In today’s post to the Jack’s Winning Words blog, Jack used this quote – “Every man has three characters – that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.” (Alphonse Karr)
I have a feeling that if Karr was alive today he might enjoy adding to his thoughts about character with this modern quote by J.W. Stevens – “Be the person your dog thinks you are!”
We are all somewhat conscious of the character that we are trying to portray to the 
world. Most of the time we are trying to appear to be normal and maybe even “cool” (or what we think is cool). Very few people set out each day to be perceived by others as being a dork or a jerk or anything negative, yet many achieve those distinctions through their actions and behavior.
I think Stevens advice may be the best of all. I don’t think your dog starts off thinking about you based upon looks or color and any of the other preconceptions that we allow to creep into our evaluations of people. Instead your dog is trying to give you unconditional love and just wants your attention, care and love in return. Your dog misses 
you when you are gone and is happy when you return. He or she just wants to be accepted and welcomed into your “pack” and maybe be given an occasional treat and a pat on the head.
We can’t walk around patting others on the head and handing out treats, but we can greet them with a smile and a friendly hello. We can extend a hand, ask about their well-being and compliment them. In doing so, we become the person that they hoped they might meet today – someone friendly and open and interested in them. Hopefully, that will bring the character that you are exhibiting more in line with the character that you think you are. Few of us think of ourselves as cold, callous or unfriendly.
So set out today to be the person that your dog thinks you are and see if that doesn’t 
work for you. Start by putting a smile on your face and being conscious that you are smiling. Greet others when you meet them, rather than just looking away. Resolve to take the time to greet and speak to those whom you already know and to make the effort to meet some new people today. See if being perceived as a friendlier and welcoming person doesn’t make you feel better at the end of the day. Perhaps you will even find that your day was more successful, because more people felt good about meeting and interacting with you.
Be that person who makes someone else’s day and it will make your day, too. Maybe then you will be the person that God hoped you would be.
Posted by Norm Werner 
somewhere in the world caused enough change in the movement of the atmosphere to cause minute changes to the weather patterns in the entire world. If you’ve ever wondered why it may be raining across the street, but not on your house, perhaps it was a butterfly somewhere in Asia that was flapping it’s wings that caused that weather pattern. At least it’s more fun to think of that butterfly flapping away in Asia than dwelling on the fact that it may be raining.
certainly guilty of procrastination about exercise. When the gym that I was going to closed, I told myself that I’d join another gym and get back to regular exercise. I’m still telling myself that. I’ve been looking at it as a big decision, when in reality there was a small decision that I could have made to do a little exercise at home each day, until I found a new gym. It’s time to make that small decision and change my life. Time for some home burpees.
Reconnect with God each morning and put your trust in what He has in store for your life today. I use the little prayer that I’ve posted here many times – “Not my will, but Thy will be done”. You will find that you start each day with a new attitude when you take that moment to reconnect and reassure yourself that God is with you. That new attitude and the aura of God working through you will carry over into the decisions that you make that day, which can’t help but change your life and the world around you. You will become God’s “butterfly effect” on the world.
predisposition in our minds about them/it and how to react to the encounter. Sometimes, those predispositions may be strong and well as wrong and have turned into unfounded prejudices. Many times it may just be a feeling of unease or fear, if we have little or no experiences upon which to fora more positive reaction.
Some people really don’t have a mind that is open to change, no matter what evidence is presented that a long held conviction is wrong. They have locked their brains tightly into a reality that is theirs alone and they “see” the world from within that realm. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case in Washington these days, as the politicians there become more and more polarized. One certainly doesn’t see a lot of open minds there, just a lot of brainless behavior.
idea may well displace old ideas that you now know were not completely right or which no longer fit for you. New people in your life may replace old friends who no longer share your values or whose position on things is no longer aligned with yours. Life happens and you move on.
in Indonesia and thought by many to be the first bird that God created in the Garden of Eden. To see such a bird is rare and to actually have one alight upon your hand even more rare.
possess people. We want them to be “ours” and ours alone. What we don’t understand is that love is a feeling that must be shared and not possessed. Saying I love you to someone does not carry with it “I own you”; but, sometimes people imply that into the relationship. Those relationships are doomed to fail. Love is something that is at the same time shared and earned in return.
violence situations. It is often the case that domestic violence is driven as much by the need to control the other person as from any other reason. Once all other techniques of control fail, the possessive person is left with physical violence or threats as a mechanism of control. Domestic violence becomes the final spiral towards oblivion of a long failed relationship.
there are things that you could do that would cause love (and the Bird of Paradise) to fly away by being too possessive. Love cannot be grasped it can only be shared and it must be shared freely and without constraints. Just as the Bird of Paradise is beautiful to behold, love is a beautiful things to see and feel and even touch, but it cannot be grasped and possessed.
correct some factual error (at least in my opinion) that I think may have just been made in something that is said. Sometimes (probably most of the time) it is better to just let things go, even if you know that what was just said is not correct. Be kind this week.
view on things, but that’s OK.” Don’t say that out loud, unless you are just spoiling for an argument. Be kind this week.
stubbornly to a disproved position, it is much better to admit your mistake and move on by embracing the new “truth” of the matter. Perhaps now you will be better able to understand the position that others held all along, which you considered “wrong-headed” until now. You will probably also realize that, had you chosen to be kind rather than right in your position, you would now be in a much better position. Be kind this week.
yours. Maybe there is no right and wrong, just two wrongs that will get you nowhere. Life does not have to become as dysfunctional as our current political system, where everything is judged using a far-right or far-left litmus test. There is a win-win middle ground were different opinions and perspectives may be valued for providing diversity to the conversation and where the truth is somewhere in the middle or, perhaps, somewhere else altogether. Be kind this week.
something nice to say to someone puts you in a positive frame of mind, because you are being positive and not just finding fault with that person. It can be something as small as “your hair looks great today” or maybe just “you look great today”. You’ll probably get a smile and maybe a reply and it will usually be positive, which helps reinforce the positive vibe that you were on when you made the comment.
