Do good to friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them.

So, I lost 1.5 lbs. on the first day of my “mom” diet. I’m trying two significant things from my childhood, I’m trying to eat 3 apples a day, and I’m “eating my liquid” with my meals. When I was growing up, I ate about 3 apples a day, along with other fruits and vegetables, and I’ve seen studies that show that you lose weight in just eating 3 apples a day, which makes sense on a couple of levels. I also was not allowed to drink with my meals, which necessitated eating an apple with my daily P and J sandwich, or having some sort of liquid rich vegetable with dinner. I’ve also read that “eating your liquid”, is a way to lose weight, hence the eating of apples with at least 3 of my meals. I’ll tell you, eating that many apples is no easy feat, and they do seem to fill me up. We’ll see…

Oh, I had a Benjamin Franklin quote that came in handy the other day, “Do good to friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them.” I was at a workshop on anger management that taught therapists to teach their clients how to turn the bullies in there lives into buddies. Basically he was teaching how to love, respect, and agree with our enemies, whenever possible, which takes the wind out of any attack or argument. It was an interesting technique that can be used with anybody. I’ve already started teaching my clients how to use it, especially with parents of teens or couples to diffuse an argument. I’m still working on it in my own life with my own wife. It is so hard to find agreement when the other person is just wrong. How dare her! Doesn’t she know that she’s supposed to agree with me?!

Unfortunately, we think that we have to attack our enemies or defend ourselves from them in order to be safe. You see this at the international level as well as the domestic. It is interesting that we started getting more success in Iraq after we started “befriending” the locals, with gifts and money, look how well that also worked with the American Indians, Manhattan for $24, what a deal. Of course, that only worked until the Indians figured out they were being ripped off, and then they wanted it all back. Those Indian Givers! Speaking of domestic matters…. Think about how far we could get if the “two Americas”, would just get along, and maybe even find things to like about each other. It was tragically funny to watch the Republicans in the Congress, try so hard to make sure they were caught liking Obama. Differences should never be an excuse for division.