I have a friend who goes on a men's camp every year. When his boys were young, he went by himself and felt very supported there. As soon as his boys turned 13 and were allowed to go with him, away they went together and spent a great time bonding - singing, dancing, doing physical exercise and watching performances. He has been nagging me to come with him on that camp for a few years now, saying there is something special about the freedom and "safe space" it provides.

So far, I have not gone.

In the past few months, Ronit worked with several boys whose father had died or spent a lot of time away from home. Whenever we talked about them, I kept having the feeling that although they were young (5 to 8 years old), they felt like little men. I felt they saw themselves as somewhat responsible for the wellbeing of their family and had to fill the very large shoes of their absent father.

That was not enough either.

But this week, Ronit said to me, "You should write a bit about the role of fathers in particular. If I write it, it will be like a lecture, but if you write it, it will be real". And then, out of the blue, I got a newsletter from Fathering Adventures, letting me know they now offer adventures not only to fathers and sons, but also to dads and daughters.

So I thought, "OK, that's it. I'd better write something on this topic".

Now, I am not a stereotypical man. I am not competitive, I never pick a fight, I do not drink, I do not swear, I love to cook, I work at home and do many homey things, like driving the kids to school, helping with homework, reading bedtime stories and so on. The main manly quality I have is the need to protect my family all the time and everywhere.

But I used to work long hours away from home and provide the main income, I used to be short-tempered when I was home and I used to be completely out of touch with what my family was going through. Even on weekends, it would take me until late on Saturday to get work out of my head so I can relax and participate.

When Eden was little, I was a very dogmatic and clueless father. Ronit was great (she was a very natural mother), so she took care of Eden, thinking it would be OK, because Eden needed a female role model anyway. In fact, Eden needed my company. In the evenings, when I told her it was time to shower and go to bed, she would refuse and we would have a big struggle, which ended in her agreeing to have a (long) bath instead of a (short) shower and me sitting beside her and listening to her tell me about her day.

Later on, I learned that fathers provide a very important role model to their daughters - that of a potential partner. In fact, the best way to ensure your daughter chooses a decent fellow for a husband and a decent father for her children is to be a decent husband yourself and a decent father to your children.

One of Eden's favorite things was to walk hand-in-hand with me. She would hold my hand and look proud, which made me feel great. She is 23 now (her birthday is tomorrow) and still does that.

I thought that was a natural thing many fathers did, until I heard a story from a friend of ours who is a great father about his 16-year-old daughter. He said, "She and I were walking along the beach and she reached out and held my hand. I realized it made me uncomfortable. I was thinking about what others might think about me walking around with a beautiful young girl. I wondered about the psychological stage she was in and whether holding my hand meant something, um, you know. Then she looked up at me and said, 'Dad, I love walking hand-in-hand with you like we did when I was little. I hope we never stop'. It hit me that as far as she was concerned, I would always be her father, no matter how old she was or how old I was, and that I made her feel safe and loved by holding her hand".

Are you having a soft moment?

When Tsoof was about 3 years old, he discovered soccer. After that, he wanted to play soccer all the time. Between the ages of 3 and 5, a time of endless energy, as soon as I walked in the door in the evening, stressed and hungry, the only thing I could do was play soccer with him. Ronit and Eden took care of dinner and I took care of Tsoof.

This was what you might consider a typical father and son relationship, involving sport, but Tsoof also started playing hand drums at that tender age and being the musical parent (I am auditory and Ronit is not), I also played with him, took him to classes and supported his musical development.

Noff is a lot more like Ronit, but I stayed home with her for a few months when she was a year old and I get to spend the most time with her more than I ever did with her older siblings while working corporate jobs. She is the most independent of our children and that is something I encourage her to be. You can find several posts in this blog about how she inspires me.

I believe that one of the biggest challenges fathers have in modern Western society is that, being the main breadwinners, they engage with their kids at the worst possible times, when they are at their wits' end, just wanting to sit down and shut everything out for while. In this state, the last thing they want to do is care for someone else.

I believe that if you ask any father, he will tell you he wishes he could show his children who he really is. That notion of "who I really am" means that every father acknowledges the effect of his circumstances on his relationship with his kids and feels in his guts that under different circumstances, he could have a great time with his kids and get a lot closer to them.

One idea is to go away with your kids to a place where circumstances are vastly different from your everyday life, where you and your children will go through something meaningful and special and where you will be able to pay close attention to one another for a few days in a row.

The video below is a bit overly dramatic for my liking, but every word spoken in it is gold, especially in the testimonials. The adventure packages include accommodations, food, kayaking, hiking, snorkeling and group coaching. There are weekend and 5-day adventures and there are adventures for "father and son" or "dad and daughter".

[Disclaimer: we get nothing from showing you this, other than the satisfaction of doing something good. While I was watching the video, Ronit jumped up and said, "That's a great idea for <one of her clients> and his son", and then picked up the phone and called him].

If you decide to give Fathering Adventures a try, please come back here and post a comment to let everyone know how it was.

Happy parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Love
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Who’s in Charge?

Having a depressed family member is not easy to handle. Most of the time, the depressed person cannot admit he or she needs help and rejects any help attempt. Those around them feel helpless and drained.

Gail was very creative in her attempts to help her husband. She went to the doctor and talked to him. She tried to make him go to the doctor, without success. She got him some vitamins and he refused to take them. She arranged holidays to make him happy, but he stayed depress.

"What happened with the boys?" I asked.

"They left. For five years, we didn't have a life. Everything revolved around him. Everything we did was done to please him. He was unhappy with everything we did and with what we didn't do. We had no friends left. No one was willing to come to our house and those who dared only did it once. Every second around him was fighting and complaining, so they gave up and left".

Gail' sons were 18 and 21, both studied at university and had to support themselves. Their dad was so unhappy with their move he did not "allow" their mom to see them.

Helping a depressed person is not easy, especially when he or she is an adult. Adults must choose to accept help and we cannot force them to receive our help.

Eventually, after 5 years of trying, Gail left home.

Her moving out was very effective. Not having Gail and the boys around helped her husband understand he had a problem.

Most of our sessions were spent on managing the process of going back home. The most effective tip I gave her was to use are. I introduced her to a research about depression and art and that worked like magic.

I hope it will help you too.

A research done in Norway with over 50,000 people using blood tests, urine tests, interviews, questionnaires and clinical examinations discovered that art can successfully fight depression. "There is a positive relationship between cultural participation and self-perceived health for both women and men", says Professor Jostein Holmen.

The researches claim, "Up to now, physical activity has been recognized as a measure that promotes good health. But our study shows that other daily life activities may promote good health from a holistic point of view. The results suggest that the use of cultural activities in health promotion and health care may be justified".

