Mark Hadden does a fantastic job of writing from the perspective of a fifteen year old autistic boy. I spent several years of my life working with the mentally challenged and regularly felt inspired by some of the very perceptive remarks they made. I noticed Mark (the author) also worked with autistic children and he does a good job of capturing some of the sweet insights and unique perspectives they have on life.The story is both touching and humorous. There are moments when I felt heartbroken for the characters in the story. I found Christopher to be a very believable character and, in fact, at times forgot I was reading fiction.

Wow, Ryan Gosling gives an amazing performance. This was an intense show which made me think of a bunch of different things; prejudice, cruelty, fear, Speaking out, fighting for your rights, and being assertive. On the outside, this show looks addresses these issues. But I thought the show was more about …beliefs. Specifically, in this case, beliefs about God. Do we question or don’t we? Do we hold on or let go? Do we sit passive or fight? Do we believe…or not? Maybe we just wish we didn’t believe….or maybe we hate ourselves because we do. Or, maybe we turn that hate towards the people who tried to convince us to believe in the first place? Now we hate them because we don’t want to believe…but we can’t help it.Along these lines, the show gave me some good food for thought. I feel pretty clean about growing up and changing my beliefs. I don’t feel anger or hatred, but watching this show made me look at it a bit and at least ask some questions of myself…I know it did make me upset about always being so passive in so many areas of my life.

I have to confess, I had never read a Stephen King book before this one. But now he has become an inspiration and an “unauthorized” mentor for me. This book was a joy to read. I couldn’t put it down.One of my dreams has always been to be a writer. I’m still not published, other than technical stuff. But what is worse, is as until a few years ago, I hadn’t even written a complete story since High School! Damn! And I want to be a writer? What is that all about?

That’s where Stephen King’s book came into play. Originally I got the book because I thought it was more about technique and style. That’s me, I’d rather analyze, think about, and study something rather than actually do it. Well, in the book he gives an assignment to write a story. I did the exercise, in fact, you can read it here. My first completed story since High School and I felt awesome after! I never could finish my stories (novels mostly). I would start them or just think about them, but never finish them. So this was a cool exercise for me.

From his book, I got a message that said stop trying. Forget about the syntax, forget about learning how to write, forget about all the rules and procedures…just do a lot of reading and a lot of writing. Simple as that. Well, I tried it. I sat down and just started a story.

There are two sections to the book. The first section is basically a mini auto-biography. Originally, this part didn’t interest me. I had purchased the book for the second section, his tips on style and technique. However, two pages into the book I was hooked. I loved reading the first section. His frank, open, vulnerable, and revealing stories were entertaining, touching, and encouraging. Stephen King sounds like a cool person. I appreciate his book. As a writer who only dreamed about writing, it pushed me in the right direction.

Wow. This show was harrowing. It’s not for the squeamish or easily offended. It’s a frank look at a group of kids in Harlem and well beyond anything I saw or experienced in my sheltered life. I found myself thinking, this doesn’t really happen does it? It’s hard to admit that kids actually live in this type of an environment.It was depressing, sad, and eye-opening. I can get quite comfortable in my safe little corner of the world and forget about some of the rough things that happen on this planet. Sometimes it takes a movie like this to remind me that not only do I have a good life, but I have a responsibility to help those searching for something better. If you get this show, which I suggest, it’s contains mature themes and images.

This is a powerful show. It grabbed my heart, and shook it like a put bull. I’ve seen Temuera Morrison (Jake the Snake) in other movies (like Attack of the Clones), and it’s hard not to hate him because of his incredible performance in this movie. I have to remember, he was just acting. He did an excellent job at playing the type of person that I don’t think should allowed to be a father or even be around kids at all for that matter.Knowing that stuff like this happens makes it even more difficult to watch. It’s part of the dark side of humanity. This is a sad show but good to see because its reality for some people. We need to admit it’s there, look for it, and try to change it.

I want to work for an organization which follows the ideals of this book…cooperation, collaboration, and teamwork! A company where people walk around with a spark in their soul, not just dollar signs over their eyeballs. We don’t have to focus our eyes, efforts, and attention entirely on driving to reach a profit. We can be kind, conscientious, and empathetic individuals yet still realize financial success.The work environment has been changing over the past years. Organizations are realizing that it pays to encourage your employees to be more than drones. Employees should be human, capable of feeling and emotion. But there are still too many corporations out there who prefer workers to be nothing more than a robotic machine whose sole purpose is to drive profits.

