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 Daily Living Advice
Question 1: I still have acne. What's best? You can do lots of things, including one that is almost miraculously helpful and not well known. But first, try to realize that nobody else sees you like you see yourself. When you look in a mirror, you tend to look critically at everything that's wrong with you. Other people don't do that. They look into your eyes, and they don't stare. They see mostly what's good and attractive about you. Even bad cases of acne just don't mean a whole lot to other people. I know that's hard to believe. Everything else about you that is attractive--maybe a great smile, maybe high intelligence-- all mean more. Acne is not a "make or break" part of being attractive. Be sure your hair and grooming look good. Wear nice clothes. Smile. Genuinely like other people. Go to parties. Flirt. Have a good time. That being said, you and I both know you'll be a lot happier if you can clear up your problem skin. So first some general rules, then the great cure. 1. Diet matters. Just trust us on this. Keep to a very low fat diet, no chocolate or nuts or fried food of any kind. Trim every bit of fat off meats. Stay away from fast food like the plague. Besides lean meat, eat plenty of whole grain fiber foods, fresh vegetables and fruits. Drink non-fat milk. No caffeine at all, and that means not only no regular cola, coffee or tea, but also the medications and foods that hide caffeine in them in an effort to addict you. So read labels. Even though it’s a bear to follow, this diet has the added advantage of enormous life-long health benefits other than acne control. After your skin clears up (see below), if you wish, add each kind of food back into your diet for a week to see if you can tolerate it. 2. Use clean towels and pillowcases, and thoroughly shower every day (very preferably in the morning) with a medicated zinc shampoo like Head and Shoulders. Wash both your hair and face with the shampoo. Daily use is essential. Massage well with fingertips and your hair will also benefit greatly. This has nothing to do with dandruff; the medication in Head and Shoulders works well to keep skin healthy. 3. Do not use make-up. To cover the zits, use one of the over-the-counter acne medications that are skin colored. Pick a maximum strength brand that matches your skin tones. Don’t use it heavily, though. Develop a light touch, just enough to sort of blend in. You can go heavier at night, but before applying, wash up. You can use Head and Shoulders just to wash your face at night, too. 4. Get lots of sleep, nine hours if you can. Getting less can make your skin break out. Sleep is a great beauty aid. 5. Don't worry! Stress will destroy your body, starting with your complexion. If you are unhappy, please read our articles on happiness and the meaning of life, on this website. And speaking of zinc, that is our miracle medicine. It works for a lot of people; it is certainly worth a try. Buy the 50-mg. tablets at the drugstore. For two weeks, take five tablets with each meal, three times a day. Then for another two weeks, take only four tablets. After another two weeks, reduce to three tablets with each meal. After another two weeks, go to two, then to one. Finally, take just two tablets per day, one with each of two meals. You should see a remarkable improvement. But be warned! This is a lot of one mineral, and the risks are essentially unknown. You have to be the judge of how badly you want to clear up your skin. But we are guided here by practical experience: many people have followed this successfully. One side effect can be a feeling of nausea. The more food you eat with the tablets, the less you will feel nauseous. You may also ask your druggist for a good anti-nausea medicine, and take this along with the zinc. (Note: any zinc that you take, perhaps not this much if you can't tolerate it, will be very helpful!) Also, this much zinc has a tendency to use up certain vitamins and minerals in your body quickly. Take a lot of vitamin supplements, especially Vitamin A and iron. By the third week, you should know if it is going to clear up your skin. Good luck. Questions or comments? To send email, Click here. To discover the Secret of Happiness, read how by clicking here. Is there a God? Click Here for the definitive, surprising answer. A full index of inspirational articles and helpful tips for your daily life can be found on our Home Page  Question 2: Why does my back hurt after lying in bed (or sitting in a chair)? Backaches and Beds, Part 1: Your Muscles Tight, weak back muscles cause backaches. There is no "magic pill" to cure you, and ignoring the cause and covering up the pain with drugs is a recipe for disaster. A lot of things in life just aren't easy. Even if a medical doctor (not a chiropractor) has diagnosed you with a spinal problem, strong muscles surrounding the area will alleviate pain and work wonders. The right bed can help considerably, but it’s wise to strengthen and stretch your muscles regardless. We’ll