The research found that people who were exposed to art feel healthier overall. If they see music concerts, painting or sculpture and visit galleries, they are healthier and happier and less depressed then others. If they make art themselves by playing a musical instrument, singing, painting, sculpting and dancing, the results were even better.

The surprising thing was the results were true for all participants, regardless of their lifestyle and socio-economic background.

Gail's husband loved carpentry. He had not dealt with the loss of his job properly and had not touched his tools since he had stopped working. When Gail came back home, she encouraged him to take is tools out and build a drawer for the living room.

Three month later, the boys came back home.

Have a happy day,
Ronit

P.S. If you ever need a reason to encourage your children to engage in artistic activities or a reason to visit a gallery or go to the theater, you know it now. Art makes you happy!

You may want to read

• Hugs: The Ultimate Antidepressant
• From the Life Coaching Deck (5): Making Money Addiction
• Purpose: To Be a Great Dad

No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever
- Francois Mocuriac

People are social creatures. They live in groups, they need the groups and they rely on the groups to survive. This creates some dependency that no one likes. Yes, some people need friends more than others do, but living on our own, not seeing or being in contact with the outside world, would bring an end to human kind.

Friends and friendships are very important to all people, even to those who find it hard to admit, and what social skills we do not have naturally, we can develop.

In the past year, I have had many opportunities to talk and write about my successes. When I examined each of them, I realized that being a very social creature, loving people, understanding the way they function and using my good social skills were real assets to me.

Social skills - Nature or Nurture?

I have not always been a very friendly person. Not that I did not like company, but until the age of 16, I did not really understand the social rules I needed to live by. I had no friends, I got into frequent conflicts with the ones I did hang around with and I was lonely and miserable. My parents had no friends either, so I could not learn from them the right things to say and do around other people.

Then, I stopped reacting without thinking about the impact it has on my relationships and I learned that friendly people are happy people and that social skills can be learned.

Friend - a person known well to another and regarded with liking, affection and loyalty
- Collins English Dictionary

I only had a chance to read "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie when I was 40 years old. It was not an easy read, but reading it triggered a mixture of happiness and sadness in me. Happiness that I had discovered all the things Dale Carnegie wrote in the book and sadness that circumstances had not brought this book into my life long before to save me the heartache and pain of discovering things the hard way.

I am sure there are many people who wonder, like I did, how life would have been if they knew the rules of social interaction. The more I think about it, the more I believe that it is parents' responsibility to teach their kids those skills. You cannot expect a disturbed 10-year-old or 14-year-old girl to go to the library, pick up Dale Carnegie's book and have the ability to implement it. I know many adults (too many, unfortunately) who read the book, or similar books, but that was not enough to teach them how to be friendly.

I have many clients that do not have a clue how to be friendly. They are lonely and prevent their families from being in social gatherings, because social interaction is a threat to them. Usually, they are unhappy and contribute greatly to the unhappiness of their entire family. When I talk to them about other people, they have strange interpretations for the way others behave. As social creatures, we learn to read behavior and people who are not friendly just cannot read others well enough. It is a cycle and its source is unknown. Is it the missing social skills that prevent them from hanging around others and therefore get little exposure to social interaction, or is it the lack of exposure that prevents them from developing their social skills and leads to avoiding people even more?

Some theories claim that social ability is genetic, while others consider it a learned skill. I tend to think it is a mixture of both and believe we need to focus on what we can do, rather than what we cannot do - every person can become a bit friendlier than he or she was in the past and therefore a bit happier than he or she would be otherwise.

Circle of friends

Although the number of friends is an indication to how friendly you are, it is also important to consider the level of friendship. One good way of realizing your social interaction is to do the circle of friends' activity.

Write your name in the middle, then write all those you consider friends and put them in the circle that matches how close are they to you. Consider their friendships in terms of how much you like them, how much they like you and how often you interact with them. The more close friends you have, the friendlier you are and the happier your life is.

The art of friendliness is the art of enjoying each other's company. If you like people, you want to spend more time with them. If they like you in return, they would like to spend more time with you. Liking each other means you are in a win-win situation - you both benefit from this interaction and your friendship will continue. If one of the sides is not happy with the relationship, it will bring friction, heartache and misery to both sides.

In any interaction, the goal is to benefit from the relationship and make sure the other person benefits from it too and would like to stay in this relationship. Our goal is to make the interaction pleasant to both sides.

Dale Carnegie talked about some basic techniques to win friends. He even thought they were fundamental to success in life through our ability to influence people. Read this list and examine your friendliness skills by rating your ability from 1-10.

• In your interaction with others, do not criticize. Criticism is the opposite of being friendly. It changes the balance between equal people to one considering himself/herself better. Do not confuse feedback with criticism. Criticism is always considering your point over the other.
• Do not condemn others for their actions and behavior. Again, this destroys the fine balance that is required in a pleasant interaction. When you condemn people, you are stating that there is right and wrong. This only proves you are not a close enough friend as you have no idea what would make this person behave the way he/she did.
• Do not complain. Complainers are not friendly by definition. The things they complain about are more important to them than the friendship and others do not like hanging around them for long. Complaining and being pleasant do not go hand in hand and the excuse that the complaint contributes to a better relationship does not convince anyone. Only a masochist will believe that in order to have a good relationship, they need to please the other person.
• Do not nag. Nagging is another way of criticizing, condemning and complaining. It is a sign you are not in an equal relationship. Nagging is a sign you think your opinion is superior and that you rather the other person do what you want even if it is done by force.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them
- Mother Teresa

• Give honest and sincere appreciation. The opposite of the first four behaviors that destroy the balance is to show and express appreciation. Say good things about your friend. Generally, saying good things about others (only if they are true) makes others consider you a friendly person that sees the good in others. Use praises at the beginning of your words and always be honest. If you are forced to show appreciation - it is not honest. If one person in your relationship demands appreciation, this changes the balance and forces one side to be dishonest, which is a sign of problems in the relationship.
• Avoid arguments. In any argument, there are two sides. Both of them are valid and no matter what happens, it will be a lose-lose interaction that no one would like to repeat. Argumentative people do not have many friends, because they are energy consumers and exhausting to spend time with. If you start an argument, consider the friendship and choose to lose the argument and not the friendship. If you feel you need to win an argument, you have already lost.
• Smile. People who smile seem very friendly. Smiling is a form of communication that attracts people. When you smile, it sends the other person an invitation to interact with you. When you frown, it labels you as a criticizing, complaining, unhappy person and makes others stay away from you. Friends subconsciously match your behavior. If you complain, they will tend to "play the game" with you, but when they are far away from you, they will feel uncomfortable with themselves and avoid hanging around with you.
• Use people's names. Everyone likes the sound of his or her name. I have seen people in networking events abuse this tip and when I hear my name for the third time in a short period, it turns me off. On the other hand, some people tend to talk to others without using their names at all. Remembering someone else's name is very important and it is better to ask, "Can you remind me of your name again?" than not to use the name at all (or to guess it incorrectly). With close friends, it is never an issue of remembering, but of making an effort to use it.

