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Being There, Being Present.

Fifty years ago, autumn in a small town meant the annual coming of age ritual that brings boys and their fathers together: the Pinewood Derby. Long before technology and yearlong organized sports, there was room in the calendar for a month of evenings together, carving, sanding, gluing, polishing axles, and finally christening. Naming a car is a prophetic proclamation; one that would be heard echoing off the musty walls of the Elks Club, the local community center or the basement of the Episcopalian church. There was the chalk leader board, the wooden racetrack clamped on sawhorses and tuned perfectly by old men who’d spent their lives with levels and squares and pencils riding behind their ears. The Red Flash. The Blue Demon. Little Lightning. Speedy Bill. Before the race, the ceremonial walk-around---each car is displayed and confident boys soak in the accolades. The room was full of anticipation. Fathers reliving their youth and watching their sons become men.

In a corner was Scott, alone. No father. His car was a rough block painted red. The front axle was crooked. He stood with his head down. For boys like Scott, the real world seems so out of reach, like it’s spinning away and you’ll never have the chance to get on board no matter how badly you want to. Perhaps the worst experience for a boy of twelve is to be unnoticed. Making the rounds and admiring the craftsmanship was Mark. He noticed. He watched as boys and fathers moved silently past the clumsy red car. He took a few extra steps and stood in front of Scott. “I like the color,” he said. But Scott didn’t look up. He didn’t respond; he nervously tried to fix the axle.

The next time Mark would notice Scott would be at school. The final bell had rung and Scott’s teacher was blocking his way. “You’re too dumb to pass the fifth grade but I don’t want to deal with you anymore,” she said. Scott was looking down. Mark waited. He walked home with Scott that day, no words between them; they just weren’t in Mark’s vocabulary yet. So they walked. Mark would learn years later that Scott’s father was abusive, that is on the rare days when he was home. Scott’s mother left when he was small and Scott spent long hours alone and unnoticed. Soon after that walk, Scott and his father moved away and it would be a long time before Mark saw him again.

There is good counsel on teens recognizing depression and suicidal tendencies in their peers. Most of it begins by noticing and continues with the advice to be there, without judgment. A friend can make all the difference. Mark got married, and in those money-tight years dropped his car off at a neighborhood garage for repairs. That’s when he saw Scott again. “Your shop?” Mark asked. Scott smiled. “Look what I’m working on with my son.” Mark followed Scott through the garage to a corner where a half-finished hot rod rested on blocks, painted a familiar red.

Sometimes the whole world stops on a moment, and lets a boy climb aboard, unnoticed. “It’s beautiful,” Mark said. “Thank you,” Scott replied. “Thank you.”

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

BE THERE

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Courage To Do.

In 1841, a physically imposing, twenty-three year-old Frederick Douglass leaned against the rail of a ferry headed for Nantucket. He contemplated the wake widening out behind him and second-guessed his decision to travel after 3 years of trying to remain inconspicuous as a runaway. But he had been invited by a group of abolitionists to attend a rally on Nantucket Island. The Fugitive Slave Act was still in force and Frederick risked being captured and a sure return to slavery by making the trip. The courage it took to take such a journey must have been summoned from deep within his soul.

Little did Frederick Douglass know; this was the beginning of his courageous and history-altering journey. He would go on to help shape the opinions and the words of Abraham Lincoln.

Born with Spina Bifida, 12-year-old Mitchell couldn’t walk. He longed to be with his scout troop in the outdoors but was afraid to impose on the others who would have to somehow get him to camp. When the time arrived to trek to a spot in the high desert, the scoutmaster asked the other boys how they felt about Mitchell. To a boy, they all agreed that he should go. They built a special litter of Aspen poles and carried Mitchell the 3 miles up a rugged trail. It took a lot of courage for the first boy to raise a hand in support, and courage by the others to join in. It became the journey of a lifetime for each boy as they paired off and took turns carrying Mitchell up the mountain.

