Cherie's Random Thoughts

Yesterday I learned that my father, in addition to his Parkinson's Disease has a very troublesome rare disorder called Basilar Invagination. This disorder is when a piece of bone in the neck intrudes into the spinal cord and moves upward towards the brain.  Although I knew that my father's recent bouts of falling could lead to something terrible and I did not expect this.  The diagnosis got me think about illness and fathers. See as a child and for the first 15 years of my adult life I saw my father as SUPERMAN. A human being with tremendous strength, yet would do so quietly. For 36 years my father took care of my mother, who hade numerous illness including mental illness. He is one of my heroes. Always willing to help others. Always making sure that we went to great schools and lived in great neighborhoods. Even when I family was one foot from being homeless my father would travel far to work in temp jobs just to make sure we had a roof over our heads.  Since...

During a commencement speech at the University of Penn, Bono said the following words:  "Every human life as equal worth."  His commencement speech reminds us how in life we sometimes impede the process of equality for the human race.  This impediment often arrives in the form of the following:  Not speaking up for the little guy.  Playing the blame game and not taking ownership in our part of human problems such as poverty, lack of education, violence, etc.  Failing to speak up before the crisis occurs.  Engaging in unethical behavior simply to obtain the mighty dollar.  Allowing the great divide between poverty and prosperity to widen. Seeing people only as a number or a means to an end. In addition, waiting to care about a human inequality until it happens to us. In the 21 st century has our access to technology has tripled; we often view the world in sound bites and react to in spurts.  More and mo...

10 Questions You Should Know the Answers To The 10 questions listed in the above Marc and Angel blog post are truly 10 questions that by the time you are 40 years (technically 1/2 way through your life, for some) you should be able to answer many if not most of these question.  I believe the inability to answer at least 70% of these questions could lead to a unhappy and an unhealthy latter part of your life. Their questions are powerful and help a person understand what matters most in terms of how you feel about yourself and the legacy you will leave.  Most 40 years have yet to really think about what their legacy is, but should.  The question that resonates with me most is: "How can you make a positive difference?" For me, making a difference in the life of another, whether a person, animal, place or thing is one of the most powerful things you can do in life. It not only enriches the lives of others but it fuels your soul with positive energy and is somethi...

It’s on You « Positively Positive This blog post on Positively Positive is a great reminder to us that we control or life (car). Much like the purchase of a car, you have some choice. You can choose your color, your price, where you want to buy, where you want to drive it, and how long you want to keep it.  I love the three theme in this blog post as well: waking, looking, and using your voice.  All too often many of us run through life, when we should be walking. Our mornings are filled with abrupt wake ups when we should take this time to slowly wake up to reflect on our goals for the day. Each day must start on a positive one if you want a positive and/or productive outcome.  Self-entrapment and/or allowing yourself to remain in society's box of you only leads to unhappiness. Many goals in life are never achieve simply because we choose to stay in the box.  The last theme is really self-explanatory: speak up not only when you feel something is not r...

8 Ways You’re Driving Yourself Crazy : Practical Tips for Productive Living After reading this article on Marc and Angel Hack Life, I thought this is definitely a list that will lead to a person's self-destruction.  Most discomfort, pain, and unhappiness are self-PRODUCED.  Several of these I think really accelerate the process.  Think about the past and wishing that it were different   is A WASTE OF TIME.  The past is the past, we should reflect on it, learn from it, and NEVER make the mistakes again.  When past events resurface in your life, it simply means you did not learn the lesson the first time.  Complaining with no action is just annoying .  We a right to complain, but we do not have the right to complain when we are unwilling to change our perspective about something and/or do something about it.  Perceptual procrastination   really GETS YOU INTO TROUBLE.  What is even worse is when you e...

Our inner beauty is all that matters in life.  If we do not cherish and nurture our true selves, we sentence ourselves to an unhappy life.  This video embodies how we have a distorted image of outer selves, which affect our inner beauty.  Over the past four decade, I have learned that when we progressively let our inner beauty shine outwards everything falls into place.  I learned that it is pointless to compare yourself with another because we were all born with special gifts and beauty to share with the world if we first accept that we are BEAUTIFUL. 

Fahad Hassan: A Message to Americans: Let's Increase Teacher Value Another NO-BRAINER!  Teachers, educators, mentors, professors, or whatever you want to call us MATTER.  It is because of a teacher at every level of my educational life, in conjunction with have great parents, that I do what I do.  I own my success in life to them and would not be where I am today without their guidance.  We spend so much time BASHING teachers when we need to realize when they said, "it takes a village to raise a child.”  -They MEANT IT.  Education is a cycle and when one or more team players are not on the same page, the student suffers; and as a result, society suffers as well.