The best mirror is an old friend
- George Herbert

• Be a good listener and encourage others to talk about themselves. In every interaction, measure how long you speak and how long the other person speaks. The one who speaks less is considered friendlier. In an interaction with others, there should be an equal share of contribution. Although it is not easy to use a stopwatch, it is good to be aware of who takes over the conversation. Those who take over the conversation usually consider the topic more important than the friendship and chase people away.
• When talking, talk about terms that are appealing to the other person. If you insist on talking about things that are of interest to you and not the other person, you lose your audience immediately. If you use vocabulary that the other person uses, the conversation is much easier. If you insist that the conversations include things that are of interest to you and that your goal is to convert the listener to your point of view, consider the interaction lost. Interaction is similar to playing ball. If one person holds the ball tight, there is no game.
• Be genuinely interested in other people. When you do listen and encourage others to talk, make it genuine and sincere. To show interest in people, you need to ask questions. If the questions are not sincere and you just wait for the other person to finish so you can have a say too, this will be easily picked up by the other person, create a problem of trust between you and they will say to themselves, "She really didn't want to know the answer, so why bother?"
• Make the other person feel important and special and be honest with it. Carnegie talked about honesty a lot. He thought that using his tips without really meaning it defeats the purpose of building social skills. The mechanics of showing interest in others and making another person feel special cannot be cheated. Either you think the other is special and important or you do not. You cannot fake it. If you talk to the other person as if there is nothing special about them, there is always the question of "Then why do you spend time with me?" Ask yourself, "Why do I want to be in this person's company?" and use the answer to tell this person what is special about them that makes them attractive to you. Saying, "Well, I didn’t have anyone else to talk to", is not a friendly thing to say. Be careful not to badmouth others to make your friends feel special. If you do that, it is risky to be your friend, because one day you might talk like that about them.
• Show respect to others' ideas and never tell them they are wrong! Every relationship is based on mutual respect. When you tell someone they are wrong, you are tipping the balance. It is your right to think and do things differently, but it is not your right to judge. People do not like being in a judgmental relationship.
• When a person is upset, do not talk negatively, only talk about the positive. Friends are there to help each other. If you talk negatively, you are not creating rapport but dragging your friend down. Do your best not to judge, not to offer explanations for why they are upset or what they could have done better to not be in that place. If they are upset, they do not need your judgment on top of it.
• Do not try to change your friend. Instead, try to see things from their point of view. In any relationship, there are conflicts. No two people do, act, say and treat things exactly the same way, but that does not need to come between friends. If you think a friend has done something that you consider inappropriate, strange or unkind, try to put yourself in his or her shoes. Friendship does not give you the right to change the other person but to understand them.
• Be courteous. This is strongly linked to respect and keeping the trust between people. If you feel you need to use information you have of other people to gain power, you are not a good friend and it will be hard for your to build this trust again.

I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul rememb'ring my good friends
- William Shakespeare

How to be friendly and happy

In some positions, you are in charge and need to lead others in doing things. It can be as a parent, as a manager or even within the scope of teamwork. People will follow and listen to those who lead with friendly behavior and will resent those who are not friendly.

1. Never point to other people's mistakes. If necessary, talk about the action, not the person. If there is a mistake that needs to be fixed, always make it look like it is not a big deal and it is easy to fix. If it is possible, talk about your own mistakes first. Always let the other person "save face". Shaming a person may make you feel strong, but it will attract resentment to you. A strong leader with no followers is not a leader.
2. If you do make a mistake, say, "My mistake, sorry". It makes you look human to those who work with you. Much like not making a fuss about the mistakes of others, make sure not to make a fuss about your own mistakes. Generally, focusing on mistakes is not a good social skill, so move on and talk about the good stuff.
3. Ask questions instead of giving orders. Use "Can you please bring me the letters" instead of "Bring me the letters, please". When it is asked as a question, it gives the other person the chance to say, "No, I can't right now. I am doing something else" instead of putting pressure on them to follow your orders even when they cannot.
4. Praise every improvement. Everyone likes to be praised and every time you praise, you are considered kind and friendly, as if you can read peoples' good motives and behavior. Give people a fine reputation to live up to.

The art of happiness is strongly related to our ability to connect with people and be friendly. Most of the big successes start with someone knowing someone who knows someone and the willingness to be friendly and help. I can tell you for sure that my successes have followed this pattern. Friends are like a big family and having a big family contributes to happiness.

Wishing you many friends and lots of happiness that comes with friendship,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Stronger Together
• Save Your Energy
• The Art of Misery (Advanced)

And that is no way to live. It is not good for the parents and it is not good for the kids.

What happens in these situations is that the parents try to control their children. In fact, they try to control the fine details of what their children do, say and sometimes even feel. They tell themselves and anyone else who will listen how important it is to get all the answers on every assignment correctly. That is how they justify the hours of grilling their kids over homework. They explain the long-term impact of passing a basketball using the scientifically proven motion on their kids' sporting future. That is how they justify the yelling from the sidelines and the intensive drilling at home.

But how important are these things really?

Who are they really important to?

And what are the effects of this controlling behavior on the children, the parents and their relationships for the rest of their lives?

In parents' defense, I would say it is probably the way they were brought up themselves. I even think many are doing better than their parents did, considering the circumstances. They do not know another way (unless they have read enough of this blog).

In a strange way, by trying to control our children, we give them power over our levels of stress and our emotional wellbeing. By nagging, correcting and micromanaging them, we give THEM control over us. They simply use our obvious motivation to throw us to the mat and pin us down.

Ronit and I had a couple of good friends with a 5-year-old boy who refused to eat "good food". His mom begged, threatened and then offered a bribe. "If you eat your lunch/dinner/food, I'll buy you a big ice cream", she would promise. He would then say, "No, I want my ice cream first. I'll eat the food after". She would buy him the ice cream, he would eat it and then refuse to eat anything else. She would go absolutely nuts, but then do the same thing again the following day.

She was so eager to get him to eat some healthy food, she made a big deal out of it, so he leveraged it to get what he wanted every day and twice on Sundays (literally). She cared so much about how his eating habits reflected on her parenting quality, she put her little son in charge of her self-esteem.