There are times in each of our lives that will require us to carry more than our fair share of weight, to take courage. And times when we will certainly shrink from the call. Kate, a gregarious teenage girl was reluctant to speak up to passing comments about her race. Though made casually, and by friends, they were still hurtful. Kate could not find the courage to confront her friends until her senior year. At a community gathering to promote unity, she was asked to speak. “When we are quick to judge, or when we make false assumptions about any being, we are depriving them the chance to prove themselves as good people and from believing that there is a place where they belong,” she said pushing through her fears. “This country is built on ‘Trust in God’ and I believe that in the eyes of God, all are equal and equally loved.” There was silence as this brave girl stood and looked out at the hundreds of eyes watching her. And then, applause. Sometimes courage is as simple as saying the right thing, at the right time.

For Frederick Douglass, Kate, and a group of young boys, they each acted on something bigger than themselves, something defined as courage---a word that moves us ahead into unknown waters while leaving a wake behind much bigger than ourselves.

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

COURAGE

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Earning Trust.

Nancy was suddenly a single mother. Her husband of 17 years passed away leaving her with kids to finish raising and no savings. Nancy was from a hardworking family but she lacked skills. Desperate for work she answered an ad for a housecleaner. The house turned out to be a luxury apartment, one of many properties the eccentric owner moved between as he went about his International business. The interview was short. A little paperwork and an assignment: clean the apartment. Anxious to impress, Nancy got right to work thoroughly turning over cushions, vacuuming the hidden places, scrubbing down the tiled places and not cutting corners on cleaning the windows. The first handful of change she found in the couch. The second she found under the bed. A few crumpled dollar bills and some coins could not mean much to such a rich man who seemed to be nonchalant with his spare change. But a few dollars to Nancy would mean she could come home with a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. She smoothed the paper dollars and placed them in an ashtray and stacked the coins on top. When she was done cleaning, she left the apartment and locked the door behind her.

Dr. Brené Brown, a leading authority on human behavior, outlined the Seven Elements of Trust. Integrity is at the center. “You choose courage over comfort. You choose what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy. And you choose to practice your values rather than simply professing them.”

Nancy returned home to hungry and anxious kids. She remembered the lessons taught by her immigrant father: work hard, be honest. But the words didn’t put food on the table. The next day, Nancy got the job. Turns out the scattered money was the interview. Anybody can clean but few can be trusted. Nancy made enough money to take care of her family. And she became a confidant of her eccentric employer. He soon promoted her to his bookkeeper. And as time went by, she was trusted with finding the right legal and financial counsel. In every task there are the same elements: don’t cut corners, check the details everybody else passes over. Stick to your values. Nancy became a trusted personal assistant. To her, managing millions of dollars was like a handful of coins, something to be trusted with to the penny. It’s been over 30 years since that first job interview for Nancy. In that time she has had the financial stability she needed to raise her family. And she’s had the peace of mind that comes from being somebody who can be trusted.

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

TRUST

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Forgiveness Heals Us

Forgiveness isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Sometimes we think it needs to be earned rather than freely given. As a young father, Davis was working to remodel and maintain his home. There’s nothing like the pride you take in that first home, no matter how much work it needs, it’s yours by sweat and sacrifice. So when he came home one night and caught two local teenagers breaking into his garage he was angry. They ran off, but he recognized them. And the following day confronted them and their parents. You’d expect a moment of truth, a reconciliation. But none came, only denial and character witnesses by the parents. A few weeks later Davis confronted one of the boys and threatened him. The boy confessed to some of the theft but Davis wasn’t satisfied. He stewed over the lies and the reluctant admission. Fathers of teenage boys know this feeling of incomplete restitution. It takes time for emotional maturity to develop to its completeness, so sometimes half an apology is just going to have to do. Years later Davis again ran into the now young men. They had grown up. They thanked Davis for not doing more when he caught them, like calling the police. They talked about college life, the future. For a moment, Davis was oddly unsatisfied; that is until he too apologized. He was sorry for losing his temper, and for not developing a better relationship with the boys in the first place. That’s when the tight strings around his heart loosened.

