Who Will Know?

hon·es·ty: the quality of being fair and truthful : the quality of being honest

in·teg·ri·ty: the quality of being honest and fair; the state of being complete or whole; firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values 

It was the beginning of the college school year, which meant that it is time to take Gabrielle back to school for her sophomore year.  This year she is sharing a suite on campus with three other girls (are they still girls or do I have to refer to them now as young ladies?).  After the move in, all the students and their families went out for lunch together.  What a great way to get to know each of the families better.  With four family units of different sizes to each family, it made the most sense to have four separate bills.  Four bills covering 19 people opens itself up to the chance that there could be some errors on each of the bills, especially since not all of the family members sat next to each other.  Sure enough, there were a few mistakes and corrections made, which underscores the importance of reviewing your checks whenever you eat out, as opposed to just paying blindly without review.  The interesting thing was that this was handled very well; no one raised their voices nor harassed the waitress.  I reviewed my bill and realized she charged me for something extra and not for a drink.  The net impact meant that I would pay more by saying something.

My grandfather had the nickname “Straight-as-an-arrow Irving”.  The name came not from being an archer, but his ability to hit a golf ball straight.  While he did not have a strong golf swing, most of the time, the ball went straight.  Interestingly enough, the name could have been applied to him off the course as well.  My grandfather was a man of high integrity and truly believed in the phrase that honesty is the best policy.  He was a man of values and believed in them until the day he died.  As a salesman, he believed and practiced that a salesman should always dress in his best clothes.  He dealt with meat packers and had to go into their plants, where he stood out in his suit and tie.  It did not bother him if the workers, covered in blood, etc., laughed at him.  They actually began to respect him and his integrity.  Being honest and having integrity served him well in his life, and provided a great example to my father and to my brothers and me.

Rodney Dangerfield used to joke, “You can tell when someone is high class; they can be alone and fart and still say excuse me.”  While the joke is funny, there is some truth behind it (sorry, I could not help the pun).  Integrity is something that we follow whether or not we are in a crowd or by ourselves.  That is worth repeating - Integrity is something that we follow whether or not we are in a crowd or by ourselves.  If I were to take something from a store without paying for it, who would know?  Only I would, and as we tend to be the harshest judges of ourselves, we would know that we did wrong, something not honest and have to live with our own guilt.  As a parent it is important to not only teach our children good values, honesty and living a life with integrity, but to actually live that lifestyle as well.  Our children, our friends and our peers see what we do in our individual lives; actions, sometimes, do speak louder than words.  As I looked at my bill, I knew that the additional amount that I would have to pay was not going to matter monetarily, but it mattered to me in terms of doing the right thing.  I happily went up to the waitress.  She now had a choice, to correct the bill, or tell me to not worry about it.  She did the right thing and corrected the bill. My tip reflected the honesty involved and I walked away with the feeling that my integrity was intact.

The Power of Self Control

Rebecca was working on a paper this past week regarding Superheroes and the psychology behind their characters.  “Dad, did you know that Batman had no super powers?” she asked me.  “Yes, I did know,” I responded.  “But,” she continued, “He did have one power – self control.” She went on to explain that he never crossed a line that he had set for himself, one that included never killing his foes. Batman fought some nefarious characters, but always exhibited that self-control.  As we have just finished our Thanksgiving weekend, the thought of self-control has begun to fill my head, but not necessarily in terms of defeating enemies (real or imaginary).

This time of the year, we tend to get caught up in the holiday spirit.  It is a time for celebration (eating and drinking) and a time for shopping for holiday gifts.  Every Thanksgiving, we look forward to this holiday feast where we enjoy a large turkey, plenty of tasty side dishes and yummy desserts!  We eat, we watch football, we socialize and then engage in round II of eating.  In the next month, there are holiday parties, both at friends’ houses and through work.  At our places of business, the company holiday party is the one time of the year that the “big bosses” come out to share a drink and socialize with everyone.  The holidays themselves are a time to gather with our family and friends to enjoy holiday meals and exchange presents.  The holiday season ends with New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day parties.  The next few weeks have the making for a fun time.

I am all for celebrating!  However, this is the one time of year that we tend to drop our control mechanism.  I know that I over eat (yes, Debbie will hear me moaning about this).  However, the holidays should not be an excuse to lower our guard.  There is no reason why I should gain weight in December.  I know that there are times of the year where we are under stress and it is good to “let off a little stream” to de-stress ourselves, but we still need to be vigilant on our de-stressing helper.  In the age of cell phone cameras and posting everything online, it takes only one misstep in self-control that can ruin the images that we work so hard to create (think of Mel Gibson’s drunken ranting or Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch).    We tend to sometimes get too caught up in the gift giving process (i.e., buying gifts) that the efforts we took during the year to watch our spending seems to take a 4-week hiatus.   It is good to celebrate, but we do not want to start the New Year saying to ourselves, what did I do, how much did I drink, or, I spent how much? 

Out of all the Superheroes that we liked as kids, Batman was, and is, still the most human of Superheroes.  He lived a life protecting the innocent and followed his set of values and beliefs no matter what the situation, no matter how evil his rivals were.  In addition, he never made excuses for his actions.  These are definitely traits to aspire towards this season, and, all year long.

