How To Be A Modern Gentleman
Today I would like to share my thoughts on how to be a modern gentleman. In the world today, people rush here and there, never really taking the time to care about those that cross their paths during the course of a day.
My wife, Shirley, has spoken on being intentional in the past. I’d like to add my thoughts below for this topic in particular. Just how do you show that you’re a gentleman? By doing the following:
`Greet people politely. Treat your wife and children better than anyone else in your day.
`Always open the door for your wife and children.
`Be punctual. It does not make the person feel good to have to wait on you all the time.
`Keep your word. Do what you say/ follow thru with your intentions.
`Leave the place better than you found it.
`Put your cell phone away!
`Have fun. You don’t have to be so serious all the time.
`Don’t hold on to the negatives of the past.
`Don’t assume or accuse.
`Pray for yourself and others. Seek God in all things.
`Don’t brag or boast.
`Be authentic.
`Have eyes for only her.
`Make your wife feel like a queen every chance you get.
`Discover her “love language” and do things that speak directly to her heart.
`Make reservations or plans. While it’s nice to be spontaneous at times, it makes her feel special if you thought it out in advance and planned things just for your wife.
`Give her your jacket if she’s cold.
`Don’t be a pig at the table. Wait to start your meal and wait to finish together.
`Pull her seat out for her at the table.
`Rise from your seat when she enters the room.
`Listen with empathy. This is very important as women as big on communication.
`Compliment her often but be sincere about it. Don’t use “cookie cutter” phrases. Mean what you say.
`Say please and thank you. Using your manners is still “in” these days.
`Watch your mouth and your language.
`Control your temper. Don’t let it control you!
`If you are mechanically inclined, fix things around the house without being asked. She won’t have to “nag” if you just do it!
`Pay attention to details.
How Are You Doing?
Today is the sixth day of January. As we’re making our way into the new year, I wanted to stop to ask just how are you doing?
If you had high hopes as you rang in the new year for changes that you wanted to make during the new year and may have fallen short already on those changes you were doing to make, take heart! The year is still relatively new, and you can ALWAYS start again! So you had great intentions to eat healthier and blew it just a few days in. That’s okay. Get back up, dust yourself off, and start eating better today! If you planned on drinking more water but substituted sodas or tea instead, focus today and decide that today will be your day to drink more water.
You CAN do this!
If you haven’t stepped foot into the gym, that’s okay, too. You can exercise at home. Just DO it, as the Nike commercial says. Get off of that couch and walk to the beat of your favorite song. Even if you’re walking in place, that is still exercising. Grab a couple of cans of beans in your pantry and do some curls while you’re making dinner. Or, my personal favorite, grab your honey and dance to your favorite tune!
Try not to focus so much on having “failed” so early on in the new year. It’s only January 6th. Begin again TODAY! Right where you are!
If you were planning on saving more money this year, pay day is coming at the end of the week. Sock some money away right off the bat into your savings account. If you get into a habit each week, pretty soon, you won’t miss the money that you’re putting away for a rainy day. Maybe you’re planning on saving money for that dream vacation, or you’re more practical and want to save it for new tires on your car. Whatever you are saving for, start this week. If you wanted to start with the first pay period in the year but missed that, just start now!
How about this? A gratitude jar! Doesn’t that sound interesting? Instead of beating yourself up already on what you’ve failed to accomplish in this new year, turn your focus on positives that have happened or that you’ve achieved since the clock struck midnight on December 31st/January 1st! I bet that will make you feel a lot better if you think back and begin writing down good, positive, encouraging things for the past six days. DO it! Save those slips of paper and store them in your gratitude jar so that at the end of the year you can open that baby up and read all the goodness that this year held for you. Or, if you are having a really bad day later in the year and need a little pick-me-up, open that jar and pull out a handful of things that happened earlier in the year that made you feel GOOD! It will get you back on track.
I’ll be honest. This post was as much for me as it was for you. I’ve not exercised like I had planned. My daughters will be my accountability partners, though! We’ve already discussed it! I’ve tried eating better, and I have tried drinking more water. But we all fall off the wagon at times. I am making better food choices, and I feel good about that. I would like to encourage you to just stop beating yourself up! Just get back on track. I’ve wanted to start saving more money this year, and I will … beginning this pay period.
AND … I am most definitely going to go back over the past six days and write things down that have spoken to my heart in this new year. Things that have made me smile, that have warmed my heart. Things that I will want to hold on to and remember.
I will begin today.
YOU CAN, TOO!
Now We Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Program
My children were off for two weeks for the Christmas holidays. The great thing was that this year I was able to be home with my children for the two week break! While I love my job, I love my children more and looked forward to the time at home with them.
We did a lot of talking, connecting, reading, watching movies, and sleeping in! My husband was able to take off a good bit of time with us as well, although not the entire two weeks. We went horseback riding every chance we could when there was good weather. We went riding on the property behind ours (33 acres – with the owner’s permission), down the dirt roads where my parents live out in the country, as well as going to a 2100 acre forest dedicated for equestrian usage, and also rode our horses on the beach twice! It was great fun!
We built a fire and roasted marsh mellows while saying goodbye to things of the past that were weighing us down by tossing pieces of paper into the fire with those things that we needed to let go of once and for all. That was freeing!
My family and I spent quality time together, which we always love.
We gathered with other family members during the holiday season as well as our friend from Illinois that visited at the beginning of the month to kick the Christmas season off right.
Lots of Christmas songs were heard and sung as we remembered the real reason for the season – the birth of Christ, our Lord!
Then as the Christmas activities came to an end, we ushered in a brand spanking new year! Woo Hoo!! Good riddance to 2014 – and a big ole Southern howdy and welcome to 2015! We look forward to many good times and wonderful memories that will be made this year.
And now we sit here preparing for the return to school and work. My daughters have already groaned a few times, but now we return to our regularly scheduled program.
It is nice to have a break, but we do need to return to a normal routine. And so, we shall, but we will go back to school and work feeling refreshed and renewed as we prepare for great things to come!
