Let's practice acceptance and non-judgement

I am not sure what the need is for people to be so critical of others. Why do they have a need to judge others and then voice their opinions.

• The way we look; hair, makeup, size, clothing, tattoos, piercings
• The car we drive; I remember when we had a G.M.C. Jimmy and a Saab 900. People would flash us the finger and swear at us when we drove the Saab and wave to us when we drove the Jimmy.
• Now we have a need to critique where we see a movie. Heck why waste your time if you didn't see it in 3-D and on Imax.
• Our religion; I have never understood why it would be so horrific if Barrack Obama was Muslim. Do you have to be a Christian to be president?
• Our sexuality, why are gay people such a threat to straight people??
• If we went to college and where.
• I've witnessed people in the holistic field judging massage, if your not the BEST why would anyone want to go to you. My Reiki lineage is better than yours. I can do the yoga pose much better than you. People, this is not a competition.
• Stay at home mom vs working mom
• How much weight was gained during the pregnancy
• Our vacations, I have always hated it when people ask, "Did you do something special for vacation?"

I am also an offender. I find myself judging people who judge. Let's at least try to practice acceptance and non-judgement.

"The beauty of American arrogance is that they can't imagine a world where they're not a step ahead." Suarez, Vantage Point (2008)

Why is it that so many Americans believe that we are #1 in everything? A few stats below:

According to NationMaster the US is ranked 47th in life expectancy at birth! Almost 4 yrs less than if you were born in Japan.

According to infoplease the US is ranked 25th in Math, 12th in Reading and 20th in Science.

Now before you start calling me anti-american or worse, I love my country. The freedom that we share in this great country is priceless. But it is time to take some hard looks at the gap that exist between the US and other countries.

The chart below illustrates the difference in number of school days our children attend school. This was taken from an article from EDU in review. Is it anti-american to want my grandchildren to be given the same opportunity as the children from these other countries?

Let's stop being so accepting of death from known diseases

Why is it that we are fixated by obscure diseases?? The first reported case of H1N1 in the US got national news exposure as have reported cases of West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis. It's time to put our concern and resources to cure the causes of more common diseases that cause hundred of thousands if not millions of death annually. We have too many deaths due to cancers, diabetes, common flu, car accidents, etc and just don't seem to care proportionally. The odds are that those causes will get us too and not West Nile, H1N1, or Eastern Equine Encephalitis (E.E.E.).

According to WHO a few facts about diabetes...

• More than 220 million people worldwide have diabetes.
• In 2005, an estimated 1.1 million people died from diabetes.
• Almost 80% of diabetes deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• Almost half of diabetes deaths occur in people under the age of 70 years; 55% of diabetes deaths are in women.
• WHO projects that diabetes deaths will double between 2005 and 2030.

My Mom died Nov 22, 1995 she would of turned 91 this Sept 24 but diabetes got her too.

"You can't achieve greatness by being ordinary"

Seems rather obvious but a lot of people do not seem to understand that greatness will not be thrust upon them. It takes hard work and some god given ability.

Paul's Bucket Theory

If you could somehow quantify all the qualities of a person and add them all together you would find that all of us have the exact same size bucket of abilities. Some of us have an abundance of ability in a one area while others have a more even distribution.

Offshoring - These jobs are never coming back

Wikipedia describes offshoring as "the relocation by a company of a business process from one country to another—typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or supporting processes, such as accounting."

There is an alarming trend of companies that are locating plants in other countries due to the abundance of educated workers happy to be receiving pay at a fraction of an American worker. When you buy a PC these days it is probably assembled in China by an employee of HP or Dell. The only American involved with the purchase is the delivery man that brings it to your door.

The improvements in internet speed has enabled many jobs to be done remotely. In the past if a company was looking for a programmer they were dependent on the availability of local talent. Now the talent pool has exploded to be anyone, anywhere in the world with access to a high speed connection. Companies based in the US are employing workers located throughout the globe do just this.

The good news is that it has improved the cost margins of these companies and allowed them to keep cost down. The bad news is that these jobs are not coming back to the US. We have priced ourselves out of these types of jobs.

The other reality that Americans must face is that we are undereducated. We cannot keep spending less time educating our youth than other countries and be able to compete. It's time to wake up America and start valuing education, expand the school year and expand the school day. When we can start competing on education then we can start building a stronger workforce.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

If this is true then there are a lot of insane people out there. You see this all the time in people dealing with their weight, finances, relationships, work, etc. If you find yourself not making progress, step back, take a good look and ask what can you change to improve things.