What I Learned: How to Get Along With Everyone

What I Learned: How to Get Along With Everyone

“What I Learned” is a guest post series of readers telling their personal stories about lessons they have learned about relationships in hopes of helping us all grow and cherish the relationships that matter the most to us (you can send us your story too). This guest post is by Laurie Rappeport from Safed, Israel. (Note: While we may not agree with everything Laurie writes in this post, we wanted to publish this because her thoughts offer a great opportunity for discussion. We’re excited to hear your responses.)

About ten years ago someone accused me of something that I absolutely had not done. It came like a lightning bolt out of the blue and obsessed me — how could this person believe that I had acted in a way that was completely unethical, and that went against everything that I believed?  What had spurred this false accusation? And most importantly, how could I get my reputation back, even if it was just with this one person?
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Ta-Da List

Why I Scrapped My To-Do List

I am henceforth replacing my daily To-Do List with a Ta-Da List.*

In place of the endless litany of tasks to finish, I am choosing to note down all the things worth celebrating in my day. Being a mother of a young child means that most of my things to do are in a state of partially done by the time evening rolls around. Dishes? Half in the washer, half in the sink. Emails – read but not responded to. As I type this, our bedsheet is sitting on the dining table, waiting for me to finish patching it (I WILL have to finish that before I get to sleep on it tonight!). Actually crossing something off of my To-Do List is a major, major accomplishment and looking at the ever-growing and unfinished list is discouraging.Read More

How-the-Hunger-Games-Changed-my-Remembrance-Day

How The Hunger Games Changed my Remembrance Day

Spoiler Alert: In this post I write about The Hunger Games trilogy written by Suzanne Collins and refer to parts of the plot.] 

After reading the last book of The Hunger Games trilogy I felt sick to my stomach. It was more than a sadness that I felt: it was a mixture of disgust and despise. This was the closest to hatred that I had felt in a long time. The feeling I felt was towards war.
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In-memory-of-grandpa-chan

In Memory of Grandpa Chan

Our grandfather Yee-Noon Chan passed away last night. This is our tribute to him – first Olive’s, then mine.

Last night, for a brief moment, a baby’s laughter filled the room where a frail, 91 year-old man lay dying. The child was my daughter. The man was her great-grandfather – the father of my husband’s father. This was the second and final time she would ever meet him in her life.Read More