16 Years!!

Yesterday was our 16 year anniversary! Hard to believe it's been 16 years already, 16 pretty good years too!! In a little less than three years I will have been a Snavley longer than I was a Bidwell.

I haven't been blogging too much lately. I go through spurts and have been more busy than usual these last few weeks. I have been keeping it all balanced with an extra dose of yoga. I committed to doing yoga every day in the month of May, and it even rhymes! The yoga studio is closed on Sunday so I won't be doing that day and when we volunteer at the Dog Rescue I can't do Saturday but Mon-Fri I will be going every day. It really energizes me and helps me stay in that Zen mode, it's quite addicting really. It is also helping my alignment quite a bit and hopefully it will eventually take away some of my TMJ pain.

This was from Scott Noelles Daily Groove the other day and I think it is well worth passing on:

:: The Trickle-Down Theory of Human Kindness ::

In peaceful "primitive" cultures, kindness is sustained from generation to generation by a kind of "trickle-down" effect. At its core is the commonly held value of serving and delighting younger people, especially babies.

Adults appreciate and support the delight of adolescents, who delight in the joy of prepubescents, who enjoy entertaining younger children, who love to carry babies and play with toddlers.

The elegance of this top-down, pleasure-oriented value system is that the youngest people receive the most (and give the least) at the developmental stage when they're naturally narcissistic, while those who give more are more adept at deriving joy from giving.

In contrast...

Adults in our culture often *fear* adolescents, who call prepubescents "dweebs," who disparagingly call younger children "babies," who compete with real babies for scarce love and attention. When your children behave unkindly, remember that you can't enforce authentic kindness. Instead, let it trickle down by *modeling* unconditional generosity.Using your creativity, find a way to serve and delight both "aggressor" and "victim" ...and yourself, too!

http://dailygroove.net/trickle-down