This kind of situation is very scary for the child. It means the parent does not have a sense of priority and enough self-confidence to be in charge. Kids view their parents as almighty and being able to shake them so easily makes them unable to rely on the parents for their own security.

So what should parents do?

The secret to trading failure to control with real power involves developing a personal perspective, having clear priorities, focusing only on truly important things and assuming a coaching position.

How to develop a personal perspective in parenting

As always, start by finding a quiet time and place, then relax by taking a few long, deep, slow breaths. Once you are calm and your head is clear, imagine the last scene in which you tried to control your child and ended up pulling your hair out.

Freeze the scene, as if everyone in it suddenly turned into metal or stone (ice is too cold). Now, float out of your body and position yourself opposite the image of you. Take a good look at your face and your body language. It is very likely you will recognize a fear in yourself, which you have not been aware of, but seems to be the source of your pressure during the scene.

Ask yourself, "Why do I really want my child to do [whatever it was]? What was I afraid would happen if he/she didn't do it?"

In many interpersonal conflicts, at least one party considers their views universal and absolute. Often, by accepting them as personal preferences, the conflict goes away. In a struggle with your kids, it is important to realize that although you may believe you are doing what is best for them, you are always first and foremost serving your own interests. When you are afraid of something, you become defensive and uncompromising. That is just human.

Now ask yourself, "Realistically, if I said and did nothing that time, what is the worst thing that could happen?"

In our friend's case, her son would have become hungry over time without ice cream, which would have given her enormous power over him, because then he would have eaten anything she allowed him to eat. If only she overcame her fear for 30 minutes or so...

How to have clear parenting priorities

No matter how many times we ask parents this question and no matter how we present it to them, what parents want most for their children is happiness. They just want their kids to be happy. The rest is just ways to get there.

Now that you are calm and being honest with yourself, ask yourself, "Would my kids be happier if I taught them how to do everything right or if I let them experience life on their own?" Again, consider the most recent incident or perhaps the most common conflict with your kids for perspective.

As a minimum, children need to be healthy and safe. Beyond that, they need to be happy and learn how to stay healthy, safe and happy on their own. Anything we force them to do that serves another aim hurts everybody.

In our friend's case, the little boy became less and less secure and more and more defiant, searching for the point where his mother would finally provide a boundary for him. He was not happy, she was not happy and his father was not happy. A few years later, the couple split and the boy went to live with his dad.

How to assume a coaching position with your kids

Kids are just little people. They are people in the making. From the minute they are born, we need to treat them as individuals. They are not us. They are not part of us. They grow up in a different world and have different needs and different physical and psychological abilities and limitations.

If we deal with them to serve our own happiness, this will often result in conflict. They may not be able to explain it to us, but they can feel it.

But if we do our best to help THEM get what THEY want out of life (using age-appropriate methods, of course), there will be fewer conflicts, our kids will feel safe and supported and life will be good for everyone.

A split second before responding to anything your kids do or say, stop, breathe, look at the scene from a neutral position (do the scene freezing exercise above until you get the hang of this), find the response you believe will make everybody the happiest and then act.

If you do this for a while, your kids will learn to trust you. Then, when you need to stop them from doing something they shouldn't, they are likely to just follow your guidance, because you always look after their best interest. This belief in you, this trust, this confidence, is the real source of power in parenting.

So stop controlling your kids. Relax, focus, let go and be powerful.
Gal

You may want to read

• Questions, Questions
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model
• Nagging Your Kids

May your next year be very tasty!

1. Take the twelve months of the year and clean them well from feelings of jealousy, hatred, frustration, stinginess, greed, stubbornness, selfishness, anger and sadness.
2. Slice each month into three equal parts and make sure you dedicate a third of each day to working, a third to sleeping and resting and the rest to spending time with people you love, having fun, doing good deeds and having joyous memories, happy dreams and wishes.
3. Add three teaspoons of optimism, a cup of faith, a tablespoon of patience, some tolerance and a pinch of respect for yourself and others.
4. Soak with lots of love, decorate with good intentions and heaps of attention and serve every day with a good word, a smile and a warm heart.

Bon appetite!

Happy New Year,
Ronit, Gal and Eden

You may want to read

• Slow Down and Smell the Flowers
• Living in a Dress Rehearsal
• From the Life Coaching Deck (5): Making Money Addiction

In fact, this post was Tsoof's idea. He came in a couple of days ago and said, "Dad, maybe you should write about the gay marriage thing. It's all over the news". So here goes.

The issue of whether gay marriage should be made legal or not is tough, because different people have different basic assumptions about homosexuality being a choice. Broadly speaking, there are a few ways to look at this issue:

1. Homosexuality is a genetic disorder that cannot be changed and it is a horrible thing. It is not what God sees as pure and holy in a person and should therefore be hidden, rejected and treated as a manifestation of the Devil. From this point of view, gay people should be kept away from society, shunned and even killed for the good of normal society. From this point of view, gay people are mentally disabled and should not marry, let alone care for children. In fact, it is best if they had no rights.
2. Homosexuality is a choice and because it is unholy, it is a test of faith. Gay people should renounce the Devil, become as God intended and rejoin normal society or suffer the consequences. From this point of view, by choosing to be gay, these people clearly demonstrate their inability to make sound choices and should not marry, let alone care for children. In fact, they should be prevented from influencing normal society to avoid the spread of their choices.
3. Homosexuality is (mostly) a genetic predisposition that puts people in a minority group, like many racial, ethnic, religious and political minorities around the world (like, say, African Americans or Indigenous Australians). Because their "condition" cannot be "cured" but does not affect their abilities to reason and carry out their civil duties, marriage is a matter of civil liberties. From this point of view, gay people should be allowed to marry if they wish in countries where marriage is a legal contract and people from different faiths or those who are not religious at all can marry.
4. Homosexuality is (mostly) a personal choice, which affects the gay people strongly and has little or no effect on others. From this point of view, a person choosing to be gay is no different to converting from Islam to Christianity (I wonder what your reaction would be if I wrote the reverse) - the family is likely to object, but they cannot do anything to stop it legally. Therefore, gay people should be able to marry in countries where civil marriage is recognized. Also, democracy dictates they should be able to share their choice with others, just like anyone with an unpopular political view would.

Fundamentally, gay people's sexual preferences are in conflict with Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In democratic countries, although the law may not be directly religious, a religious majority may be able to pass laws to the same effect. That is just the way things are in the world.

But this is not a legal blog.

This is a parenting blog. This is a personal development blog for parents.

So let's change the image of "gay people" for a second and take a look at this:

Is this a gay baby, with the fireman gear and all? When you look at him (or maybe it is her), do you consider excluding him from society and forbidding him to marry? Or maybe your reaction is more like, "Awww, so cute!"

