Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate the love of God and family and to create memories that will last forever. Jesus is God’s perfect, indescribable gift. The amazing thing is that not only are we able to receive this gift, but we are able to share it with others on Christmas and every other day of the year.
You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.
We don’t tend to write about disease in fiction – not just teen novels but all American novels – because it doesn’t fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice, heroism, war, politics and family struggle.
On both sides of my family, my grandparents grew up in total poverty and came to California during the Great Depression. The only way they were able to work their way out of that was by joining the military, which is how they both went on to be able to go to college.
Family business management is a discipline that has evolved from an art into a science. The market for this line of education has been created by the growing recognition of family-run companies that shareholders are demanding greater clarity on issues ranging from succession to the management of wealth and the distribution of profits.
I did a Coca-Cola commercial when I was about two and a half years old, and then me and my family were extras in a bunch of Westerns. I loved dressing up and stepping into this imaginary world, and it was fun to get outside of my tiny little town with a bunch of movie weirdos.
Two races share today the soil of Canada. These people had not always been friends. But I hasten to say it. There is no longer any family here but the human family. It matters not the language people speak, or the altars at which they kneel.
In Southeast Asia the world is understood to be a vast, complex network of interdependent relationships. So when global capitalism makes it impossible for small-time rice farmers to feed their families and make a living, it is a natural thing for anyone in the family who can find an alternative source of income to do so.
Our family makes us who we are, defines us totally. When you go to a therapist or have analysis, whatever reason you go in for, they will always bring you back to your family. We’re strong or weak according to what family we have. You might have left them long ago, might not even talk to them, but something lingers; we have no choice.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
Don’t focus on the negativity. Focus on the positivity and the people that want you to do well; then, do it for them and for yourself. Sometimes I do things for myself. Sometimes I do things for my family. Sometimes I do things for my friends.
One thing I didn’t understand in life was that I had $100,000,000 in the bank and I couldn’t buy happiness. I had everything: mansions, yachts, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, but I was depressed. I didn’t know where I fitted in. But then I found family and friends and I learned the value of life.
In personal life, the warm glow of nostalgia amplifies good memories and minimizes bad ones about experiences and relationships, encouraging us to revisit and renew our ties with friends and family. It always involves a little harmless self-deception, like forgetting the pain of childbirth.
I was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly household work in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty.
Digital intimacy ruins the appetite for the real thing. So, when kids are gaming or even when spouses are gaming, they lose their appetite for genuine intimacy. Kids lose their appetite for getting their intimacy needs, their hunger for significance and attachment, with the family, and it erodes the relationship between them and their parents.
It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.
Anyone with a heart, with a family, has experienced loss. No one escapes unscathed. Every story of separation is different, but I think we all understand that basic, wrenching emotion that comes from saying goodbye, not knowing if we’ll see that person again – or perhaps knowing that we won’t.
My family went to Toronto to visit relatives when I was 13 or 14. It was the first time we had ever been abroad. This was the early Eighties, and I remember the impossible glamour of air travel – my mum spending days trying to decide what she was going to wear on the plane.
Orson Welles’s second ‘I-did-it’ should show once and for all that film making, radio and the stage are three different guys better kept separated. ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ is one of those versions of the richest family in town during the good old days.
Ours was a very progressive Protestant family, but my parents were God-loving rather than God-fearing. We went to church, and I still go with my mum and dad when I return home – it’s a family thing. I played flute in my dad’s marching band, but I had an integrated upbringing. We had a lot of Catholic friends.
I used to be a classic workaholic, and after seeing how little work and career really mean when you reach the end of your life, I put a new emphasis on things I believe count more. These things include: family, friends, being part of a community, and appreciating the little joys of the average day.
People are basically the same the world over. Everybody wants the same things – to be happy, to be healthy, to be at least reasonably prosperous, and to be secure. They want friends, peace of mind, good family relationships, and hope that tomorrow is going to be even better than today.
Success isn’t about reaching your goals; it’s about striving for things, like the joy of trying to raise a family, trying to be a successful singer, trying to write good songs, trying to be a better person. It’s that old thing about life being about the journey, not the destination.
A sportswriter’s life means never sitting with your wife or family at the games. Still working after everyone has gone to the party… Digging beneath a coach’s lies, not to forget those of athletic directors and general managers and owners of pro teams. Keeping a confidence. Risking it.
Boys used to call me Soda in school days. Soda means ‘serving officers daughters association.’ I miss those days when I had a very protected life: one could get close and bond with other army people that they gradually would become your extended family.