tell you about several exercises, but whole books have been written about all the good ones, and a physical therapist should explain them to you if you have pain. (Note: insist on a licensed physical therapist, not a G.P. or a Chiropractor.) Streching is of paramount importance. Simple touch-your-toes is good, done to several sides and held. You should be able to place your palms flat on the floor with straight legs. What? You can't? No wonder your back hurts! Other back stretches can be found on-line or in many books. And you have to strengthen your back muscles with exercises. The simplest is the leg lift. Lie flat on your back. Slowly lift both legs together six inches off the ground. Hold. Let down slowly. Variation: lift your legs all the way back over your head as far as they can go, then slowly lower them. Do as many sets as you can. Do 3 to 6 times a week, and try to increase the repetitions a little each week. Remember, it takes about 6 weeks to really strengthen muscles. Another good exercise is that old favorite, sit-ups. Do them with bent knees and toes hooked under a piece of furniture (with shoes on.)  Backaches and Beds, Part 2: Your Bed Old, worn-out mattresses can cause a lot of grief. Any new, quality mattress is OK. But don’t think that the harder it is, the better it will be for your back. Any good mattress you can buy is firm enough for your back; be sure it feels soft enough to make you comfortable. Solid latex (not foam) lasts much longer than innersprings, but is more expensive. But if you have a new, comfortable mattress and your back still hurts, and if you are doing your streches and exercises, there are two alternative kinds of beds you should consider: the adjustable bed and the waterbed. Both have adherents that swear by them. Adjustable beds are not hospital beds; they have a motor drive that shapes them like a chaise lounge chair. They are very comfortable, and you can eat or watch TV in them nicely. Sleep at night in the flat position, or with the head and foot parts both elevated a bit. Experiment to see what works best for you. Some people put an adjustable bed in their bedroom in addition to their regular bed, and switch to it when their back starts hurting. Then they raise up both the top and bottom parts (raising just the top makes you slide toward the bottom of the bed), until it is just like a laid back lounge chair. This always stops the back ache and allows them to sleep the rest of the night. But we know people who would rather endure pain all night than have a crowded bedroom. The second alternative is a waterbed. Many people believe that this is the ultimate answer to good sleep. Get a full flotation bed, fill it very full and firm but still flat, and cover it (this is a must) with a fluffed-up feather bed, a huge bag of down and feathers. Be sure you have a proper heater, and set it to between 85 and 90 degrees. Sleeping on one of these is the closest you’ll get to heaven on earth. It takes a day or two to get used to, and don’t let the salesman talk you into the reduced motion kind. Continue scrolling up or down, or go to our Home Page .  Question 3: What is the secret of happiness? A tough question but simple to answer. The secret is to forget about trying to make yourself happy, and instead make other people happy. Your family and friends first of course. But really, everybody in the world. Only then will you be truly happy. If you can make just one other person happy, or relieve their suffering, your life will be a resounding success! And this is always possible for you, every day. The big secret truth is this: It is easy to make others happy, it is impossible to make only yourself happy. Think you can't help others? Even a single kind word can lift someone's spirits and make them happy. In WWII concentration camps, some prisoners shared their small rations of food with others, even though it meant certain death by starvation themselves. And survivors tell that in the midst of all that horror, other prisoners sang joyful songs to make everyone feel better. This is the best example we know of someone knowing the true meaning of life. To read exactly how Christ commanded us to treat other people, click on The Teaching of Christ. Question From a Reader: Isn’t it safe to say that you have to make yourself happy before you can make others happy? I am a people pleaser and no matter what, I seem to feel like I deserve the same respect I give others. I’ve also heard that it is like giving a gift you shouldn’t expect one in return ( very true) so how can you make someone happy if you are not happy yourself??? Very very confused. Dear Reader, You are confused because you are still thinking how you can make yourself happy. This should never be our goal. Our goal in life is to mature and qualify ourselves as worthy children of God. We are born with nothing but free will and the knowledge of how to tell right from wrong. Are we worthy to be called true children of God? That’s completely up to us. It means following a difficult path. It means the