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Christmas Outfit Ideas

Here are some Christmas outfit ideas, just in time for last minute outfit choosers like me. (The pictures are affiliate links. Amazon will pay me a small amount if you buy through these links. This does not change your price at all.)

(Disclaimer: I have not tried all these pieces, but all of them are rated at least four stars by Amazon users.)

Here is a pretty, formal dress for Church or a formal Christmas party. It would pair nicely with the black shrug below, which would add some warmth on a cold day, and could easily become a wardrobe staple for work outfits or dressing for church. Or the more dramatic draped green dress could make a fun and flattering piece to wear to Christmas parties or even Church.

Formal Christmas dress

Black shrug to go with Christmas dress or other things.

A more dramatic dress for formal occasions. Also comes in other colors.

Here is a comfy-looking and warm sweater that could be paired with the skirt below for a cozy outfit for opening presents or a family party, or just about any other time you want a warm, cozy, comfortable option.

Cashmere sweater with stylish sleeves.

Comfy but cute skirt

Now, suppose you already have the perfect Christmas outfit, but you don’t have any formal outerwear to go with it. This classy coat and the gloves would pair well with any dressy ensemble and could even dress up an otherwise dull outfit for shopping or running errands.

Cute warm gloves in an assortment of winter colors

Classy coat for any occasion

Have a wonderful Christmas, and don’t forget to sign up to join our book giveaway and share it with any of your friends you think might be interested.

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Book Review and Giveaway: The Five Love Languages

I’m giving away a copy of The 5 Love Languages to one lucky email subscriber. Once I hit my goal, I will randomly pick a subscriber to win. (Odds are about 1/100)

Subscribe now to enter.  If you sign up, besides getting a chance to win a really good and useful book, you will receive an email sporadically. If I’m lucky, once a week. More likely it will be every month or two. I try to write positive, thought provoking articles about just about anything. Mostly they are written for women, but I’m told some men enjoy them too.

So, why The 5 Love Languages? Well, the goal of Enjoying Womanhood is to help as many women as possible live intelligent, fulfilling, enjoyable lives. And I can’t think of many things that would contribute better to that goal for most women than reading this book.

In this book, Gary Chapman, a marriage councilor with many years of experience, shares what he has learned about people and about love. The general idea is that each person has a “love tank.” This is a person’s emotional equivalent of a car’s gas tank. If the car’s fuel tank is empty, the car won’t go anywhere. It will sit wherever it is and get old and wear out. The same is true of people. With no love in their “love tanks” they will be sad, and they will feel that their relationship is over, and that there is no reason to keep trying.

Now, this might not sound very interesting yet. If people don’t feel loved, then they won’t want to act loving. Why do we need a book to tell us this?

Well, as the author describes in the book, he learned over the course of many years, and working with many many couples, that not all people love, or feel loved, in the same way. He has isolated 5 love “languages,” five ways in which people express and feel love. You may love your spouse, boyfriend or child very much, but despite all your efforts they might still feel unloved. This can spell disaster for your marriage, and for any other relationship too.

Not only does Chapman describe the five love languages, and have amazing stories about the successes that married couples have had using these strategies, he also gives concrete tips on how to learn your spouse’s love language, and how to speak it. These concrete tips are amazingly helpful to help you express your love in vital and creative ways which will add spice and variety to your marriage and keep it from getting old and stale.

Marriage is the most important choice most people make in their lives, and the most important mission most of us ever take on. Are we putting enough work into it?

Subscribe here to get more ideas about living a full and enjoyable life as a woman, and enter to win a free copy of The 5 Love Languages. (Even if you already have a copy, you can give it to any friend for a Christmas gift, so you can still sign up.)

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Rebranding Responsibility: Let’s Make Commitment Cool Again

What do you think of when you hear the word responsibility or responsible? Merriam Webster suggests three synonyms for it: reliability, trustworthiness, and burden. I think we can all agree that we think of a responsible person as reliable and trustworthy, and that these are good qualities. But we also seem to have the idea that responsibility is a burden, something to be run from, something to be afraid of.

Why is this? Why is it that we fear responsibility while admiring the responsible person? Why do we not want to become what we admire? This seems contradictory.

I think this contradictory attitude is the result of two different things. First, we have somehow created the idea that responsible means boring. And secondly, responsibility means making choices and even commitments, and then living with those choices, and that can be hard.

Responsibility: Boring?