Remorse can motivate us to strengthen our character and see people differently, even seek forgiveness. But ruminating on the past will only hold us back. On the last day of Junior High School, the bell had rung and the exuberance of school ending turned into rowdiness. A shy girl had just cleaned out her locker and one of the rowdy boys kicked the books and papers out of her hands. They spilled everywhere, down the stairs and into the herd where her art projects and journals were trampled. In tears, she tried to collect a year’s worth of work. Ross watched briefly until his friends pulled him away and off to end-of-year parties he knew this girl would never get invited to. His eyes were fixed on the futility of a girl who didn’t fit in and was now cast out. He would regret not helping her the rest of his life.

Forgiveness sometimes comes slowly, a piece at a time. Sometimes it comes at unexpected moments so completely it overwhelms us. And sometimes, the hardest person to forgive is our self. Ross may never forgive his 14-year-old self. But he should. He should let the confusion of emotions he was feeling belong to his youthful lack of social courage. He should learn from it and forever be aware of other’s feelings so that he can become the person who will stand up for the unnoticed and unpopular members of his community. Because it is in those moments we all find redemption.

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

FORGIVENESS

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Let Gratitude Move You to Action.

Our modern culture tends to focus on past regrets and future uncertainty. It is the present where we need to focus, on who we are and what we can be. Something we could learn from the Ojibwe tribe in the mid-Northern states and Ontario, Canada. For the Ojibwe, names are less about what people call you and more for who you are. The name is a spiritual guide to lead through troubled times. The baby is brought before the name giver and a name is bestowed, usually based on a dream after a long fast. The ritual creates a time to be grateful for ancestors and a future of promise. A teenage boy who had grown close to an Ojibwe tribe was given a name in gratitude for his kindness to them: “Blue Between The Clouds.” When he asked what it meant he was told that even as the storm clouds gathered there was always a little bit of blue sky visible. “That is you, gratitude.”

What a difference it would make if each of us carried a name reminding us that we are Gratitude. Some cultures just better understand what a force gratitude can be---when it is given and when it is received.

In the midst of troubled times, we can still find gratitude. We can still express it in some way no matter our name. In June of 2020, a few months into the pandemic when the hospitalizations in New York City were overwhelming healthcare workers, a group of nurses flew in from the West Coast to lend a hand. One of the young nurses was assigned a mother of six children. She was on a ventilator, quarantined from her husband, and terrified. Carly, the young nurse decided to cheer her up by bringing a group of nurses together to sing “My Girl.” With a tube in her throat and needles in her arm, all the young mother could do was cry…and raise a few fingers to say thank you. There were tears all around, nurses who were grateful they could help and comfort, and a mother who was grateful they were there. At that moment, a little blue sky was visible between the clouds. With a simple hand gesture, the mother expressed her gratitude. “That little thank you changed me forever,” Carly says. “I went because I wanted to make a difference I came home grateful for what I learned.”

Gratitude moves us to be kinder. A widow who lost her husband in the midst of the pandemic felt alone. Her neighbors, grateful for over 50 years of friendship expressed their gratitude by delivering a box of fresh produce to her house every Monday during lockdown. It’s our gratitude for what we have and who has loved us that becomes the force to create the chain of good acts that bind us all together.

In the early morning quiet, when so many of us are awakened by the uncertainty of the coming day, we can find peace by mentally listing the things we are grateful for. The angst dissipates and we reach a new place in our life that we accept and appreciate. What’s next is to share. Send a random thank you note, make a call. Look around. There is always someone to thank. By doing so, we become something new; we are that blue between the clouds that makes all the difference in someone’s life.

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

GRATITUDE

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Love and Healing

Nelda was 23 years old and pregnant with her third daughter during the Great Depression, living in a hardscrabble western town with hard-packed dirt roads lined with desert flowers that somehow managed to push up through the cracked clay. Her husband found work on the Hoover Dam dangling from ropes with a hundred-pound drill. He died on the job. Nelda got the news two days later and sunk into a deep melancholy that would resurface throughout her life. With three small girls to take care of she worked as a postmaster at the small-town office that doubled as a general store. Neighbors dropped off bits of their harvest, widow’s mite offerings in those lean times. There wasn’t a lot of time to offer support and condolences; everybody was working sunup to sundown. But one friend suggested Nelda ease her pain by writing to servicemen injured in the war. It was a pen pal program begun by the Red Cross. So, Nelda introduced herself, not sure what to say.

