Personal living and holistic balance, from Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD
A friend works for a company that helps government agencies improve their service. His team needs to address the basics. Sometimes they start with a simple instruction that should be commonsense in the service sector: “Be nice to the people you serve.” But some employees don’t get it. Someone usually asks, “Why?” The second step […]
Control Your Finances or They Will Control You From an early age, a lesson I learned well from my parents was to spend money with care and exercise financial responsibility. As a result, I’ve never lived beyond my means, as so many people do today. Though I lived for a time at my level of […]
Pursue a Healthy Balance and Avoid Extreme Responses After months of waiting, I headed out for a spiritual retreat. I arrived with anticipation of my time there. Though not enforced with unbending resolve, the center promotes silence. It stands as one of their values. I relished the promise of solitude in their rural, nearly untainted […]
Don’t Live in Isolation John Donne said, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” We will do well to heed his wise words. Though many people celebrate the rugged individual, individualism is a lonely place to be. We need people. Going it alone isolates. We are emotionally and physically healthier when we connect in […]
Offering Forgiveness Is a Gift to the Offender . . . and to Yourself Besides writing books and blog posts, I produce trade publications for the call center industry. At one time, I printed copies of my magazines. I’d mail these to subscribers and occasionally pass them out at industry conventions and trade shows. Several years ago, […]
Yielding to Others Gives Them a Gift and Costs Us Little The largest event venue in our area is downtown. It requires finding a place to park and paying for the privilege. My family and I always use a parking ramp that offers convenient access to the venue and isn’t as exorbitant as other options. […]
Reach Out to Others Whenever and However You Can Building on our prescription to be nice, we extend the concept to being friendly. It takes little effort to be friendly, yet it seems too many people do the opposite. They’re self-absorbed, focusing on themselves and not on others. They look inward instead of outward. Being […]
Saying “I’m Sorry” Is Good for Others . . . and for Ourselves Navigating the healthcare industry presents formidable challenges. And that’s just to find the right provider who will, in theory, accept your insurance. Even worse is paying for the services once rendered. It always takes several months and often requires multiple contacts to plead, dispute, […]
Look for Ways to Help Others I once worked in a downtown office. Homeless people would sometimes interrupt my short trek from my car to the building to ask for money. Not wanting to get involved, I’d shake my head and say, “I don’t have any money on me.” Sometimes this was true. Other times, […]
Distracting, Divisive, and Dangerous When I set up my first social media account, I followed a few close friends and endeavored to read every one of their posts. That didn’t last long. As the number of my connections grew, the quantity of posts soon had me feeling overwhelmed. Then I added a second platform and, […]