When you hear the words “responsible adult,” the image that probably pops into your head is an overweight, balding middle aged man with a dull job, an ordinary suburban house, and an unsatisfying family life. Or perhaps a frazzled woman wearing mom jeans, who drives a minivan to take her 2.5 bratty kids to classes and other activities, while working a job and doing endless boring housework.

This is the bourgeois adult ideal: a perfect cog in the economic machine. The bourgeois idea of the “responsible adult” is someone who goes to work, makes payments, puts money in their retirement fund, and looks forward to the day they can retire and not have to work anymore. They watch (and pay for) cable, buy things that advertisers tell them they need, get a newer car and a bigger TV occasionally, and generally keep the economic machine turning, both as a producer and a consumer.

It’s not surprising that this ideal seems unattractive. There’s nothing either noble or exciting in it. Who would want to take on responsibility if it meant that? I am going to argue that it doesn’t. But first, let’s talk about the other reason people want to avoid responsibility.

Responsibility: Limiting?

Advertising and popular culture tend to idolize the footloose young person and the rebel. American Eagle Outfitters is a particularly good example of this, having ads that present the teen or twenty-something, wearing jeans and casual tops in various stages of disarray, complete with slogans like, “I can dance weird,” “I can make my own rules,” and “Vacay all day.” Nowhere is there a picture of a person who looks like he or she is doing anything serious. No applied high-school or college students, no one who looks like they are working on anything meaningful, no one who looks married or even committed. Of course, American Eagle Outfitters is a casual brand, but I think the real reason that they only show people partying or breaking the rules is that they understand that working and being responsible aren’t “cool.” What is “cool” is partying, going to the beach, and the hookup culture.

The “cool” person is the one who has no commitments. He or she is typically in an open relationship, and despite having all the stuff he or she wants, can pick up and do something else whenever he or she feels like it. She is definitely “child-free” so that she can travel and spend all her money on herself.

Making life choices will always be somewhat challenging. But if we think that there are only two options: being “cool” and having no responsibilities, or having responsibilities, and being boring, it will be even harder.

Is Limitation Bad?

Committing to one thing does indeed limit you. Buying a house, getting married, whatever responsibility you take on will limit your options. Even committing to go to your friend’s birthday party on Friday evening means that you are not going to be able to go to any other parties that evening, or stay home and watch netflix. It means that you have set aside that time for one specific purpose and no other. How much more limiting is marrying one man. It means that you can’t go out with other men or marry them. And if you are married, and especially if you have children, it means that there will be many things you cannot do. It means that you have set aside your entire life for one purpose and no other. A somewhat frightening thought.

So let us imagine that you have no responsibilities. No one will mind if you leave tomorrow and go hiking in Peru, or clubbing in New York. You have no husband, no boss, no one working for you, and above all, no children to tie you down. You don’t even have to worry about going to your friend’s birthday party on Friday, because you haven’t made any commitment to do so. In fact, you never make any plans that involve other people, because you want to make sure no better ideas come up at the last minute. Above all, you never get into a serious relationship, because you are afraid that it will tie you down, take too much of your time, and that someone better might come along…

Doesn’t it sound wonderful? No? It might be nice for a few days, but in the long run, it sounds even more boring and more lonely than being a cog in an economic machine.

So what is the right answer? What is the right sort of responsibility? What will allow us to fulfill our dreams of being more, of being valued and worthwhile people? Should we tie ourselves down to the bourgeois life of keeping up with the Joneses, or should we be “cool” unattached, and inevitably, lonely when we get just a little older, or is there another option?

Responsibility gives us power

The first question we should ask is whether being limited is necessarily bad, or whether it actually our limitations that give us power. The idea of limitation being empowering may seem like an oxymoron or a paradox, but think about it for a moment. Imagine water flowing without limitations. It spreads itself out everywhere and cannot do anything except cause trouble. Now imagine that same water in a fountain. It leaps, it sparkles, and everyone comes to look at it because now that it is limited to certain ordered paths it has become a dynamic thing of beauty and order. Or for a less romantic example, you could imagine the water in pipes in your house. As long as the water remains within the pipes, it can wash clothes or dishes, and quench thirst. If it leaves the pipes—well you’ve probably all experienced plumbing leaks, so I don’t need to tell you what happens.

Responsibility changes our life from a puddle into a fountain

Like pipes for water, our choices limit us to certain courses of action. If you have chosen to get married, you are limited—you are limited in who you will love, and what you will do, to a certain extent. But it is precisely those limitations that give you your power. Because you have chosen one course of action among many, you now have the ability to direct your actions effectively. You know what your priorities are, and this allows you to balance and direct your actions effectively.

