Geographist

My oldest daughter recently got her driver's license, although she's technically had a vehicle for a while now.  About a year ago, my in-laws were going to buy a new car and decided to give her their old SUV instead of trading it in.  It was a great gift for her and she quickly set about the process of personalizing the inside to her preferences.  As I taught her to drive, it wasn't uncommon for me to try to convince her to try my car once in a while.  After all, I drive a sports car and I thought she'd leap at the chance to get behind the wheel of something a little more "fun" than a small SUV.  But no, she never wanted to!  One of the reasons she gave was the fact that it was difficult to see all the way around my car, but her SUV had more windows and better visibility behind the wheel when she wanted to change lanes.  In life, sometimes we have a similar issue - there are things around us we don't notice, even though they're obvious to others. ...

Have you ever been to the hospital?  I've been to the emergency room once or twice, plus I've had a few "minor" surgeries and procedures over the years.  It seems like a doctor will almost always direct someone to provide medication to the patient, either in a pill or through the point of needle, and then will want to find out how the individual is doing after a certain period of time.  Why?  To see if there has been any improvement, or at least to make sure that nothing has gotten worse.  If I were to have an infection, for instance, and the medicine was helping me, you might expect to hear someone say something about how well I was responding to the treatment.  If something had gone wrong, however, the medical professionals might be concerned that my body was having a reaction .  Notice the difference in those two words!  Today, as we look at how to live a successful life, let's make sure we know how to avoid having a reaction. In the medical e...

Have you ever played paper, rock, scissors?  I always thought it was a little goofy, because nobody seems to understand how paper beats rock.  My brother and I tried coming up with different items to put into the game, but eventually someone would try to introduce dynamite and to our young minds that beat everything so why continue to play after that?  You know what actually does beat paper, scissors, and rock in real life...without any explosions?  Water!  That's right, it can soak paper, rust away scissors, and erode even the biggest rocks.  In fact, some of the neatest places to visit are natural formations caused by the gradual wearing away of rocks - Grand Canyon and Arches National Park are two of my own favorites.  How does water do it?  Through effort that remains steady, persistent, and consistent  over time. When each of us decides what we want to accomplish and we get help identifying the right actions to take, we must be determine...

"The dog did it!"  Have you ever blamed a pet for something, maybe a mess that was discovered on the floor or a nasty smell in the air?  It's easy to point fingers at an animal that can't defend itself.  When my kids were babies, I used to jokingly blame them for doing things around the house before they were even big enough to crawl.  While these may be funny examples, you may have noticed that it's not always easy to claim responsibility.  But like it or not, it's a sign of maturity to refuse to give excuses .  I don't really know who said it first, but I used to hear that the definition of an excuse is "the skin of a reason, stuffed with a lie."  When you put it that way, they don't really sound very good!  Then why do they show up so often?  I think the biggest reason is because so many people don't want to admit (or even believe) that they're the cause when something bad happens. I didn't get a good grade?  The teacher didn...