Would you desert a newborn baby like him?

If your baby boy posed nude with fireman gear on, would you leave him out in the cold and walk away?

Here is another one. Is this a future gay woman who will roam the street with her Sporty Spice outfit, swearing at the opposing football team with a beer in her hand, or just a cute little girl trying on a cap?

Would you tell your little toddler girl to go and live somewhere else because she wore a boy's hat?

What if you knew right from the start your cute newborn baby was gay?

What if you found that out when they were 2? 4? No?

So what is the difference when they are 25? Does that really change anything?

I believe that children are made by parents and that this makes the parents responsible for them. As soon as their baby is born, its parents should commit "to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do us part".

I see my job as a parent to make sure my kids grow up to be HAPPY. It is not easy when they make different choices from the ones I make. Eden is now starting to make this painfully obvious in my life, if only because she has grown up in a society with very different values from the one I grew up in (because Ronit and I brought her there). That is why I find it hard to imagine her marrying her boyfriend, who is a really great guy and "normal" in every way. Still, I want her to be happy and I see her happiness as my responsibility.

Is there ANYTHING that makes people happier than having a strong and supportive relationship with their parents?

In her song Dear Mr. President, Pink asks:

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away?

And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?

So I do not think the issue of gay marriage is a legal matter. I think it is a matter of how many parents will decide that gay marriage is good for their children and how many will decide it is bad for them. Rather than making your judgment based on the rhetoric in the media, think of your kids when they were little (maybe even take out a photo of them and look at it) and decide from your heart.

Happy parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Gender
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model
• Fathering Adventures

Nothing is worth more than this day
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Kids are little philosophers practicing the theories of the great philosopher of all times in real life. They live in the simplest stage show that is their life, without much sophistication and with no budget. This is ability smart, knowledgeable and experienced grownups need to learn from their children.

Kids do not have tomorrows. The younger they are, the more limited their understanding of time and the harder it is to explain to them what they will gain tomorrow if they just try a bit harder or wait a little bit longer today. One of parents' biggest frustrations is their inability to explain why to try harder today for some imaginary tomorrow. Kids, on the other hand, do not understand why they should try harder, because from their point of view, fun is the best way to navigate through life and "hard" and "fun" do not go together.

Fun as a Compass

Kids' attitude to fun as a compass is perceived by grownups as a limitation, a lack of perspective and experience. I wonder sometimes who is missing perspective. Kids, the artists of living in the now, whose present is full of fun, or their parents, the champions of living in the future, whose present is an endless cycle of anxiety?

Children invest all their energy in what they will achieve in the short term. Adults, convinced they need to delay their gratifications, exaggerate this and without meaning to, they have invented the opposite of enjoinment and fun and have turned their life into a dress rehearsal for the "real thing".

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things
- Henry Ward Beecher

If you are a parent doing everything you can to better tomorrows, if you are a parent telling your kids off for behaviors today that you are afraid they will keep doing tomorrow, if you believe that whatever happens today is a sign for what will happen in the future, if you think that pain today justifies potential gain tomorrow - you have just passed the most important audition of your life and have been accepted into The Big Dress Rehearsal, where you might spend the rest of your life.

Many parents fall in the trap of separating life into living in the show of life and rehearsing for it, as if they need to prepare all their lives for an imaginary future, when they will have everything they want, but they never take center stage and actually play in the show. The problem with living in a dress rehearsal is that you become very good at rehearsing and not at performing. Many parents invest in preparing their kids and become very good at preparing and not at implementing these preparations. In extreme cases, this imaginary future makes parents so anxious they torture their kids today and justify it by claiming they will be happy for it someday.

If you have ever had a conflict with your child that was very critical for you and you were worried they would take this to their future, while your child thought you were making a big thing out of nothing, you have been in the conflict between life as a rehearsal and life as a show.

A classic example of the life as a rehearsal and life as a show conflict is school. In my parenting workshops, when I ask parents about big conflicts with their kids, they say that most of their parenting energy is spent around school, homework, managing time, grades and teachers. Every argument over school starts with our belief as parents that the imaginary rewards of our kids' schooling in the future will justify their pain in the present. Not many parents ask themselves whether school today is really preparing their children for the show of life they will have to perform in their future.

Our kids do not go to school because they want to. We keep them there with our belief that their future will be better for it. In the cheapest format of schooling, we invest 13 years and tens of thousands of dollars on this school rehearsal and we do not stop to ask if we know for sure what will be the format of the show they will have to perform in the future and if it justifies the long preparation. What we can say for sure is that we have become so good at preparing that we have no clue on what kind of a stage our kids will have to perform in 15 years.

Parents differ from their kids in courage. Kids are not afraid of a show that is not perfect, a bit clumsy, without any status or experience, because what directs them is having fun right now. Their primitive compass, called "fun", has stood strong in the auditions of all times, in shows of all generations and on stages of all successes and challenging experiences. By following this primitive compass, many authors have written thousands of books kids have never read, producers have made movies kids have never seen and philosophers have described theories kids have never heard of.

Enjoy the journey, enjoy every moment and quit worrying about winning and losing
- Matt Biondi

Many parents, on the other hand, prefer the illusion of "the future". They prefer putting off the fun of now and invest lots in preparing for life, in hope that fun will come, later. Parents go to work and dedicate hours of being away from their partner and kids in order to make money and have fun with their partner and kids on a short yearly vacation that they end up spending on renovating the shower, "because it cannot be postponed any longer". They get into an endless cycle, where they do not know what started first, the chicken or the egg.

Kids live without too many conditions. As long as they have fun, with a little bit of company, not seeking a big crowd and not dedicating hours for rehearsing or putting on makeup, they will perform on a small stage or in a solo performance, holding a balloon and celebrating their total ignorance of the future. Parents, on the other hand, have endless conditions on the location of the show, who will be the stage manager, what the content will be, who the other players will be, the director, the salary, who will be invited and how hard they will need to clap. But so many conditions and fun do not go hand in hand.

We can learn from kids how to have the courage not to treat life as a dress rehearsal or an imaginary show that we constantly need to prepare for, but to live in a simple, magical, natural show that happens every day in every second of our imperfect, clumsy, fun life.

We should learn from kids about "performing" and having fun today, because there is a real danger that if we keep preparing, when the time of our show comes, if ever, when we are finally thin, rich, happy, pretty, successful, with a high social status and lots of the latest gadgets, it may be too late.