Ross had been in the Merchant Marines in Canada. While working on a boiler, the thing exploded and injured his leg. He’d walk with a limp the rest of his life. He received Nelda’s letter while convalescing in Vancouver. And that’s how it began.

A year’s worth of letters made their way from the Western desert to the temperate coastal clime and back. She sent photographs of little girls in pinafores with sun-dried faces beside a young mother who smiled shyly at the camera. He wrote poetically of the rainsqualls that roll in from the Northern Pacific. Conversations took months to complete. Here were two people, each with a piece missing trying to fill each other’s spaces. There was time to respect each other’s scars, to embrace without the physical contact that can sometimes hurt if you’re not careful. They began to understand each other, to find love between lines. And so Ross wrote the letter that would change everything: Will you marry me? Love longs for answers. Love endures the wide spaces between hearts. Finally, a scented letter came. Ross hurriedly packed a few bags, including his tools and his best shirt, and drove down the coast; somewhere at the top of California he turned inland and ended up between Nevada and New Mexico.

There was a small wedding inside a clay brick church. Hand cut doilies and music from a Victrola. He would lead as they danced, supporting her thin body and fragile emotions. She would be patient with his slow left leg.

Ross opened a service station and thrilled Nelda with daring speed on long dirt roads in his automobile. He raised the girls and they called him daddy. He patted their soft heads with his big hands and walked the floors with Nelda when her darkness returned and anguish turned her breaths into sobs. Like the desert flowers, they always seemed to push through, enough love between them to bring on the beauty of another new day.

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

LOVE

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Getting Outside is the Best Way to Get Rid of the Blues

Brad’s idea of a good time is to swim across the lake at the base of the Grand Tetons, then hike to the top peak and back again on the same day. Sometimes his wife Sheila will join him for the hike portion. He’s also summited with his two daughters, ages 19 and 15. They climb frozen waterfalls in the winter and ski the backcountry. In the summer they do 100-mile bike races together and afterward hold family pull-up contests on an abandoned trellis 30 feet above a sandy river. “Being in the wilderness is the best therapy I’ve found,” Sheila says. “It’s a stress reliever. It reduces anxiety.” Brad agrees. “If I’m in the middle of a stressful week at work I’ll get up at 4 in the morning and hike the nearest peak and watch the sunrise before going to the office.”

An article published in the Berkley News details the power of Nature therapy not only in reducing stress and anxiety, but also in dramatically reducing the symptoms of PTSD. This is the premise the National Abilities center is built on. The NAC draws in participants from all over the Country; veterans with PTSD, kids with autism, stroke survivors. It’s a mixed bag of humanity who landed on the unfairness side of life. And it’s a group that Brad and his family would join in the mountains.

Brad’s family was soon part of a larger family, skiing with autistic kids, mountain biking with veterans. The girls quickly connected with the kids they skied with. Sage, the oldest daughter remembers: “It’s a lot easier to bond with these kids. You instantly become friends because they are not encumbered by the same social cues. Their boundaries are different. They love easily.” The therapy was working both ways. Sienna recalls riding with a man in his mid-forties. He’d suffered a stroke two years earlier and his right side was paralyzed. Sienna rode beside his recumbent bike and listened to the man’s daughter sing gospel songs to encourage him along. “Days like that just bring out the best in us,” Sienna says. Amen. The forest and the clear sky beyond create a sense of connection beyond our small humanness. Just walking the trails or ambling along on a bicycle we become a part of something bigger. It’s that awe we feel that heals our emotions.

