Dick Wulf's Tongue-in-Cheek Newsletter to Improve Relationships
slightly off-the-wall BUT better than graffiti

The Get Off Your Hinie and Really Cheer Issue
© September 2001, Dick Wulf, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

Everyone needs cheering on. Don't soak up all the sunshine. Give a lot more out than you soak up. Do it! Cheer!

NOTE: This is supposed to be humorous so we can look at ourselves and have fun. We are all of us a bit off the mark. We can cry about it or have fun and laugh at ourselves. Laughing at ourselves and not taking ourselves too seriouosly allows us to view ourselves just seriously enough to change, but not so seriously as to inhibit our improvement by condemnation or defensiveness.

HOW TO CHEER SOMEONE ON

Step One: Learn at least one of the most important goals or things going on that is really, really important to each person you care about. Learn three things for each person you really, really cherish (spouse, children, best friend, etc.).

Step Two: Look at yourself and remove any nasty thing like envy that might get in the way of cheering another on to success. Get rid of thos self-centered cancers and join others in their challenges and dreams. Yes! (Let me hear it -- Yes, Dick, I will not let my ego get in the way of cheering others on. Good.)

Step Three: Choose some or all of the following ways of cheering on someone you care about.

[  ]  Express your strong desire for him or her to succeed.

[  ]  Mail notes or cards encouraging the person's effort. If what is important is a child's accomplishment or a spouse's accomplishment send a note to the child or spouse.

[  ]  Ask regularly (daily, weekly, monthly) about progress and if the person has changed the goal. Talk about progress being made, discouragement being experienced, etc. a couple of times a week.

[  ]  Ask how progress is going regarding a goal. Ask what is happening regarding really important things like kids' progress in school, health, etc.. Express your own joy when there is progress, sadness when there is disappointment, delay or defeat.

[  ]  While progress is being made, take the person every couple of weeks to do something he or she likes to do.

[  ]  Send a supportive note to the children or spouse of the one you are encouraging.

[  ]  Celebrate both milestones and final accomplishments. At those points where a significant turning point or accomplishment critical to reaching the goal has reached, do something to celebrate, something that really stands out but does not overly embarrass the person. Choose from the following and think of more ideas.

[  ]   Send flowers or balloons.
[  ]   Throw a party
[  ]   Spend a weekend away.
[  ]   Get a bunch of close friends and relatives and all make "hooray" and "way to go" signs and parade through the person's home. Have ice cream sundaes to top it off.
[  ]   If you are musical, play the person a song in tribute to the accomplishment. If you are not, hire a traveling three-armed, one-man band complete with singing monkey.
[  ]   Plant a sign saying "Congratulations! Good Work!" on the front lawn late at night so it won't be uprooted before the neighbors see it.
[  ]   Send to the person's place of employment goodies and a card with a note that says, "Give this to So-and-So who just (whatever the accomplishment is)." Include enough good stuff for everyone there.
[  ]   Give a houseplant. Or, better yet, plant a bush or tree or rose bush in memory of the final accomplishment.
[  ]   Help the person do something that was put off in order to reach the goal (paint a bedroom, catch up on yard work, etc.).
[  ]   Dance in the street and go to jail in recognition of your friend or relative's accomplishment.
[  ]   Put a temporary "I did it!" bumper sticker on the person's car.
[  ]   Spend a whole evening playing in celebration of the accomplishment. Or go to an amusement park.
[  ]   Paint a golf ball in some wild and crazy pattern and take the person miniature golfing, requiring him or her to use the "celebration ball" on each hole.
[  ]   Go for an ice cream or go to dinner in another town or city - someplace unusual that will stand out and be remembered.

[  ]   Now that I've got you thinking, put your own brain to work and think of more ways to cheer people on.

Step Four: Keep a list of friends and relatives and what is important to them. Plan how to not forget (Remember what the way to hell is paved with.)

>> Making a significant personal change in relating to people.

>> Going for a better job.

>> Overcoming an addiction. Losing weight. Stopping smoking.

>> Trying to do your chores well and on time.

>> Learning to love better and deny yourself for someone else's good.

>> Dealing with pain, physical or emotional.

>> Trying to be a better husband, wife, father, mother or friend.

>> Changing how you think and feel about things.

>> Taking on a project to help others or the environment.

>> And a million other wonderful challenges.

PERSONALS

I'm sticking it out in a very difficult marriage for the sake of my children and grandchildren. But it is very difficult without encouragement. I need someone to cheer me on for the next twenty years, as I don't want to include the kids in the struggle and ruin their relationship with their father or grandpa. One note in the mail once a month would do the trick. Sorry, I do not do e-mail. Reply to Box 177.