Another side-benefit of making the effort to say something nice is that it will usually put a smile on your face, which may be a pleasant change from your normal “at rest” face. It is quite natural that most people’s faces droop a bit into what might be interpreted as a frown by others. You aren’t really unhappy or trying to frown and probably don’t realize that your “at rest” face doesn’t look inviting or friendly. By conscientiously preparing to say something nice you will reflexively put a little smile on your face, which will be a pleasant change for those that you meet.
They also learn about us from watching how we behave, as do others around us. You don’t have to become paranoid about it; but, it is something to keep in mind, that all of those who are around us on a daily basis either learn something about us from watching or they form some opinion about us based on those observations.
How many times have you seen someone that you didn’t know do something stupid and immediately you had had the reaction, “What a jerk.” You don’t really know if they are normally a jerk or not, but that was your first impression of them. If you were that person you certainly would hope that this isn’t their lasting impression of you, based upon that one incident.
several options being quickly presented to deal with the situation at hand. For Christians one option that should come to mind every time is the old standby, “What would Jesus do?” That is a great option because it makes us pause further to think about an answer to that question. Jesus never took the path of the jerk.
and suggesting that I look at the positive side of things by celebrating that I would get to be first on the next green light. Now that has become a little joke for us when I miss a light. She gave me a different place to look for a response.
I would do a blog post on strong women in our society. There has been quite a bit of press coverage of strong women lately, whether in politics or business or life in general. Later, in a moment of self-doubt, I got to thinking to myself, “What the heck do I know about strong women.” My answer to was to think of it more about a strong person, gender identity aside, and to try to identify the characteristics that makes them “strong”.
clear understanding and acceptance of who they are and what they want in life. Strong women do not need a man to validate them. They are ready and looking for an equal partner, not just someone to assume the role of protector and provider. They have left the nest and their parents and aren’t looking for a man to come into their life and provide a substitute father figure.
different types of people, one of the basic premises was that you are OK being you; that you aren’t trying to be someone else. Strong people and strong women are OK being themselves. They like who they are and what they are doing in life. They might invite you to share that life with them, but they are not looking to replace it or change it, just to suit you. They may be willing to make some accommodations in order to share life with you; but you shouldn’t expect subservience or too much deference to your point of view.
you can find compromise and sometimes you just have to agree to disagree; and, that’s OK. Life does not have to be a “winner-loser” game. In fact it is best when lived as a win-win game.
form a relationship with someone who can hold their own as your best friend in life’s journey. It can be an amazing trip when you have a partner alongside you who can give as much as he/she takes in the relationship. If you just want arm candy, you can find that, too; just don’t expect too much from someone who sees you as her sugar daddy. You can drag that cute, little dependent being along with you, like a puppy on a lease; or, you can find a strong woman who will pull her load in life as an equal partner – you chose.
button for life. We need time to think and reflect, to evaluate things and, possibly, to reimagine our role and reactions to what is happening. How many times we think back to situations and from that new point of view, say to ourselves, “if only I had thought of this back then.” Perhaps you would have thought of that back then, if you had hit the pause button.
happen to us often elicit equally hurtful reactions from us and usually just end up compounding the problem. Problems that are so big that they overwhelm us too often cause responses that are overly ambitious and not well thought out. Pausing to see how to break the problem down into a series of smaller and simpler responses can lead to a much better chance of success.
slide into depression because you see no way out. You may wish to say a little prayer, asking for God’s help with the decisions that you have to make or perhaps you would finbd comfort in the little prayer that I use and have written about here many times – “Not my will, but thy will be done.” 
In our daily lives there are probably lots of people who do things for us that normally go unnoticed and unappreciated. There’s the bus driver who helps get us to work or maybe the guard at the guard shack who there to help insure our safety. Maybe it’s the day-care worker who takes care of our children while we work or the lunch room worker or the waitress who is there to server our noon-time meal. It may be the paper delivery person who has to get up at 4 AM in the morning each day to go get the papers and deliver their routes. Perhaps it one of the many retail people that we may encounter during the day.
these people blend into the background and become just a part of the environment to us. We only recognize them when something doesn’t go as we wish and we complain about it and them. We may call their managers in anger over some perceived slight in the service; but, how many call just to tell that manager what great service they gave us?
Sometimes this tendency to ignore and not appreciate them extends to our life partners, especially to the career-oriented men in the relationship. Call it complacency or just laziness, we sometimes become so self-centered that take for granted all that a spouse does for us to make our life better. The cooking and cleaning and housekeeping and laundry and child care all seem to fade into the background and become unappreciated expectations, rather than something that could be and should be acknowledged and appreciated. It takes only a moment of your time to give your partner a hug and tell them how much you appreciate the meal that they just served, even though you may have no real appreciation of how much time and effort went into the making that meal.
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