Treat yourself right... By spoiling others...

Sitting in my little lunch corner, in front of the patio door letting me contemplate the deep blueness of the sky as well as the shiny white snow and all the other colors between them... As you can see, I'm in quite a good mood... I write this while finishing my Sunday lunch specialty, "des crêpes jambon fromage"... My kids love them... But as soon as they are done... They run down the stairs to go play the Wii and burn a few Calories ;-)

So I'm sitting here alone, finishing my coffee and I decided to turn on the laptop to check out the activities at le centre des sciences du vieux port de Montréal... My little kid has bugged me all week long (if not longer than that) to go there this weekend... But her big sister had other plans, she wanted to play with a friend... So I found the best compromise, we will take her friend with us... Why not.. The more the merrier... And yes, I will be a single adult with 3 kids... But it won't be my first time, and I have good kids, so it should all go well...

And it is a good feeling for me too... Just to see their bright and shinny smile when I treat them like that... Of course, as parents, we have the responsibility not to spoil our kids too much. They have to learn that they can't just get all that they want, and I make sure to do that as much as I can... But as in most things in life, the trick is finding the right balance, the sweet spot in the middle... It's not easy to deprive kids of what they want, especially if you can afford it (so it is easier to say no when they ask me to buy a real space ship, as it is when they ask me for the miniature Playmobil version of that same ship, right?)...

But it is an investment for their future... and mine also... If I don't say no now, they will be on my back all their life... Whereas if I say no now, I will only have them on my back for a few minutes, hours, and maybe days, but this is much better than years...

With grownups, it is a little different though. They shouldn't need us to help them learn that they can't always get what they want... They should know that by now... If they don't, personally, I would rather not deal with them anyway... Too much work and not enough reward (kind of like I was saying in my previous posts)... With adults, I don't think we should restrain ourselves from spoiling them... Unless you are not quite sure about the feelings you have for them and you don't want to mislead them... But if you feel the urge to spoil them, there must be some feeling somewhere deep in there (unless you are as weird as I am, but this is very unlikely ;-)...

I think that if you feel good with someone, and you want them to be happy, you should let yourself go and treat them as a princess (or prince if you prefer :-)... Of course, some will prefer that the prince turn into a biker once in a while, but that is also a way to treat the other ;-P... By finding what makes them tic, and then... well... do it!!!

I'm convinced that you will get an immediate internal reward of satisfaction for satisfying the other's needs, for making the them happy... Who doesn't get that deep satisfaction when saying something funny that makes everybody laugh... It is a great feeling to please others... So why don't we do it more? What are we scared of? That the other will start expecting more and more and we won't be able to cope with that demand? So instead, we don't give anything? That's a little sad, isn't it?

OK, I know, there usually is a sweet spot in the middle, but when come to making people around me happy... I don't aim for the middle... I want to go all the way... I'm religiously convinced that it is is well worth the investment... It will come back to me somehow for sure... It can't be any other way... Call it Karma, call it faith in destiny, call it whatever you want... but do it... treat yourself... and spoil others... Go! NOW!!! GO!!!

OK, I gotta go, my daughter's friend will arrive any minute now and we will drive to the old port to go see an exposition or two at le centre des sciences and then it will already be time to drive the friend back to her place, have dinner and do some homework... Isn't it great to be a daddy? It's keeping us busy at least... ;-)

Till next time!

HAVE FUN!!!... And go spoil someone...

BYE
MAD