the last 25 years, I think you would agree it’s not just bad parenting that has effected our youth in a negative way. We live in world we’re our standards for being a better person than we were before has been lowered and our standards for being someone special has as been raised. This may not cause everyone to kill another, but it has effected many of us to the point that it’s no longer shocking when we hear about it.

Share and Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Tags: Darryl Duke, desensitization, teen viloence, teenagers, why i pray in the shower, youth development