Learning Is Half The Battle

There's been an abundance of discussion regarding behavior and communication in my house of late. Let me note my favorite phrases lately:

1. Be better. 
2. Stop It. Just stop it. 
3. It's okay to be wrong. 
4. Why don't you take a minute, think about that, and return when you can have a reasonable discussion. 
5. We do not run on telepathy, please use your words. 
6. Please give me ALL the information before creating an unnecessary situation. 
7. We all have choices. 

I will stop there. I could go on all night, really I could, about all of the lessons I want to teach my children; of how I want them to be better people, to communicate with kindness, without ill intention, to know what they need to express and how to fundamentally get their point across without belittling another in that accomplishment. I can only teach what I have learned, and as I hear from the outside a lot lately - "we can only know what we know" (or as my son reminds me, "knowing is half the battle").

Friday afternoon, before my weekend started, I posted this on the ever popular boredom killer we all know as facebook: "This weekend, please remember: we are all free to choose our behavior, but we are not free from the consequence. Be better. That's a choice too". It was not intended for self reflection. But by Friday night, I was eating my own words. They tasted like crow. It was a necessary, humbling experience. "Be better, be better, be better..." Oh, but how I didn't want to be. I wanted to be right, and stubborn, and justified, and did I mention, right? In the end, I wasn't exactly right... (not entirely wrong, but none the less, not right) Dammit. It was hard for me to look at what I have been trying to teach my children, and know, we, as adults, are far from done with our own lessons. I am far from done learning.

Here is to leading by example, and whatever the hell the opposite of hypocrisy is... Here is to sincerity (thank you google). Hat's off to learning, and of course, to being better.

Onward. Choose wisely.