Parenting is difficult.  Especially when the kids are really little.  Crying, whining, complaining, wanting, not sleeping, and flat out not doing what you want them to do.  Parenting is difficult but it is interesting how parents feel that they don't have any control.  If we stop and think, WE ARE THE ADULT.  We have more control over the situation than we think we do.  The child actually relies on us and is dependent on us.  We can actually make decisions and choices to help manage the child's behavior.  The same is extremely true about our own brains.  Our thoughts are not in control of who we are and what we do.  We are not preprogrammed robots who must follow every "command".  We have been given the ability to choose our thoughts.  We need to be the "adult in the room" for our own brains to manage our thoughts and emotions. "The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another." William James 

If you know how to spell or even if you don't but you have spellcheck or autocorrect on your device, then you understand that "Championship" has only one "C" in it.  So it would be logical to say "Going to the SHIP", and not "CHIP."  However, if you are more advanced than hundreds of years of grammar rules and banking that everyone around you understands that you are merely taking the word "championship" and taking out the "ampionsh" to shorten it to merely the first and last two letters to make "CHIP", then go for it.  Regardless, of "Ship" or "Chip", you can talk about it but you better back it up with your actions.  "Before you talk about championships, you have to talk about consistency. In the way you train, compete, think and live" Anonymous (but said by anyone who has ACTUALLY won a "Ship")

We typically love to look at life in terms of contrast.  Good or Bad.  Up or Down.  Open or Closed.  Right or Left.  Black or White.  it is easy to see that many of these words come with "baggage" and can mean very different things to different people.  We may think we "know" what the words mean but truly, we only know what the word means to us.  And how we define these words for ourselves will often dictate how we maneuver through life.  For example, the opposite (contrast) to "sad" is not "happy".  The reason we are not happy is because our situation does not meet our expectation or standard.  Thus, the opposite isn't "happy" but "GRATITUDE".  When we are grateful and thankful for our life and what we have, it is more difficult to be sad.  Likewise, we look at life in terms of "winning" or "losing" or "success" or "failure".  What if we instead look at life as "success" or "learning opportunity" and we look at the contrast to "winning" as "not winning this time".  The new definition helps to accurately set the proper mindset for growth and improvement.  "Sometimes you learn more from losing than winning. Losing forces you to reexamine."  Pat Summitt 

"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you." John Wooden 

Goals are important.  Accomplishing tasks are essential.  Relationships matter most of all.
​"People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel."  Maya Angelou 

It is easy to do things when they are easy.  Convenience refers to "the state of being able to proceed with something with little effort or difficulty".  Unfortunately, we tend to give ourselves too much credit when we do things out of convenience.  In contrast, we don't give ourselves enough credit when we go out of our way and force ourselves to do something that is difficult.  Life is a blessing when it is easy.  Life is not intended to be easy.  Life is hard.  We need to work harder and that choice should fill us full of confidence and hope in our ability to overcome life's challenges.  "The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and controversy."  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

​"All progress takes place outside the comfort zone." Michael John Bobak, artist

It is difficult to accomplish something that you can't see yourself achieve.  That is why it is so difficult to be the first to accomplish something.  After the record is broken, it is much easier for others to follow and break it because they "see" it.  On a individual basis, if you have never accomplished something, you need to "see" yourself doing it so that your mind and body will do it.  "You see things, and you say "Why?" but I dream things that never were, and I say "Why not""  George Bernard Shaw