Brad’s wife Sheila was asked to teach a yoga class for veterans in that peaceful mountain setting. She didn’t give it much thought but two days before the class, her mother passed away. “I showed up vulnerable and hoping the class would be a distraction,” Sheila says. “And then I see people coming in, many missing limbs and I was totally unprepared. How do you teach yoga to someone who doesn’t have legs?” The class settled in and Sheila grew emotional. “I’ve just lost my mother,” she said. “We are all hurting in some way. But if we help each other out we’ll get through it.” She won’t forget that first class. When it was over, the whole class embraced. “It was a spiritual experience,” Sheila says, still tagged with the emotions of that day.

“Being in the wilderness has sustained our family through hard times,” Brad says. “And now we get to see how it heals our new friends,” Sheila adds.

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

GET OUTSIDE

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The Tenacity to See the Stars

One of the most often used behavioral descriptors today is Attention Deficit Disorder, which basically means unable to sit still or focus for longer than a few minutes. All parents know that ADD worsens when chores or homework are involved. And if we’re honest with ourselves we all suffer from Attention Deficit if the task at hand is something we are not interested in, like say counting the stars in the universe. Most of us would drift off into somnambulism in less than a few minutes of staring upward. But fortunately for us, the heavens were an early fascination for Galileo. He was the Italian engineer, physicist, and father of observational astronomy. That means a lot of night shifts looking up and wondering how things work. He lived and worked in the early 1600s, charting the phases of Venus, the breadth of the Milky Way, Jupiter’s moons and even sunspots. Galileo was wont to explore new realities based on science. The universe held his attention and he worked tirelessly to understand it, even after he was convicted of heresy during the Inquisition and put under house arrest for the last 10 years of his life.

Rather than complain about his inability to move about, Galileo turned his attention to what he could do in the confines of his studio. He expanded his research on the motion of objects and the strength of materials. If that sounds boring think about this: you can draw a straight line from Galileo sequestered in his primitive lab to Elon Musk and SpaceX. Galileo stuck with it when his friends abandoned him, when he was confined to his home, when he was feeling the affects of age. He was curious and driven. Elon Musk is equally driven and fearless in his exploration. SpaceX is changing just about everything about space exploration, from reusable rockets, to greater payloads, to radical innovations in spacesuits and parachutes. Musk has a vision of what space holds for the future, and he is sticking to it no matter the obstacles.

Max is a different kind of explorer. He’s 6-years-old. His bedroom is littered with battery-powered contraptions that light up, move, rattle, and roll. His first-grade teacher says Max has a hard time paying attention in class, yet Max will work for hours to figure out the electrical circuit between a battery, a motor, and a propeller. He’s also building his own telescope. “I want to see what Jupiter’s rings are really made of,” he says. Perhaps if Galileo were in school today with his curious nature he would likewise be a little restless. Curious minds are always seeking problems to solve. As we learn to channel our curiosity into actions and finally results, we learn the power of stick-to-itiveness. Tenacity is the result of a challenge we give ourselves, a bigger vision to accomplish. Someday Max will make the connection to what he is learning in school to what he is building in his room, the same way Galileo saw the importance of his research while confined to his house.

So maybe the next time we feel bored with a task or chore we need to look up at the stars…and challenge ourselves to reach for them.

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

TENACITY

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The Road to Appreciation

Mick is a big man with long hair and beard that would place him naturally onstage with the Grateful Dead. Today he is looking at motorcycles, the kind that move easily from asphalt to dirt to unmarked desert. Broad stretches of desert are like moonscapes, uninhabited with long horizons and lit up at night by the galaxy. There’s nothing like it if you want to ponder your own insignificance in the universe and find meaning in the process.

Turns out alone time in the wilderness is of great value to our mental and emotional wellbeing. Einstein took long walks in nature and received some of his most profound inspiration there. Being alone with nature affords self-reflection and leads to a renewal and an appreciation for life itself. According to The Conversation, a nonprofit organization, “alone time creates a contrasting experience to normal living that enriches people mentally, physically and emotionally…people become more attuned to the important matters in their lives.”