Happy Holidays!

Our Youth – The Hope for Tomorrow

I have to give Debbie all of the credit!  I am happy to share in the compliments, but the true credit needs to go where it deserves.  When it came to the vision, persistence to complete the goal and follow through, Debbie did a great job.  In addition, the benefit was not only personal, but also a benefit to our community, benefit to our youth and an opportunity to learn. 

Debbie and I are the co-chairs of our Jewish Center’s youth groups.  Last year, Debbie decided to pursue holding a northern New Jersey USY regional convention.  Time spent planning and reaching agreements between organizations needed to be in place for this to happen.   The outcome was a phenomenal event involving around 200 teens representing 37 different towns that were placed in about 25 host family homes.  The teens were all respectful and took responsibility for their actions, were inclusive for the younger participants and cleaned up after themselves. 

As adults, we always wonder how our children will grow up and what type of impact they will have on the future.  I am extremely hopeful as I saw the teen leaders of this regional group completely run religious services, provide lessons to each other and focused their thoughts forward towards a brighter future.  Yes, there were the silent hands of adults guiding the process, but they were behind the scenes, in the way of dedicated college kids that also exhibited strong leadership abilities.  During the weekend, I saw a number of speeches given by the teen leaders, talking about responsibility and the choices we make that affect our futures.  All very adult topics.  There have been many reports in the past few years about our children not wanting to participate in religious services.  My lesson this weekend?  We spend time pushing our brand of religious observance down our young adults’ throats; much like our parents did to us.  And as we rebelled / turned our backs, our children do the same.  Watching them running their own complete services, where they used different melodies and MUCH MORE SPIRIT (ruach, in Hebrew) than we have in adult run services.  As one of the few adults that spent the weekend with the USY kids, I was completely caught up in the process.  We should take some of the leads from what they find important.

As I am writing this, I have so many thoughts going through my head.  I felt like the proud parent of the 200 kids.  I am excited for the future. I wish I could bottle up the weekend to visit it again.  I am appreciative of all the help and support that we received to make this event possible.  I hope that next time around, more people will be able to experience what we experienced.  I am happy for the positive buzz this has provided to our Jewish Center.  I am thankful to have been a part of this weekend.  I am grateful we were able to host 9 teens.  I am ecstatic that Debbie had the dedication to pursue this.  In the days ahead, my thoughts and emotions will become clearer, but I still wanted to share the pure feelings I have at this particular moment.  Debbie and I (and Rebecca) are tired from the weekend.  However, we would happily repeat it if the opportunity made itself available…

The Battle of the Bulge

 

I do not like to use the phrase going on a diet.   A friend of mine responded to me that instead of calling it a diet, I should call it a Live-It.  My problem with the phrase is that it means doing something for a short period of time for an expected outcome, then more often than not, continuing with the same eating habits that we previously had.  A few years ago, after a visit to the doctor (which I do not go as regularly as I should), I was informed that my numbers from my blood test were good, but at the higher end of where he would like them, so he recommended cutting back on certain foods.  At the same time, I was at my highest weight and felt uncomfortable with it, so it was an appropriate time to revaluate my eating habits.  After talking to some people, and reading a recommended book, I changed my eating habits.  I did not go “on a diet” because my choice was to change the way I eat every day and be diligent about my food choices.

In the animal kingdom or in primitive societies, where one must forage or hunt for their meals, eating sustains life.  I believe that we are one of the only creatures on this planet that eat for fun (e.g., go out for ice cream), for stress (e.g., a couple of beers), for boredom (e.g., candy bar), or watching TV (e.g., potato chips).  Even the foods that we eat for our meals contain many things in it that we would not load up on a spoon to ingest, but are in the contents to enhance flavor (e.g., salt) or seem to give us a feeling of happiness (e.g., sugar).  Recently, we had a chance catch up with some friends and we found out that he had become diabetic and needed to cut out all sugar.  He told us that he did not realize how much sugar is used in the products we purchase, natural foods (e.g., fruit) or in the food preparations when we go out to eat (e.g., the sticky rice used for sushi).  He related that his son’s positive comment on his situation was that he is now eating healthy and exercising, both good things.  Needless to say, his story is not unique.

OK – so how good am I at being persistent at following my own words?  I am usually pretty good…however, this past week; a vendor invited a few of us out for dinner.  The dinner was in appreciation of us being a good customer, an opportunity to discuss some future projects and to socialize.  Happily, we accomplished all of our objectives before we left to go home.  We started the meal with a few appetizers for the table.  When the waiter asked what we wanted for our main courses, the six of us all ordered from the menu with the intention of sharing our meals with each other and ended up ordering enough food to comfortably feed nine people, but we still attempted to finish what was in front of us.  It was clear that there was no room left for dessert.  Occasionally, it is still fun to eat for the pleasure of eating, even if glutinous; and, yes, I did have to pay the price as I walked into my home complaining of eating too much.  The next day, it was back to the way I should eat every day…