If we argue and worry about a show that never happens, we can only imagine a sad show, in which our kids will be just like their parents and stop believing that more importantly than being thin and skinny, we need to love our body, more importantly than making money, we need to be content to put it to good use or give it away, more importantly than striving for happiness, we need to be happy along the way, more importantly than being pretty in other people's eyes, we need to feel pretty, more than wanting to be successful, we need to celebrate our existing successes, however small, more importantly than social status, we need to enjoy our friends and family and more importantly than buying gadgets, we need to enjoy them.

For kids, every experience is a show. It is natural and without conditions. They cry a little, laugh for no reason, sometimes they fail and they always get up. They do not have to have an audience and if they do, they do not try to please everyone. When they do not get any cheers and claps, they applaud themselves for participating.

We can learn philosophy from our own children, small, inexperienced and lacking perspective. We can learn from kids that life is a show that starts when we give up on endless rehearsals, when we stop trying to come up with the best show ever and we just participate and have fun. We can learn from kids that fun is an enormous force.

May the force be with you!
Ronit

You may want to read

• The Mean Average
• How to Handle Pressure
• More Control – Less Power

The film we saw was called The Whistleblower. It is a story of an American police officer who works for the United Nations' peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and uncovers a women trafficking operation. We sat on big, soft cushions on the grass at a park by the Brisbane River, the weather was perfect, the atmosphere was magical, we were happy for the chance to get away for a bit in each other's company.

Then, the movie started.

The level of brutality shown on the screen by the traffickers towards the women, the complete disregard for the law and the strong violation of every moral system I could think of disturbed me to the core. I had to struggle to keep watching some scenes and felt terrible for poor Ronit who is generally more sensitive than I am.

When we talked about the movie in the car on the way home, we both wondered what would compel anyone to abuse another person in such a way. Our conclusion was that these people had no love in their hearts. Not romantic love. Kindness, compassion, empathy, tenderness, comradery, friendship and understanding towards another human being.

All they had was fear. It was in their eyes. It was in their laughs. It was in their intonation. It was in their words. Because without love, fear is all that is left.

A few days later, we went to a Christian wedding of the lovely daughter of a lovely couple of friends of ours. We expected to hear about Jesus and God, but the wedding celebrant (who is also the bride's aunt), spent some time explaining why God is love.

She said something like, "People say that God is loving, and He is loving, but that is not his essence. God is love. Because love accepts without condition, encourages without limits and makes everything better".

And I thought to myself, "I wish every person in the world thought this way. Whether they were religious or not, if everybody's faith was in love, this world would be a much better place".

Many people are uncomfortable with expressing love, because they have heard little or no love spoken to them, they have not been hugged or stroked and they have not been praised. Some have had mostly abuse from their parents.

At Ronit's parenting workshops, participants are asked to list the 4 things they want most for their children. Some list health, some list money, some list success, but everyone lists happiness. Ronit then asks them to give up the least important thing and keep just 3, then just 2 and finally, only 1. The parents agonize over the "lost" values, but invariably, they leave happiness in their hands.

When Ronit asks them, "Is this what you spend most of your parenting time on?" some of the parents burst into tears, because they realize that the fighting and forcing and nagging only take away from the thing they want most for their kids - happiness. After this experience, the parents determine to go home and show their children nothing but love, no matter what happens.

We keep in touch with them and that is what many of them do. Parents who have not had love as kids must make an effort to express love for their children, but the rewards are tremendous.

From the kids' point of view, love is a natural thing and expressing it is easy. When we lived in Singapore, Tsoof was 3 years old and had his own room. Sometimes, he played by himself, and then felt alone, so he called out, "Mom/Dad, I love you" and we would reply, "I love you too".

That kept him happily playing in his room for a while longer, knowing we were there for him if he needed us. When he grew up (and, OMG, became a teenager), he started using the same method to diffuse conflicts. Say Noff is upset with him and starts talking tough, he says, "I love you too" and she softens (if not, he says it again).

With Christmas just around the corner, I wanted to encourage you to show your love for your children as much as you can. Giving gifts is certainly a great way, but it is only one of the 5 languages of love.

I also wanted to leave you with a song from a Christmas film (Scrooged), which captured the essence of this post very well. The lyrics are below, so you can sing along (go easy if you are at work, but go nuts if you are at home).

Loving parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• More Control – Less Power
• Questions, Questions
• Spoiled Brats

When this happens, I tell them there is something good about being unhappy. They always look at me surprised, thinking I have fallen on my head, but gradually, they understand that being unhappy and going to see a life coach is a wonderful sign that your body is talking to you and you are listening and actually doing something about it.

Congratulations, you are unhappy!

If you are unhappy with something in your life, congratulations! You are aware of your best navigating compass - your feelings.

Some people think happiness is an airy-fairy thing that cannot be explained and understood, not to mention controlled. Many people say they want to control their feelings in fear that their feelings might take over and control them.

But feelings do not have a mind of their own. They are a compass that lets us know where we should or should not go, we just have to look at it from time to time and see the direction it is pointing to. It is very simple. If it says, "I am not happy", change directions. If it says, "I am happy", keep going the same way.

I think this realization has helped me lots in life. When some of my friends, who know I am a happiness coach, ask me, "Well, Ronit, What is your formula for happiness?" I answer, "Tune into your body and let your feelings guide you".

"The Zone"

Think of your body (your "gut feelings") as a thermometer that tells you the level of your happiness. Unlike our body temperature, which needs to be in the same range for everyone to be healthy, the optimal happiness "temperature" differs from person to person. This is the temperature that makes us feel good - not overly excited, but not miserable either. This is called" The Zone".

Most people do not live in the zone. There are six reasons for not living in our zone.

We do not know where our zone is

It is because we do not think there is such a thing, so we do not look for it. I see many clients that do not think it is possible for them to be happy. Some think they will never experience it or that they never have.

I think this is the biggest problem for those who think they do not deserve happiness. They have developed a belief that happiness is a reward, something you must earn through hard work and good behavior. Sounds familiar?

We avoid searching for our zone because we are afraid to feel pain

We prefer not to feel pain, but think what would happen to you without the feeling of pain if you put your hands in a fire or spend a long time in the snow.

I think people do this only because they are so far from their zone and hurt so much they think of not feeling anything as a cure, when in fact, their feeling of too cold or too hot is a way for their body to protect them from greater harm. Unhappy feelings are the same - they protect us from greater harm. They function as guards to prevent us from going towards complete self-destruction.

We pay too much attention to what makes others happy

We think that other's optimal temperature is THE desired temperature. Many people say they cannot breathe in Thailand, yet I felt like that was my zone. At 90-95% humidity and high temperatures, I was at my best.

