Are you deficit spending in the most important relationships in your life? This article will help you get out of emotional debt and turn your failing relationships around.

I have a 15-year-old teenage daughter. Kimberly is her name. She and I have always had a close relationship as father and daughter. Recently, though, I’ve noticed that she doesn’t want much to do with me. In fact our relationship has been strained on a fairly frequent basis. When I see her and say “Hi” she barely acknowledges me. When I ask her how school is going she gives me a scowl and mumbles something under her breath that sounds like “go away and leave me alone.” I couldn’t quite make it out. Anyway, I was getting concerned. I know deep down inside that she loves me. So what was going on here?

I suppose I could chalk up this behavior to the normal teenage tension that goes on between adolescents and their parents, but I just wasn’t buying that. What really was the root cause here?

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I am a journaler. I have kept a journal for over 25 years. You can give me any date in the past 25 years and I can tell you what I was doing on that date. Some people have questioned why I do this. Why bother? What good reasons do I have to keep a journal? That’s what I would like to talk about today.

Let me introduce my topic by sharing this little story with you:

There were two elderly couples who were enjoying a friendly conversation when one of the men asked the other, “Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?” “Outstanding,” Fred replied. “They taught us all the latest psychological techniques…visualization, word association…it made a huge difference for me.” “That’s great!” his friend said. “What was the name of the clinic?” Fred went blank. He thought and thought, but couldn’t remember. Then a smile broke across his face and he asked, “What do you call that flower with the long stem and thorns?” “You mean a rose?” His pal answered. “Yes,” Fred exclaimed. “That’s it!” Then he turned to his wife and said, “Rose, what was the name of that clinic?”

Let’s face it. None of us has a perfect memory. Let me ask you this, can you remember what you did yesterday? Probably most of you can. What about a week ago? How many of you can remember what you did a month ago from today? How about a year ago today? How quickly we forget. (more…)

As Christmas approaches my thoughts are drawn back to the memories of Christmas past. When our children were young Christmas was a magical time of the year. The memories are sweet and comforting. One in particular comes to mind of many years ago. This was when my oldest daughter was 6 years old. I cracked open my old journal this morning and read about the experience and felt like sharing it with you. Here is my journal entry from Christmas Eve 1990: (more…)

Good morning! I want to talk about how strict or rigid should you be in keeping goals. For example, in my case I set a goal to go to bed each night at 10:30 p.m. How rigid should I be with that and should there be exceptions?

My answer to that is that there has to be exceptions at times but they should be few and far between.

For me last night was one of those exceptions. (more…)