rejection of everything selfish. From our good works we should never expect anything back except ingratitude, except from God, who keeps strict accounts. If you don’t believe in God, the whole argument falls apart. Then you are right back where you started from, and you will just have to settle for a selfish attempt to make yourself happy, which is doomed to failure. Your words “I deserve” are very telling. What you should hope to deserve is eternal happiness, and the satisfied and happy feeling throughout life that you are doing your best to merit that. You should be in constant contact with your Father, who will give you all the help you need if you simply ask for it. Forgive everyone everything. Hold no grudges. Always be cheerful and pleasant. See that no one goes hungry. Wow, is all that difficult, or what? No one said it would be easy. And you won’t be perfect, no matter how hard you try. But it is in exactly how hard you try that your life will be measured at the moment of your death. Each time you fall down, reach up for His hand. It will always be there. Another Reader Question: I suffer a lot. If I commit suicide, will I go to hell? Dear Reader, Only God knows, and we presume he will judge each case on its own merit. But he has said that he will be the judge of when we die. We are supposed to spend our time on earth trying to help other people, and we should not cut that time short. Who knows what plans he has for us later on? I would not personally ever consider taking my own life, it is just too huge a risk, and if you lose, well, as they say, all hell may break loose. How can God permit Suffering? Click Here for the definitive, surprising answer. Then please scroll to other articles on the Spiritual Inspiration page, such as the The Nature of God and Proof That God Exists! If you are unhappy, write to us! Maybe we can help. We will answer! To send email, Click here. Go to THE MAIN INDEX HOME PAGE for a full list of help. But you can't be happy if you are lonely! Read this next letter about loneliness: Letter 4: I'm so lonely, and I try so hard to make things right, but I can’t do it. I can’t find one example in my whole life of the type of love in a marriage I want to find. I mean more than cuddling and whatnot, I mean finding someone who cares about me as I care about them. One day at a time, I realize my dreams are not going to come true. Even when I’m at a party with friends, I feel alone. [From a young man in college.] Dear Reader, You are not going through anything that the vast majority of people have not been through. In fact, most people are still in the middle of it, just like you are. The more intelligent we are, the more likely we are to ponder what life is all about, and wonder if plodding along from day to day all by ourselves is the best we can hope for. All our difficulties stem from the fact that we are locked into one small body, in one particular place, at one particular time. It is like being in prison. Our intellect, our soul if you will, rebels mightily against this confinement. The loneliness is terrible. Were we really created to spend our entire lives, perhaps an eternity like this? Of course not. This is, in fact, a powerful argument for the existence of God, and offers a deep insight into what is in store for us in the next life. More about this later in the letter.  Fortunately, this life offers a way out of our prison also. The natural order is to find one other person with whom we can share everything, one man and one woman. That is all we need. One other, one soul mate. That is what God intended when he made two sexes. Not just to have someone to sleep with, or to cook for us, but to truly become one instead of two. We instinctively know that all by ourselves we are incomplete. We also know instinctively that our parent’s home, our parent’s life, is not our home, is not our life. We were not intended to stay in the nest. So the problem becomes: how do you find her, the one for you, and then how do you keep her? Plus we have to deal with the nagging doubt, what if there isn’t anyone for me? What if no one finds me attractive enough? First, there is not just someone for everyone, as the old saying goes: there are millions of people for everyone. Physical attractiveness is fine, and will broaden your prospective pool of soul mates. By all means make yourself as attractive as possible. Work out, clear up your complexion (see our article on acne at Lifehelping.com), lose that roll of fat, have a dentist fix and whiten your teeth, get your hair cut and styled at a professional salon, not just a barber shop; in general make a big effort. The better you look, the better your selection. But how good she looks is not most important. In fact, you don’t want anyone who thinks of herself as "glamourous." This kind of person tends to be self-centered. Not only are they incapable of bonding with you, they tend to chase after the next better-looking guy who comes down the pike. And there will always be one, no matter who you are. Like the old gunslingers, you