Any person who has chosen any responsibility is in a sense limited by that responsibility. A mother of young children can’t simply run off and see the world at a moment’s notice, nor can she spend all her time playing video games. Neither can a man or woman with his or her own business or any other career. The children, the family, the business must be taken care of before other things can be done.

Besides giving life structure and direction, responsibility also gives us power in a different way. If we admit that we are responsible for our own lives, we have the power to change those lives. As Steve Maraboli, the behavioral psychologist and motivational speaker says, “The victim mindset dilutes the human potential. By not accepting personal responsibility for our circumstances, we greatly reduce our power to change them.” Sometimes it feels good to be able to say, “It’s not my fault. That wasn’t my job.” And sometimes it is true. But which would you rather have written on your tombstone? “It wasn’t her fault.” or “She did what she could with what she had, and made the world better.”

Traveling, hobbies, and freedom are fun, they are not what gives meaning and structure to life. It is our responsibilities that do that. The things that “tie us down” are precisely the things that lift us up, that make our lives a story rather than just a sequence of undistinguished events.

responsibility quote Enjoyingwomanhood.com

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Successful Woman: Mary Somerville

Despite the quaint and stilted style of this narrative, which was written in England in the late 1880’s, the character of this notable woman can still delight and inspire us. I particularly enjoy the anecdote about the marmalade.

MARY SOMERVILLE, the most remarkable scientific woman our country has produced, was born at Jedburgh in 1780. Her father was a naval officer, and in December 1 780 had just parted from his wife to go on foreign service for some years. Her father was Admiral Sir William Fairfax, who gave many proofs that he was in every way a gallant sailor and a brave man. Mary Somerville’s mother, Lady Fairfax, does not seem much to have sympathised with her remarkable child. Mary, however, inherited some excellent qualities from both parents. Lady Fairfax was, in some ways, as courageous as her husband; notwithstanding a full allowance of Scotch superstitions and a special terror of storms and darkness, she had what her daughter called “presence of mind and the courage of necessity.”

On one occasion the house she was living in was in the greatest danger of being burned down. The flames of a neighbouring fire had spread till they reached the next house but one to that which she occupied. Casks of turpentine and oil in a neighbouring carriage manufactory were exploding with the heat. Lady Fairfax made all the needful preparations for saving her furniture, and had her family plate and papers securely packed. She assembled in the house a sufficient number of men to move the furniture out, if needs were. Then she quietly remarked, “Now let us breakfast; it is time enough for us to move our things when the next house takes fire.” The next house, after all, did not take fire, and, while her neighbours lost half their property by throwing it recklessly into the street, before the actual necessity for doing so had arisen, Lady Fairfax suffered no loss at all.

During the long absences of Sir William Fairfax on foreign service, Lady Fairfax and her children led a very simple life at the little seaside village of Burntisland, just opposite to Edinburgh, on the Firth of Forth. As a young child, Mary led a wild, outdoor life, with hardly any education, in the ordinary sense of the word, though there is no doubt that in collecting shells, fossils, and seaweeds, in watching and studying the habits and appearance of wild birds, and in gazing at the stars through her little bedroom window, the whole life of this wonderful child was really an education of the great powers of her mind.

However, when her father returned from sea about 1789 he was shocked to find Mary “such a little savage”; and it was resolved that she must be sent to a boarding school. She remained there a year and learned nothing at all. Her lithesome, active, well-formed body was enclosed in stiff stays, with a steel busk in front; a metal rod, with a semicircle which went under the chin, was clasped to this busk, and in this instrument of torture she was set to learn columns of Johnson’s dictionary by heart. This was the process which at that time went by the name of education in girls’ schools. Fortunately she was not kept long at school. Mary had learned nothing, and her mother was angry that she had spent so much money in vain. She would have been content, she said, if Mary had only learnt to write well and keep accounts, which was all that a woman was expected to know.

After this Mary soon commenced the process of self-education which only ended with her long life of ninety-two years. She not only learnt all she could about birds, beasts, fishes, plants, eggs and seaweeds, but she also found a Shakespeare which she read at every moment when she could do so undisturbed. A little later her mother moved into Edinburgh for the winter, and Mary had music lessons, and by degrees taught herself Latin. The studious bent of her mind had now thoroughly declared itself; but till she was about fourteen she had never received a word of encouragement about her studies. At that age she had the good fortune to pay a visit to her uncle and aunt at Jedburgh, in whose house she had been

born. Her uncle, Dr. Somerville, was the first person who ever encouraged and helped her in her studies. She ventured to confide in him that she had been trying to learn Latin by herself, but feared it was no use. He reassured her by telling her of the women in ancient times who had been classical scholars. He moreover read Virgil with her for two hours every morning in his study. A few years later than this she taught herself Greek enough to read Xenophon and Herodotus, and in time she became sufficiently proficient in the language to thoroughly appreciate its greatest literature.