On one level, it can sound tempting to a manager to have an employee who eats and breaths for the company’s bottom line. As this book illustrates, there are major drawbacks to having employees with this mindset. Although I can state numerous reasons (and I hope you can too), a critical one is that a robot cannot empathize with co-workers or customers. Empathy, it turns out, may be the most critical skill of leaders and managers.

When financial success is alone as the top priority, people (and I use that term loosely) have tunnel vision. When we make hard-nosed, business savvy, money-hungry workers we destroy the human being inside. Is this the kind of person you want for a boss, neighbor, friend, spouse, parent, or child? Now before you answer, think about it. We all seem to make choices every day that suggest that perhaps we’d rather have the lunatic with the cash than the human with a soul.

This book discusses why a company is is actually better off financially by addressing these issues. The social and environmental issues are all just a nice side benefit. It was cool to read examples of many CEO’s and upper management teams who are participating in programs to enhance emotional intelligence in the workplace. Imagine the leader of a large million dollar organization being told to volunteer at a local shelter to learn empathy (as part of a management training program) and then actually doing it! Well, it’s happening, and it’s damn cool. It’s exciting what The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations is doing.

Within a week after watching American Beauty, I quit a job that I absolutely hated. This was my show. My life was about being mentally and emotionally sedated while I dragged myself from day to day and this inspired me to try to make some changes. I say try because although changing jobs helped, it didn’t fix everything. It’s going to take a while. But this goes down as one of my all time favorites. I laughed and cried.It felt real. The characters seemed like human beings with frustrations and problems like me. We all live and struggle in this world. We all cry. We all feel insecure. But so often I suffer alone in my fears and imperfections by burrying them as deep as possible. It’s torture. We need more courageous people to speak honestly and openly about our shadows. We need less bragging, gloating, blaming, and criticizing and more frank, open, vulnerable honesty. Like this show.

There are a handful of books that have made a huge difference in my life, and this is one of them. I doubt I would have this website up, submitted many of my works to publishers, or be as content as I am in my life had I not read this book and did the exercises in it.Reading this book slowed me down and gave me time to think and feel. I dug through my burried passions and dreams, faced some fears, and figured out a few things about myself. Through writing, a part of me woke up. It’s a lifelong process, of course, but this book gave me nice boost in the right direction.

Zipping through the text is easy because it’s great reading. But, like anything, if you really want to see some change in your life, it’s going to take some time and effort. Just like we can’t turn into a superhunk or wonderbabe by going to the gym for three days, we have to do more than read the book. If you really want to tap in to your creative power, follow the instructions and read one chapter a week while doing the writing assignments.

Optimism is a key to avoiding depression and building self esteem. It drives learning, happiness, and the courage to walk away from trouble. This book is full of studies, techniques, and ideas to help our children find happiness and reach their potentials.Depression can be linked to many social disorders. In recent acts of high school violence, an attempt to pinpoint a demographic failed. Violence came from poor kids, rich kids, A students, and F students. There was only one common thread for violence: depression. In addition to violence, depression is linked to alcoholism, drug use, poor grades, misbehavior, and suicide. Depression has been labeled the epidemic of our time.

Learned helplessness is an underlying catalyst to depression. One way parents teach learned helplessness to their children is by solving their problems. When a parent continually solves a child’s problem, the child learns that he cannot do things on his own. In an attempt to help, encourage, and push our children towards success, we inadvertently begin to teach our children they are not capable of solving their own problems. This, coupled with repeated failure (which may be in the form of not getting it perfect for the parent), is a breeding ground for depression.

Dr. Martin E.P. Selligman suggests the formula for vaccinating our children against the dangers of depression is ground in optimism. The research conducted by Dr. Selligman offers not only insight into predicting who is at risk for depression, but also a program for reducing current and future depression. This program involves teaching our children to examine thinking patterns, encouraging parents to structure activities where children can succeed, and strive to reduce pessimism while increasing optimism. There are several characteristics of a pessimistic child, which greatly increases the chances of future battles with depression. Read the rest of this entry »

Summary

This is my list of books I enjoyed and may eventually write reviews for…

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Blink
Reviving Ophilia
Deadly Persuasion
Crazy Times
The Truth About Love
Getting the Love you Want
Learning to Fly
I don’t want to talk about it
How can I get Through to You?
The Pleasure of My Company
Da Vinci Code
Middlesex
Women Can’t Hear what Men Don’t Say
Father and Child Reunion
Learned Optimism
Authentic Happiness
What you Can Change and What you Can’t
Passionate Marriage
Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child
The Relationship Cure
Destructive Emotions