Today the desert still attracts seekers of peace, solitude and adventure. Mick is one of them. “I put in at Yuma,” he says, as if he is launching into the ocean. “Then head to Mexicali on pavement. I get a good meal and the rest of the ride is off-road, all the way to Cabo.” It’s a trip he’s been doing a few times a year for more than a decade, a trip that gets him away from a complicated life he won’t talk about.

Some feelings can’t be shared with others; betrayal is deep and sometimes the only way to find peace is to ride into the infinite in order to define our own boundaries while letting the past dissipate behind us in the exhaust of a fast machine.

“Solitary reflection enhances recognition and appreciation of key personal relationships, encourages reorganization of life priorities,” The experts at The Conversation found. For Mick, he didn’t need the formal guidance, only a place where he could be alone in a landscape that unfolded all around him with the rising of the sun. For most of us, a solitary walk in nature for a day does wonders.

Mick zigzags his way South, sometimes riding on the hard packed sand of the beach and sometimes bouncing up rocky alluvial steppes or hitting top speeds on the flats. For rest, there is the shade of the Elephant Cactus; it grows like a hand out of the desert floor, the fingers reaching above 50 feet. One hard rainstorm and the cactus soaks up enough water to sustain itself for years of aridity, kind of like a week in the desert fills up your senses for the rest of the year.

Bending to inspect the clearance on the new bike, he remembers something an older woman at a hacienda once told him: “Where the road is rough, only the good people come.” And they return renewed, appreciative of what secrets nature unfolded in their souls.

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

APPRECIATE NATURE

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You Can Do This.

Roland is trim and fit. Yet in his early forties, his knees are giving him trouble. He hobbles across the infield of the track, shouting encouragement to runners, pausing to give a little instruction, gathering the hundred or so small athletes together for organized drills and stretches. If one misses a practice he calls their home. They start at 8 years old and finish at 18. Welcome to the Cheetahs inner-city track club. It’s family. The only cost is $15 dollars for a t-shirt and shorts. Roland was the first in his family to go to college. He earned his degree and put his hand on the business plow, looking forward to working his way up the corporate ladder. But his heart had other ideas. Track had changed his life. He took a teaching job at a local high school and started the Cheetah’s track club. Standing among the rapt young runners he can slip easily from street lingo to coach talk. To follow him around at a track meet is to be awash in his boundless optimism. “None of these kids have to be what their circumstance tells them they have to be,” he says. And indeed, as the years have gone by, he’s watched former awkward striders become doctors and lawyers, coaches and clergy. Roland preaches from his stadium seat pulpit: “A third place earns points. A sixth place pushes teammates ahead of you. “Any effort is better than no effort.”

A good road trip can strain any family. But for the Cheetahs, it only strengthens the bond. At Nationals in Chicago, teams from legacy programs in Atlanta, New Jersey, Los Angeles and New York stepped off shiny, chartered busses wearing matching travel gear accompanied by not only coaches and trainers, but also team pastors. The Cheetahs arrive in cramped family mini-vans, carrying groceries from home and packed ten kids per room. The volunteer coaches share a room with Roland and the few parents who could make the journey satirically named the Cheetahs “The team with the mismatched water bottles.”

But on the first day of workouts before the meet begins, the optimism is at an all time high. Kids wander into the lobby for the free continental breakfast giddy and excited. Roland woke early and ate eggs and bacon, then sits with the team. “My gut doesn’t like sugar anymore,” he says. Maybe because he is so full of sweet optimism he can’t stomach the artificial glucose high.

This morning, like every morning starts with a team meeting: high doses of “you can do this!” and “this is going to be your best time all year!” Roland knows about the power of optimism. He nearly lost all of this to a pain killer addiction after his second knee surgery. He just couldn’t kick it. He went into rehab, that lonely, isolated place where the only person who can save you is yourself. Plenty don’t make it. But Roland did, by taking it one day at a time and telling himself over and over again “you can do this.”

The Cheetahs win their share of medals at Nationals. More importantly, the mismatched water bottle club is by far the loudest group in the stadium. “You can do this!” they chant from the bleachers. And of course, they do.

By The Foundation for a Better Life®

The Foundation for a Better Life® promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others.

YOU CAN DO THIS

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