Do you really think this was THE happy temperature? No! It was just MY zone. I know some people who find it a great zone too, while others find it unbearable. Looking at other people's zone is a good way to get ideas about possible zones, but people have different values and needs and every person needs to examine these options and find his/her own.

We are so far away from the zone we cannot see it

Some people do not live in the zone because they are so far from it they lose sight of it. Think about it like a diet. Your optimal weight/temperature/happiness weight is 60kg. Then, something happens and you are tired, work too much, have pressure at work and you are just a little bit unhappy when you stand on the scales and see 62kg.

You tell yourself it is impossible to be happy at all times, it is just a little bit of extra weight/temperature/unhappiness, you have heard it is important to accept yourself as you are, life is full of compromises, you cannot be a super parent and a model and a cleaner and a business woman and an athlete and a great lover at the same time, and there are only 24 hours in one day. Gradually, you get to 75kg (which seems sudden, but is not), your temperature is so high you are burning and you are are so far from your zone you do not remember you were once happy.

Do you know how many clients tell me, "I don't think I ever loved my partner", as a way for them to recover after their partner has packed their things and left? When I ask, "How long had you been unhappy?" they say one year, two years and sometimes more. Their optimal relationship zone was around 60, but by the time their partner left, it had gradually reached 200. Who can survive at 200 for a long time?

Getting used to being "just a little bit unhappy" is one of the worst things in our life. People confuse compromise with flexibility. A little bit of unhappiness is not the end of the world, but it is a sign we are not going in the right direction. We should not panic, but we should certainly do something about it.

We expect others to make us happy

Another reason I can see with many client is they can recognize their unhappiness, they know that it is not a good sign, but instead of thinking, "My body is telling me I need to change direction", they say, "My body is telling me that someone else (sometimes even everyone else) around me needs to change direction". They complain, they criticize and judge others for their actions and behavior, believing that if others change to their temperature, they will be happy.

They are like the guy in the joke who calls his wife on the phone and she tells him, "They're saying on the radio there's a lunatic where you are driving in the wrong direction", and he tells her, "One lunatic? They're all lunatics here driving in the wrong direction. I seem to be the only decent driver out here".

This attitude only feeds the unhappiness and anchors it. Assuming that the people around you need to live at your temperature guarantees everyone will be unhappy. People who do not take responsibly for their happiness feel very frustrated most of the time and when you tell them to take control over their own happiness, they say that they do it by telling others about their "little unhappiness".

Your body is talking to you, not to anyone else!

We focus on temporary happiness substitutes

As a result of throwing the responsibility on others, some people give up on real happiness and search instead for artificial ways to be happy, or should I say, they focus on getting rid of their unhappiness in an artificial way. They search for the answers outside of them, instead of inside. So they drink alcohol, take drugs, smoke, overeat, go to the doctor and ask for antidepressants, seek alternative healers to give them magic potions, but they do not understand that no doctor and no pill can help them find their zone, because there is no such thing as "one size fits all".

They may feel better for a short time, sometimes even a very short time, but things will get worse straight after. Happiness is a choice and no one else can choose it for you.

How to find your happiness zone

Every person needs to find their own zone and focus on living in it. Some people become missionaries after finding their zone. They try telling everyone else how to live, but again, they assume there is one right temperature or definition of happiness. It is good to understand that examining each area of our life will help us fine-tune our own definition.

Here is a list of questions that will help you find your zone. Ask them often. You have all the answers. Notice the questions are not about what you imagine your zone is but what you have experienced in the past.

What makes me happy? Make a list of what makes you happy, do the 100 list. This is a good way to find your zone.

In what circumstances have I felt at my best? It was easy for me to find out the optimal temperature.

What makes me unhappy? Focus on your feeling and pay attention to being irresponsible. If you are not happy because of someone else, this is the reason you are not happy - you are throwing the responsibility on them.

In which areas of my life do I compromise with being "just a little bit unhappy"? Remember, this is a "silent killer". No one reaches extra weight/temperature suddenly. It happens a little bit every time we compromise on wanting to be happy. Find areas where you are "a little bit unhappy" and think of what you can do to change them. If you feel resentment towards your solution, it is still out of the zone. Resentment is not a happy feeling. Solutions that work may be difficult, but they will make you feel hopeful and inspired.

Although I do not believe we can be happy all the time, I do believe we need to aim to be there. And we cannot change everything in our life either. Some things we are not happy about and we cannot change. We need to accept them instead. Acceptance is not the same as compromise. In acceptance, there is contentment. In compromise, there is still resentment.

Happiness is not a reward for good behavior or success. It is reward for paying attention and taking responsibility. Our body is talking. We need to choose to listen and act.

May the force be with you!
Ronit

You may want to read

• From the Life Coaching Deck (5): Making Money Addiction
• Make a List: My Fears
• Attitude, Awareness, Authenticity

As a life coach, I talk a lot about wanting. I believe wanting is essential in life. It is the driving force of our existence. But today, I want to tell you about a session on my life coaching deck that reminded me again why the question "Why?" is as important as the question "What?" Chris, one of my wonderful clients, taught me a wonderful lesson about what happens when you do not know why.

All I knew about Chris was that he was a businessman in his early fifties, married, with no kids and a lack of motivation who was looking for a life coach. Nothing special. We all have those periods in our life when we just find it hard to get up in the morning.

This is what I told myself when I prepared for his session. The first time he came, when I opened the door, I saw from the corner of my eyes a classy Mercedes Benz parked outside. Well, the first thing I could think of was "Oh my god, what a beautiful car". I have to say it made me more curious about the reason he came. I thought that car was the result of lots of motivation.

Chris came out onto my deck, looked around and admired the yard. "What a beautiful place", he said, "Do you see all your clients here?" he asked. He seemed very friendly.

"Yes, I do. It makes everyone very relaxed, including me", I smiled.

He put his car keys on the table and said, "It's true. I feel relaxed already". He sat at the table and I asked him a bit about his life.

Life coaching involves some detective work. I take the puzzle pieces and try to put them together, looking for the piece that has the most important items on it, the piece that will make the picture clear. I asked and he was happy to answer. I think in some way, he wanted my help and presence to think out loud.

"Why are you here, Chris? What do you want?" I asked him.

He looked confused. "I really don't know. I think something's wrong with me".

Some people just do not know what they want. They sense that something is wrong and their life could be better, but they cannot put their finger on it. Asking "What do you want?" can open doors to places where they do not tend to go by themselves.

"What do you mean 'Something is wrong with me'?" I asked.

"I have a beautiful wife. We've been together 30 years now. I love her and she loves me ... I have a business that turns over millions of dollars every year ... I bought myself the car of my dreams last year", he said and I immediately thought about the classy car parked outside my house and I was sure many people have the same dream, "I have good friends that I see from time to time ... I go to church every weekend ... I have everything I wanted in life and still, there is something wrong with me".