only live until someone shows up who is just a little faster on the draw. So look for someone who is not quite as attractive as you are. Unspoiled. A nice person. A good person. Caring, sensitive, about as intelligent as you are, someone who shares your hopes and dreams of what kind of life the two of you should live. Someone who is comfortable to be with. Someone who doesn’t mind doing the laundry with you, as long as it’s with you. This is a guarantee of happiness. And if you think you have found her, treat her like a queen. Hold doors for her, bring her flowers all the time, do what she likes doing, be cheerful and pleasant around her even if you are in a bad mood. Never raise your voice or your hand against her. Buy her little gifts, silly things, unexpected things. Devote your life to making her happy. Make her always feel beautiful and special. Tell her so a thousand times. Then I guarantee that you will be an incredibly happy guy yourself. In fact, if we really know what the meaning of life is, we will treat everyone this way (or almost). How can we be so happy with just an incomplete bonding with just one other person? What does this tell us? That if heaven is our destiny, then heaven must be a complete bonding with kindred souls. Does this mean that we will be united with all other people? Does it mean that being bonded with God will complete us fully? Or perhaps we are all a part of God, and being united with him will also mean a bonding with all other kindred people. We don’t know. But we do know that we will only become totally complete after we leave this world, and only then if we have merited it with a life of caring for other people. And we know that the closest approximation of heaven on earth is a relationship in which we can give ourselves completely to our partner. Keep in touch. We do wish you well. Addendum for Girls and Women: You are worse than guys about making good looks the most important quality of a potential mate. Forget it. Good looking guys are just as vain and incapable of sharing themselves as beautiful women are. And don't go after the "bad boy" biker types, either. Guaranteed road to long nights of crying. Try to find a guy like the one who wrote the letter above. They are out there, but they are probably too shy to make the first move. Even though it's against your nature, be somewhat aggressive and make initial contact. If he's the right one, he will be eternally grateful. And don't look in bars. He won't be there. One more thing. Men are awful liars (but good at lying!). They will say anything and everything to get you to bed with them. Do not ever believe anything a man says. Only believe what they do. Do they treat you like we advise the young man above to treat the special girl in his life? If they don’t, dump them quick. I was a good looking young man myself once, and I know whereof I speak. If you haven't already done so, discover the Secret of Happiness here. A full index of inspirational articles and helpful tips for your daily life can be found on our Home Page Problems or questions? To send email, Click here. . . Question 4: I delivered my beautiful son on 7/7/03. Since returning to work, I have been feeling so sad. I feel like he is more attached to my baby sitter than to me. I find myself crying over this a lot. Is there any advise you can give me? My doctor said I was suffering from post-partum depression and put me on some medication. I don't believe it's working, and I am getting so discouraged.  I’ll give you some advice, but you’re not going to like it. Leave your job until your child, and all your children, are in school. This may be difficult for you to do financially, but there are more important things in the world than money. The most important thing in your world right now is your son. Nothing else comes even close. Certainly not the size house you live in or the make of car you drive or where you go on vacation or how many times you go to restaurants or movies. None of that means anything at all to your beautiful baby. But you mean everything to him, and he deserves to have you with him 24 hours a day. Your "meaning of life" is your new son. Think you can’t afford to stop working? Chances are you can, even if it means taking a big cut in lifestyle. It comes down to this: would you rather be poor and happy, enjoying the love of your children all day, or is that cell phone and video recorder and new car and weekly carton of cigarettes and new dress and everything else that you think is indispensable just impossible to give up? It’s up to you to put human values first. This doesn’t mean you can’t have a career. Careers can be great. But your children are young for so short a time, an agonizingly short time once it’s gone, that you can have a long, satisfying career and be a stay at home mother too, just not at the same time. Years ago, almost all mothers stayed home and took care of their kids. In the 1950’s, a working mother was looked down on as someone who didn’t care about her family. Cartoons in the paper made fun of Russian