Category: Character

Alonso Chaney was born at Colorado Springs, Colorado on this day in 1883, both parents were deaf and dumb. At age nine, "Lon" left school to tend his mother when she was struck with inflammatory rheumatism which left her bedridden for the rest of her life. As the boy learned the news of the town, he pantomimed it to his mother, learning to communicate in pose and gesture. At eighteen he was completely hooked on the stage, working in his own travelling company. In 1912 he moved to Los Angeles and started getting bit parts in movies, and in 1923 stunned audiences with his performance as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Because of his skill with makeup, Lon Chaney was known as "the man of a thousand faces".

Question asked on 04/02/2008 at 07:30 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

I've learned that if you want to do something positive for your children, work to improve your marriage.
Age 61

I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
Age 62

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. Age 64

I've learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But if you focus on your family, the needs of others, your work, meeting new people, and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you.
Age 65

I've learned that whenever I decide something with kindness, I usually make the right decision.
Age 66

I've learned that everyone can use a prayer.
Age 72

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.
Age 82

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch-holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
Age 90

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.
Age 92

Question asked on 07/12/2007 at 07:30 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

I've learned that silent company is often more healing than words of advice. Age 24

I've learned that brushing my child's hair is one of life's great pleasures. Age 26

I've learned that wherever I go, the world's worst drivers have followed me there. Age 29

I've learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it. Age 30

I've learned that there are people who love you dearly but just don't know how to show it. Age 42

I've learned that you can make some one's day by simply sending them a little note. Age 44

I've learned that the greater a person's sense of guilt, the greater his or her need to cast blame on others. Age 46

I've learned that children and grandparents are natural allies. Age 47

I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. Age 48

I've learned that singing "Amazing Grace" can lift my spirits for hours. Age 49

I've learned that motel mattresses are better on the side away from the phone. Age 50

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
Age 51

I've learned that keeping a vegetable garden is worth a medicine cabinet full of pills.
Age 52

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you miss them terribly after they die.
Age 53

I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
Age 58

Question asked on 07/11/2007 at 07:23 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

I've learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sings "Silent Night". Age 5

I've learned that our dog doesn't want to eat my broccoli either. Age 7

I've learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are doing and wave back. Age 9

I've learned that just when I get my room the way I like it, Mom makes me clean it up again. Age 12

I've learned that if you want to cheer yourself u p, you should try cheering someone else up. Age 14

I've learned that although it's hard to admit it, I'm secretly glad my parents are strict with me. Age 15

Question asked on 07/10/2007 at 07:18 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

Continued from the 12th.
In personal finance, Aristotle teaches us to be neither misers (deficient) nor spendthrifts (excessive). "In the matter of giving and earning money," advises the Greek Philosopher, "the mean is liberality, (while) excess and deficiancy are prodigality and miserliness. But both vioces exceed and fall short in giving and earning in contrary ways: The prodigal exceeds in spending, but falls short in earning; the miser exceeds in earning, but falls short in spending."
Wise old Solomon in the bible warns, "Be neither rich nor poor" - both can be a burden. Aristotle teaches that poverty leaves the good life unfullfilled. Extreme wealth can be a burden also. "The rich can be overcharged and choked with the cares of the riches and the pleasures of this life," as Jesus warned. Aristotle concludes that personal happiness and the "highest excellence" are achieved through moderate living.
In the investment world, the most successful investors are those who prudently measure the risk and reward of an investment, avoid risk-free investments (which offer little or no reward) as well as reckless speculations. Greedy investors almost always end up losing their shirts. Remember the dotcom era!!!

Question asked on 06/13/2007 at 07:29 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

I read the following from a News Letter and thought it apropriate for your attention.
From Forcasts & Strategies.
"Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, lived 2400 years ago. What can he teach us today? He was above all, a practicle advisor to business and political leaders in ancient Athens. His most famous student was Alexander the Great, who conquered the known world and tried to imbue himself with the principles of the good life taught by his mentor.
Above all, Aristotle preached the virtue of balance between earning, learning, playing, loving, and serving. By keeping a proper balance between excess and deficiency, the ultimate goal in life - personal happiness - can be reached. In Aristotle's mind, every virtue has 2 vices. He uses the example of couraage. He asks, What is the opposite of courage? You might answer, cowardice," and you would be right. Aristotle suggests that there are 2 extremes: Cowardice and recklessness. He writes, "The mean as concerns fear and confidence is courage: those that exceed in fearlessness are foolhardy, while those who exceed in fear are cowardly."
Continued Tomorrow.

Question asked on 06/12/2007 at 08:07 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called "Monday Night At Morton's." (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.

Ben Stein's Last Column...
============================================
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I "slug" it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is "eonlineFINAL," and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the US soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the US soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
By Ben Stein

Question asked on 05/30/2007 at 05:18 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED

5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap

Question asked on 04/04/2007 at 06:09 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:
1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptise cats.
2) When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.

Continued tomorrow:

Question asked on 04/03/2007 at 07:07 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

What is the seventh wonder of the world?

Compound interest.

If you have very small kids or grandkids, they can benefit from the miracle of compounded interest. Justin Ford, wrote a brilliant book called Seeds of Wealth. It is all about saving just $1 a day for your kids so they have a substantial nest egg by the time they are young adults.
Continued.

The answer to: "Here’s to your own wealth. (9/16/06)"

Question asked on 09/16/2006 at 06:01 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

This a true story.

This may put a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye. (Hopefully, it will.) I recieved this as an email.

Last week I was in Atlanta, Georgia attending a conference. While I was in the airport, returning home, I heard several people behind me beginning to clap and cheer. I immediately turned around and witnessed
one of the greatest act's of patriotism I have ever seen.
Moving thru the terminal was a group of soldiers in their camo's, as they began heading to their gate everyone (well almost everyone) was abruptly to their feet with their hands waving and cheering. When I saw the soldiers, probably 30-40 of them, being applauded and cheered for it hit me. I'm not alone. I'm not the only red blooded Aerican who still loves this country and supports our troops and their families.
Of course I immediately stopped and began clapping for these young unsung heroes who are putting their lives on the line everyday for us so we  can go to school, work and home without fear or reprisal. Just when I thought I could not be more proud of my country or of our service men and women a young girl, not more than 6 or 7 years old, ran up to one of the male soldiers. He kneeled down and said "hi," the little girl then she asked him if he would give something to her daddy for her. The young soldier, he didn't look any older than maybe 22 himself, said he would try and what did she want to give to her daddy. Then suddenly the little girl grabbed the neck of this soldier, gave him the biggest hug she could muster and then kissed him on the cheek.
Continued.

The answer to: "The daughter of a Soldier (8/2/06)"

Question asked on 08/02/2006 at 06:31 AM :: Comments to date: 0

Category: Character

Character is important for Personal growth.
I attribute this section to the Character First Foundation for the education of all to grow.

The answer to: "Why Character"

Question asked on 05/29/2006 at 02:37 AM