One of the most striking things about her was the many-sided character of her mind. Some people men as well as women who are scientific or mathematical seem to care for nothing but science or mathematics; but it may be truly said of her that “Everything was grist that came to her mill.” There was hardly any branch of art or knowledge which she did not delight in. She studied painting under Mr. Nasmyth in Edinburgh, and he declared her to be the best pupil he had ever had. Almost to the day of her death she delighted in painting and drawing. She was also an excellent musician and botanist. The special study with which her name will always be associated was mathematics as applied to the study of the heavens, but she also wrote on physical geography and on microscopic science. It is sometimes thought that if women are learned they are nearly sure to neglect their domestic duties, or

that, in the witty words of Sydney Smith, “if women are permitted to eat of the tree of knowledge, the rest of the family will soon be reduced to the same aerial and unsatisfactory diet.” Mrs. Somerville was a living proof of the folly of this opinion. She was an excellent housewife and a particularly skilful needlewoman. She astonished those who thought a scientific woman could not understand anything of cookery, by her notable preparation of black currant jelly for her husband’s throat on their wedding journey. On one occasion she supplied with marmalade, made by her own hands, one of the ships that were being fitted out for a Polar expedition.

She was a most loving wife and tender mother as well as a devoted and faithful friend. She gave up far more time than moat mothers do to the education of her children. Her first husband, Mr. Samuel Greig, only lived three years after their marriage in 1804. He appears to have been one of those men of inferior capacity, who dislike and dread intellectual power in women. He had a very low opinion of the intelligence of women, and had himself no interest in, nor knowledge of, any kind of science.

When his wife was left a widow with two sons at the early age of twenty-seven, she returned to her father’s house in Scotland, and worked steadily at mathematics. She profited by the instructions of Professor Wallace, of the University of Edinburgh, and gained a silver medal from one of the mathematical societies of that day. Nearly all the members of her family were still loud in their condemnation of what they chose to regard as her eccentric and foolish behaviour in devoting herself to science instead of society. There were, however, exceptions. Her Uncle and Aunt Somerville and their son William did not join in the chorus of disapprobation which her studies provoked. With them she found a real home of loving sympathy and encouragement. In 1812 she and her cousin William were married. His delight and pride in her during their long married life of nearly fifty years were unbounded. For the first time in her life she now had the daily companionship of a thoroughly sympathetic spirit. Much of what the world owes to her it owes indirectly to him, because he stimulated her powers, and delighted in anything that brought them out. He was in the medical department of the army, and scientific pursuits were thoroughly congenial to him. He had a fine and well cultivated mind which he delighted in using to further his wife’s pursuits. He searched libraries for the books she required, “copying and recopying her manuscripts to save her time.” In the words of one of their daughters, ” No trouble seemed too great which he bestowed upon her; it was a labour of love.”

When Mrs. Somerville became famous through her scientific writings, the other members of her family, who had formerly ridiculed and blamed her, became loud in her praise. She knew how to value such commendation in comparison with that which she had constantly received from her husband. She wrote about this, “The warmth with which my husband entered into my success deeply affected me; for not one in ten thousand would have rejoiced at it as he did; but he was of a generous nature, far above jealousy, and he continued through life to take the kindest interest in all I did.”

Mrs. Somerville’s first work, The Mechanism of the Heavens, would probably never have been written but at the instance of Lord Brougham, whose efforts were warmly supported by those of Mr. Somerville. In March 1827 Lord Brougham, on behalf of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, wrote a letter begging Mrs. Somerville to write an account of Newton’s Principia and of La Place’s Mechanique Celeste. In reference to the latter book he wrote, ” In England there are now not twenty people who know this great work, except by name, and not a hundred who know it even by name. My firm belief is that Mrs. Somerville could add two cyphers to each of these figures.”