women, who worked in factories and left their children at government day care centers. How could the Commies be so heartless? Then our own government started financing the modern welfare state, where everybody is “entitled” to vast amounts of taxpayer money. Inflation roared. One income was no longer able to provide the same standard of living for a household as it used to. Our government had two choices: either admit that the true costs of the Great Society meant a much lower standard of living for everyone, or somehow arrange for households to have not one, but two incomes: in other words, send the women to work. They found a ready ally in the women’s movement, which at the time was run by women who for the most part had no family anyway. Through Hollywood and TV, they managed to spread enough propaganda to not only make working mothers accepted in society, but required. According to the gospel of Hollywood, if a woman doesn’t work outside the home, something must be wrong with her. All her friends have the duty to find the poor woman a job. This is absolute nonsense. A woman’s highest vocation is to be a good mother to her children. That means nurturing them while they are young, and loving and caring for them, and teaching them. It is time that the mothers of America woke up and revolted against the brainwashing of the last 40 years. A full index of inspirational articles and helpful tips for your daily life can be found on our Home Page .  Question 5: What is best for arthritis? If you suffer from arthritis or bursitis, or similar problems in your legs or hips, try taking bicycle rides. Even if your legs hurt too much to walk, most folks can easily bicycle. It works wonders. It takes away the pain and allows free movement again. It’s practically a cure. Cycling on real roads is best, because it is so pleasant. But if you can’t, resign yourself to riding indoors on a stationary bike. Not as much fun, but still good for arthritis. Either way, take good long rides, forty-five minutes minimum, about three times a week or more. And get a real workout: work up a good sweat. It may take twenty minutes or more of easy pedalling to work out most of the soreness each time, so in the beginning you may have to do most of the hard pedal pushing with your good leg. Without a good leg, choose a flat route without big hills. If there are two of you, consider buying a tandem bike. Only one of you needs to be able to ride a bike, and you both stay together. My wife and I have been riding our tandem happily for 40 years. Of course, bike riding will also improve your overall health. And any kind of injury or chronic condition responds best to exercise, the more the better. This is the central idea of physical therapy. Doctors also recommend two food supplements, glucosamine HCl-chondroitin, and oil of primrose. These seem to really work. Take as directed. Continue scrolling up or down, or go to our Home Page.  . Question 6: My hair is getting gray, and worse than that, it's thinning. What should I know? Guys, if you look like the fellows on the right, just take consolation in the fact that most women don't care even a little bit about how much hair a man has. But there are effective ways to slow down the graying and thinning of hair. You can’t stop it, any more than you can stop time, and much of the difference you see from person to person is simply genetic (blame your ancestors.) But you can do things to make your hair look much better. The secrets of good-looking hair are nutrition, cleanliness and massage. The most important thing for thinning hair (attention guys!) is massage. The idea is to stimulate blood flow to the scalp, because decreased blood flow means loss of hair. Massage with your fingertips, quite vigorously. There is really no schedule of how often or how long, but it would certainly be impossible to massage too much. Scalp cleanliness is also very important. An ideal time to massage is during your morning shower. Shampoo every morning with a zinc-medicated shampoo (Head and Shoulders is perfect, and no, this has nothing to do with dandruff: zinc is good for all kinds of things). This should not only make your hair and facial skin healthier, but should make your hair look good too. And finally, for that dreaded gray that makes us look older than we would wish: take a chromium supplement (Chromium Picolinate), one or two 200mg. tablets, every day. Take good multiple vitamin and mineral supplements too, they are great for healthy hair, and toss these in on top of them. For many people, this will not only retard graying but will restore some of the old color. Note: this is a long term project, just as any good diet or exercise program should be. Don't expect quick results. But do expect great results down the road. Continue scrolling up or down, or go to our Home Page for a full index. Question 7: My neck hurts at night. Is it my pillow's fault? Many people just can’t sleep without two or three pillows. If your neck is ever uncomfortable from sleeping, purchase or make a small round “neck” pillow. The best and most common is a cylinder about 6 inches round and 18 inches long. Used on top of your regular pillow, they fit under and support your neck, while the back of your head just lightly touches the pillow underneath. It must be feather filled (easy to make from old pillows). A springy foam pillow is murder, and will cause a neck ache if you don't already have one. Buy a cheap neck pillow, open part of a seam and take the foam out, and put in feathers from an old worn out pillow (the best kind). Even feather pillows have to be "broken in" before they are most comfortable. The third pillow on your bed is called a body pillow, and is for hugging. It keeps you toasty warm, gives your arms a place to be comfy, and gives you a feeling of security. What more could you want? Any old pillow is good for this, but special long ones are sold too. Questions or comments? To send email, Click here. . 
Question 8: I meant to do so many things in life that just didn't happen. Where did I go wrong? The most important word in the language is "now." It is a terrible mistake to think that we can put things off until a better time. Should we go back to college now, or wait while we earn more money? Now. Should we start having a family now, or wait to have kids until we establish our career? Now. Should we start on a regular exercise or diet now, or put it off just a little longer, until after the holidays, until it gets warmer, until our cold goes away, until school lets out, until hell freezes over? Well, it might as well be that last one, because when we put anything off at all, for any reason, we wake up the next week and guess what? It only seems like a week, it is now 20 years later and it's too late to do it. Make yourself a big cardboard sign with the single word NOW on it and hang it up where you can see it every day. Questions or comments? To send email, Click here. 
Question 9: We don't really want to move out of our house, but we're getting older and it's a lot of work to keep up. Any suggestions? Don’t move out of your big house when you get older! Most folks figure that after the kids are gone and they themselves aren’t as active, that they don’t need a large house anymore. This is almost always a mistake. We have a very powerful emotional attachment to a house that we shared with our spouse and kids. Neighborhood friends are hard to leave. And just being in familiar surroundings is essential for happiness. You may crave new adventures and new sights, but these should come in chunks, as vacations, while you always have old faithful home to come back to. If it’s just too much trouble to keep it up, what with mowing and repairing and cleaning, consider this: advertise for a young family just starting out to share the home with you. You might even be lucky enough to have a relative who fills the bill! Give them free rent and they can use the bedrooms that are sitting empty. The wife can share cooking duties, or let her do all of it if you prefer: it’s nice to have a cook. Let them keep up the house, doing all the work you used to do. After you become unable to do shopping on your own, they can do it for you. The nicer the house, the more you can expect in the way of care as you get older. This may even spare you the horrible fate of ending up in a rest home. But the best part of an arrangement like this is that you will have small children in the house again. They are a blessing, if you let them be. They will keep you young. You will have a real Christmas again, and a real Halloween. And real birthday parties. There is nothing more depressing than a big quiet house, and nothing more soul satisfying than a house full of noisy children. And babysitting, while a big favor for them, will be like a wonderful time machine for you, taking you back many decades. It’s a good deal for all. Continue scrolling up or down, or go to our Home Page for a full index of useful articles. 
Question 10: I haven't done real well in high school, and I'll never get into college. But I'm a good worker. Am I going to have any real problem getting a good job? Yes. We see so many young people in low paying, dead end jobs that it makes us wonder where their school counselor was hiding. Kids who can’t do well in the academic world usually figure that they can decide at any time what career they want, then apply for and get an entry level job in that field, and quickly learn on the job. That’s the road to minimum wage hell. There are hundreds of applicants for every good job that advertises that no experience is necessary. Whether you want to be a mechanic, a chef, a dental assistant, a firefighter, a policeman, a beautician, a veterinary assistant, or any of dozens of other well paying, satisfying jobs, the road to success starts with enrolling in a trade school or junior college that prepares you for your chosen career. Employers looking for people in these fields always want someone with either experience or training. The job of your school counselor should be to determine if you are college material, and