My first reaction was, "Wow, this sounds like the perfect life. Why on Earth would any person who has everything everyone only dreams of say that something is wrong with him, but then Chris said, "I'm not happy".

Happiness is like a barometer. I think that people who realize this may feel a bit scared at first, but they have a great potential to be powerful.

"Why aren't you happy?" I asked.

"I don't know. I wish I could figure this out myself", he said. He looked sad.

When he was 16, Chris was kicked out of a very poor, disturbed home. After spending time as a homeless teen, hungry on the cold streets of England, he made up his mind to be a millionaire. "I knew I would be a millionaire one day. I've had hundreds of businesses over the years. I became a millionaire officially two years ago. Unfortunately, it had taken me 35 years to do it".

"Do you think something is wrong with you because it took you 35 years to become a millionaire?" I asked him.

"Yes, of course", he said, "Don't you think it's too long?"

"Some people spend their whole life trying and never become millionaires", I said to him, "I know many people who would be thrilled with being millionaires after 35 years. It's much better than never".

He looked at me surprised and said, "That's a good point. You're right".

Chris was sharp. The way he responded made me think that he was looking for someone to challenge his thinking and to help him thinking.

"What makes you happy?" I asked.

He hesitated and answered like a child who has been caught doing something bad. "Beer ... I get up in the morning and think of beer ... when I'm at work, I can only think of beer ... when I come back home, I only want beer".

I thought to myself, "What a waste. He reminds me of kids and their attitude to school breaks. Throughout the whole year, they look forward to the next school break, but when the long summer break finally arrives, they do not know what to do with all that spare time. I would have done so many things with that money. I wonder if Chris thought the same way before he had all that money".

"Do you only think of beer and want beer or do you actually drink beer?" I asked.

"Oh, I drink beer all day, but it doesn't even make me happy anymore. I told you something was wrong with me", he said.

It was funny, hearing a 50-year-old man talking like a child. "What's the problem with drinking beer all day?" I asked.

"I don't enjoy it and it makes me unhappy. I think I'm addicted", he said.

"Define addiction", I said. After hearing so many clients defining "addiction", I have perfected my own definition the word, but I wondered about his.

"Addiction is when you want something more and more, but when you get what you want, it is not satisfying and you want even more of it. It is a never-ending cycle. It gives you temporary comfort, but over time, it is less and less comforting and you need more and more of it", he said.

This trick always worked. When asked about addiction, every client comes up with a definition that sounds like it is the first time they have thought about it. The trick is to make them hear themselves defining it.

"When did you start drinking?" I asked him.

"I've been drinking all my life, but you know, once a week, nothing serious. I'm not sure exactly when I started drinking more. I think about two or two and a half years ago".

I had a feeling I had heard him talking about this timeframe. "What triggered it? Did something special happen back then, two or two and a half years ago?" I asked.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing", he said, playing with his car keys, then suddenly stopped.

We had about 2 minutes of silence. He looked at me and his eyes were shining. He knew exactly when his drinking had started. "It started at a party my wife and I organized for the whole office after I signed a big contract. It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life and I was in panic. I think I'm still in panic", he said with long pauses, as if he was talking to himself and thinking out loud.

"What was it that scared you so much?" I asked.

He sat back in his chair and played with his car keys again. There was another long period of silence. Then, he said, "I think I realized it didn't have the power I thought it did".

"What power?" I asked.

"The power to make me happy, the power to fix everything, the power to feel loved. I was given a magic lamp and there was nothing magic about it. All my life, I'd said, 'When I become a millionaire, it will fix everything' and it fixed nothing. I was the same man. It was so devastating I started to drink. I'm addicted to beer. Every day, I drink more than the previous day and it doesn't help".

When he talked about the magic lamp, I understood that most people think the same about money. They are addicted to making money. They want more of it, they make more of it, but it is never enough. The second you look in your bank account provides temporary comfort, but every time, the joy last less and less time. It is painful to find out that what you wanted all your life was not exactly what you thought it would be. Chris was just one more guy who was addicted to making money. He was just an addicted millionaire.

Addiction, from my experience, is a mindset. If you overcome one, you usually replace it with something else. Sometimes, I think it is a bottomless pit, caused by pain, that people try to fill in ways that only make the emptiness bigger. I had found the most valuable piece in this puzzle. Chris and I talked about addiction and I asked him to think of all the things in his life he was addicted to, based on his definition of addiction.

"I'm addicted to money", he said in relief.

Mostly poor people are addicted to money, because they are far more focused on wanting money than on what they would do with that money once they got it. They dedicate most of their energy in life to making money and not enough to using it well. They know what they want, but not why they want it.

Chris had been addicted to money since he was 16 years old. He had been in such pain from being thrown out of his home and living on the streets without food, he developed the belief that money was the cure for all his pains. He had started business after a business. He had failed and gotten up and earned more and more and finally, when he had reached his desired goal of being a millionaire and it had not filled up the emptiness, he had lost his motivation and wanted to drown himself in his disappointment, so he had swapped one addiction with another.

Emptiness cannot be filled with sugar, food, alcohol, money, drugs or any other addiction. Emptiness can only be replaced by a feeling of gratitude, self-appreciation, acceptance, forgiveness and a strong feeling of love.

The millionaire game

It was the end of the session and Chris and I came up with a strategy for our next session. I told him next time we would play the "Millionaire game". I started playing this game when I was 24 and I had my first business. At home, we play it very often with the kids. In this game, we imagine what we would do with lots of money. When we talk about what we want to do with that money, it can help us find the why, the pain or discomfort we want this money to heal. If we know what we are missing in life, we can make good use of our money by buying this feeling with the money we have worked so hard to get. Money is a means to an end. When it becomes the goal, reaching our goal can be painful.

I felt lucky. It is not often you get a chance to sit with a real millionaire and ask him, "If you were a millionaire, what would you do with your money?"

Chris stood up and looked at the garden.

"You have a nice place. It's very relaxing here. Do you play games with all your clients?" he asked, smiling.

"As often as I can", I answered and stood next to him.

"I've always thought I was born 16 years old on the street. It's a strange thought. I don't remember myself playing games", he said. I think he understood that money was not really what he wanted. Maybe he was grieving his lost childhood.

As we both looked at the palm trees of my yard, I touched his shoulder and said, "It's never too late to start".

Be happy,
Ronit

You may want to read

• The art of Excellence (3): Risk, success and happiness
• The art of Excellence (2): Fighting poverty
• The art of Excellence (1): Success with high standards