Mrs. Somerville was overwhelmed with astonishment at this request. She was most modest and diffident of her own powers, and honestly believed that her self-acquired knowledge was so greatly inferior to that of the men who had been educated at the universities, that it would be the height of presumption for her to attempt to write on the subject. The persuasions of Lord Brougham and of her husband at last prevailed so far that she promised to make the attempt; on the express condition, however, that her manuscript should be put into the fire unless it fulfilled the expectations of those who urged its production. “Thus suddenly,” she writes, “the whole character and course of my future life was changed.” One is tempted to believe that this first plunge into authorship was, to some extent, stimulated by a loss of nearly all their fortune which had a short time before befallen Mr. and Mrs. Somerville.

The impediments to authorship in Mrs. Somerville’s case were more than usually formidable. In the memoirs she has left of this part of her life, she speaks of the difficulty which she experienced as the mother of a family and the head of a household in keeping any time free for her work. It was only after she had attended to social and family duties that she had time for writing, and even then she was

subjected to many interruptions. The Somervilles were then living at Chelsea, and she felt at that distance from town, it would be ungracious to decline to receive those who had come out to call upon her. But she groans at the remembrance of the annoyance she sometimes felt when she was engaged in solving a difficult problem, by the entry of a well-meaning friend, who would calmly announce, “I have come to spend an hour or two with you.”

Her work, to which she gave the name of The Mechanism of the Heavens, progressed, however, in spite of interruptions, to such good purpose that in less than a year it was complete, and it immediately placed its author in the first rank among the scientific thinkers and writers of the day. She was elected an honorary member of the Astronomical Society, at the same time with Caroline Herschel, and honours and rewards of all kinds flowed in upon her. Her bust, by Chantrey, was placed in the great hall of the Royal Society, and she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Dublin, and of many other scientific societies. It was a little later than this, in 1835, that Sir Robert Peel, on behalf of the Government, conferred a civil list pension of 200 a year upon Mrs. Somerville ; the announcement of this came almost simultaneously with the news of the loss of the remainder of her own and her husband’s private fortune, through the treachery of those who had been entrusted with it. The public recognition of her services to science came therefore at a very appropriate time; the pension was a few years later increased to 300 a year.

Throughout her life Mrs. Somerville was a staunch advocate of all that tended to raise up and improve the lot of women. When quite a young girl she was stimulated to work hard by the feeling that it was in her power thus to serve the cause of her fellow-women. Writing of the period when she was only sixteen years old, she says: “I must say the idea of making money had never entered my head in any of my pursuits, but I was intensely ambitious to excel in something, for I felt in my own breast that women were capable of taking a higher place in creation than that assigned to them in my early days, which was very low.” It is interesting toobserve that her enthusiasm for what are sometimes called “women’s rights” was as warm at the end of her life as it had been at its dawn. When she was eighty-nine, she was as keen as she had been at sixteen for all that lifts up the lot of women. She was a firm supporter of Mr. John Stuart Mill in the effort he made to extend to women the benefit and protection of Parliamentary representation. She recognised that many of the English laws are unjust to women, and clearly saw that there can be no security for their being made just and equal until the law-makers are chosen partly by women and partly by men. The first name to the petition in favour of women’s suffrage which was presented to Parliament by Mr. J. S. Mill in 1868 was that of Mary Somerville. She also joined in the first petition to the Senate of the London University, praying that degrees might be granted to women. At the time this petition was unsuccessful, but its prayer was granted within a very few years.

Mrs. Somerville’s other works, written after The Mechanism of the Heavens, were The Connection of the Physical Sciences, Physical Geography, and Molecular and Microscopic Science. The last book was commenced after she had completed her eightieth year. Her mental powers remained unimpaired to a remarkably late period, and she also had extraordinary physical vigour to the end of her life. She affords a striking instance of the fallacy of supposing that intellectual labour undermines the physical strength of women. Her last occupations, continued till the actual day of her death, were the revision and completion of a treatise on The Theory of Differences, and the study of a book on Quaternions.

She was a woman of deep and strong religious feeling. Her beautiful character shines through every word and action of her life. Her deep humility was very striking, as was also her tenderness for, and her sympathy with, the sufferings of all who were wretched and oppressed. One of the last entries in her journal refers again to her love of animals, and she says, “Among the numerous plans for the education of the young, let us hope that mercy may be taught as a part of religion.” The reflections in these last pages of her diary give such a lovely picture of serene, noble, and dignified old age that they may well be quoted here. They show the warm heart of the generous woman, as well as the trained intellect of a reverent student of the laws of nature. “Though far advanced in years, I take as lively an interest as ever in passing events. I regret that I shall not live to know the result of the expedition to determine the currents of the ocean, the distance of the earth from the sun determined by the transits of Venus, and the source of the most renowned of rivers, the discovery of which will immortalise the name of Dr. Livingstone. But I regret most of all that I shall not see the suppression of the most atrocious system of slavery that ever disgraced humanity.”