if not, to find out what your interests and abilities are and guide you to the right trade school and to make sure you explore all the ways that it can be paid for, with loans, grants, scholarships and part-time work. Don't think you can't afford it, you can. But this is the real world, and your counselor will no doubt hand you a class schedule and move on to the next student. So you have to find another adult to be your mentor, or just do it yourself. But make no mistake: everyone needs to acquire valuable job skills with which to earn a living. And no one, and I repeat no one, except your mom cares whether you spend your life in a rewarding career or spend it sleeping under bridges in a cardboard carton. So it is up to you to get the training. If nothing else, find out where the nearest junior college is. If your state doesn’t have a junior college system, move to California. Go there. Talk to one of their counselors. They will be an enormous help. And don’t be put off by the fact that they are called colleges. They are designed for high school dropouts (who are now motivated to succeed) and blue-collar people. You can do it. Everyone can do it. And just one final warning: it won’t happen if you are on drugs or alcohol. If you won’t quit, you have cardboard cartons in your future. Questions or comments? To send email, Click here.  Question 11: My kids just sit inside with the computer and TV. How can I get them outdoors to play games and sports? The schools are at partly to blame here. They are part of a huge machine that funnels the best athletes to the professional levels and neglects everyone else. Today, kids can sit in front of a TV screen and play hundreds of games, or reach countless websites, and never have to do more than move a few fingers. Fifty years ago, we all died of boredom sitting inside the house. So early on we learned to entertain ourselves outdoors with games and sports that required a lot of running and activity. We soon got to know who the gifted athletes were, but since we were all friends, no one was left out, and we all had fun. Today, it’s not about fun: it’s about winning. Every sport is organized and supervised by adults, whose one goal is to play the best talent so their team can win. In schools, there is usually just one organized team for any sport, and only the best athletes are chosen for it. The vast majority of kids, being left out, feel slighted. They will be content to sit inside and play on their computers and let their bodies turn to mush. The benefit of participating in sports is enormous. It is the only fun way to get the exercise that is vital for good health, and so it becomes the only exercise program that we can keep up our entire lives. Team sports give a wonderful feeling of camaraderie, while individual sports like tennis teach skills that we can use even into old age. The important thing is that everyone should be included, because everyone benefits. Good natural athletes will always be able to play sports, not just in school but throughout their lives. What is needed is a program that includes every single child. Sports can be enjoyed by anyone, if played with people of the same level of ability. After all, sports are just games, and children love games. Athletic competition should not be an elitist program tailored for just a few, any more than reading or arithmetic is. And it is certainly just as vital for a happy and healthy life. During each season that a sport is traditionally played, leagues should be set up in schools that include everyone, and every child on every team should actually play. Even handicapped kids will benefit: ever hear of wheelchair basketball leagues? Where there’s a will there’s a way. The traditional PE class of running laps (as slow as we can) and just trying not to be embarrassed in front of our more talented classmates is a complete failure. Kids learn to hate sports when it shows them up as inferior or clumsy. Children of all talent levels need to be taught the basic skills necessary to play sports, and then be put into leagues with other players of similar ability. They’ll get good exercise, they’ll enjoy it, and they’ll develop skills they can use to keep fit and have fun their entire lives. It’s up to the schools to do it. Once every child is participating in sports at school, it is a sure bet that neighborhood kids will get together and play outside a lot more. Questions or comments? To send email, Click here. . Continue scrolling up or down, or go to our Home Page for a full index of useful articles. Question 12: A Good HTML Primer We explain how to make HTML tables, and some basic tags, at our HTML page. A full index of inspirational articles and helpful tips for your daily life can be found in our Home Page. Please take the time to see it. Thanks. | Daily Living Advice 2 | Practical Health Advice | | Return Home | Daily Living Advice | Spiritual Inspiration | Don Camillo Stories | History of Christianity | Contact Us | Links | Is There a God? | |
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