A later entry still, and the last, gives another view of her happy, faithful spirit. The Admiral’s daughter speaks in it: “The Blue Peter has been long flying at my foremast, and now that I am in my ninety-second year I must soon expect the signal for sailing. It is a solemn voyage, but it does not disturb my tranquillity. Deeply sensible of my utter unworthiness, and profoundly grateful for the innumerable blessings I have received, I trust in the infinite mercy of my Almighty Creator.” She then expresses her gratitude for the loving care of her daughters, and her journal concludes with the words, “I am perfectly happy.” She died and was buried at Naples. Her death took place in her sleep, on 29th November 1872. Her

daughter writes, ” Her pure spirit passed away so gently that those around her scarcely perceived when she left them. It was the beautiful and painless close of a noble and happy life.”

Adapted from Some Emininent Women of Our Times by Millicent Garret Fawcett.

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Identifying the Underlying Problem

Awhile ago, I found myself very frustrated. I had a problem. Papers kept piling up on the kitchen table. If it had been junk mail, I wouldn’t have minded—junk mail is easy. You just throw it away. But it wasn’t just junk mail. It was other things too. Bills that hadn’t been paid yet, letters, things that had to get read… they were all on the kitchen table and it was driving me insane.

I started looking on Pinterest for pretty solutions to paperwork problems. Nice folders, wall filing systems, pretty boxes, new and improved home command centers…. I was trying to decide which option was the best for us, and where I should put whatever I decided to use, when it suddenly dawned on me that the kitchen wasn’t where the papers went at all. We had an office for paperwork.

I had been really excited about having an office to handle such things with, and I had put my desk in there when I moved into the house. It was nice… but I realized that we hadn’t been using the office. We sat with our laptops on the sofa, we wrote on the kitchen table, we did just about whatever it took to not go in the office. Why?

I went into the office to check it out and suddenly I understood.

The real reason there were papers on the kitchen table was not that I or my husband was being lazy, or that I didn’t have a filing system in the kitchen, it was simply that neither I nor my husband wanted to spend time in the office. And now I understood why:the office was ugly and depressing.

Understanding the root of the problem allowed me to channel my energies to fixing the real problem. We took the ugly door off and hung curtains in the doorway. (I’ve always loved curtained doorways, and these curtains were pretty and cheap.) Then we got rid of my husband’s ugly thrift store desk and bought a piece of plywood, and used it and some white paint to turn two mismatched pieces of furniture into a pleasant looking and functional work space for him. All told, our office remodel only cost about $30, and since then, we haven’t had an issue with papers on the kitchen table. As a side benefit, we have an easier time not using electronics in the evening, because the electronics stay in the office.

Identifying the Underlying Problem

This experience taught me something which I have tried to apply to other parts of my life as well. Sometimes our problems are actually only symptoms of the real problem, and we can’t get rid of the symptoms until we get rid of the cause. Understanding this fact and taking the time to think can save time, money, effort, and sometimes even your relationships.

Suppose you have a small child who screams and throws a tantrum every evening. You can try punishing the child for having a tantrum, you can give up and allow his undisciplined behavior, or you can see if there is an underlying cause. Maybe you will find that having a mid-afternoon snack will solve your child’s evening tantrum problem. Or maybe moving his nap, or getting his back adjusted by a chiropractor… People are complex and the reasons for their behaviors are too.

I read a story recently of a woman who argued with her husband every single evening. It was tiresome and it was poisoning their relationship. Finally, however, she analyzed the situation, and discovered that she was trying to get him to talk about various issues right when he got home tired from work. Simply rearranging their schedule so that he could relax for a few minutes after he got home allowed them to regain their peace as a couple.

Sometimes it’s hard to find the root of a problem, and sometimes the root is something that you can’t change. It’s also sometimes something you would never have guessed. (One time I realized that the reason I’d been edgy and upset for weeks was because I had writer’s block, and my inability to work on my writing project was causing a low-level stress in the background of my thoughts.) Sometimes, the problem is simply our point of view or our attitude.

attitude, the difference between an ordeal and an adventure

Whatever our problems are, it is always worth finding the roots so we can understand what we are dealing with, and not waste time and effort fixing symptoms.

What problems have you solved?