I could use something more than my paycheck. I am working in a science lab trying to find a cure for MS. I am a pretty quiet guy, so I don't get the support that those outgoing types receive. Anybody got a little time to cheer me on? Anybody, any age will do. E-mail works for me. Phone is better. No personal contact desired. I understand the general fear of face-to-face contact with strangers.

CHEERING ON TESTIMONIALS
(Testimonials are really listened to, you know. So. . . listen up! I mean it.)

We hadn't gotten along when I was a kid. (I often wonder why. Was it that I had set the goldfish on fire? Or was it my boyfriend who stole the family car and took asylum in Mexico?) So, I thought that if I found something that my mother really wanted to do, I could encourage her. She was sure that a cookbook for roadkill would be a certain best-seller in the right market.

At first I just did what was required - ignore whether or not I agreed with her. I knew it wouldn't hurt her. All she was playing with was words.

It never hit me that she might actually be cooking roadside delicacies. When I found that out, cheering her on was a little more difficult. But, you know, when you are trying to connect for the first time in your life with your mother, you don't quibble over the details.

My two sons, aged 8 and 10, thought it great fun to pick all sorts of expired critters off of the rural highway that runs by our country home. They mailed them to her in the city where she lives. She would cook them up in various ways and give them to the old folks in her retirement community for tasting. She gave them fancy-sounding French names so that they never, ever suspected what they were eating. (Well, it could have been worse, you know! It wasn't cannibalism. And she only used cockroach seasoning in a few of the dishes.)

Throughout the whole five years she took in writing the book, I never passed up a chance to ask how it was coming and to tell her I admired the effort she was putting in. Today we are really, really close. I visit her every prison Visiting Day. (Oh, did I tell you about the mysterious deaths in that senior living apartment house?)

Daughter of The Skunk Stew Murderess

___________________________________________________________

My ten-year-old son took a special interest in termites, and I encouraged him all the way. I admit that his study of these ugly beasts was personally disgusting. But, what's a good father to do?

Sometimes I would go into the "field"with him. We would dig up any wood that was in part underground. When he became excited, I mirrored his excitement. I avoided great phoneyness by being excited about his excitement rather than the feared wood-monsters. (Have you ever seen those African termite skyscrapers?)

At first my son sent some of the critters to the Skunk Stew Murderess, but she returned them stating that the prison food had taken away her appetite. But, presently he is on the brink of discovering a cure for a serious human disease (it's a secret - the patent has not yet been approved) using termite saliva. The stuff can disolve all sorts of nasties other than wood.

Anyway, it is good to encourage your children. You never know what good things will come from cheering another on to do great things.

As for me, I'm going to be a termite tycoon. I'm counting the dollars already. My son will publish The Roadkill Cooking Bible with his share. I, myself, will go somewhere where there are no termites. Perhaps Antarctica.

A Father Who Gets Behind His Kids

IN THE NEWS

DESPERATE TOWN TURNS OUT TO CHEER

CAVIAR, ALASKA

Worried about their livelihood, the folks of this small community have had emergency meetings to see what they need to do to bring back the salmon to their part of the river. "There is no caviar in Caviar. The fish disappeared a while ago and we do not know the reason." stated the President and CEO of Russian Delights, Inc. "We just must do something."

A few salmon have returned, and the employees of Russian Delights decided last Friday to go up river and cheer in an attempt to encourage the salmon to return to Caviar. (Where, we might add, the fish get very good wages and the very best accommodations for their school.) The cheering began about noontime. You could hear it all the way in town. Non-employees rushed to join in the cheering, led by the town's most recent arrivals, the Zottlebanger Family.

It is reported that the fish reacted very positively to being cheered on. However, when the townspeople joined the Russian Delight employees, the fish turned and retreated up river as fast as their little bulging eyes (they looked repulsed for some reason) and fins could take them.

It was a child who first put forward the idea that the problem lay with the Zottlebanger family. Joey Juffer had about all he could take from one of the Zottlebanger children and began to think of how much he wanted the newcomers to go back where they came from. He counted the days of his misery and discovered that the day the Zottlebangers arrived was the day the salmon left town. Then, on Friday Joey was almost as fast a runner as Elmo Zottlebanger. Elmo was the first to reach the cheering site, Joey the second. So, Joey noticed that the fish turned and ran as soon as Elmo came in sight of the river. (Boy, what eyesight those little darlings have.)

A town meeting was called to hear Joey's theory. Then this reporter remembered the question from the Assistant Mayor when we called her last month. She had asked if the fish had left yet. When it was decided that Joey solved the mystery of the offended fish, the whole citizenry cheered. (This issue is about cheering. Have you caught on yet?)

The people of Caviar are made of strong stock. Instead of turning against the pathetic Zottlebanger family, they decided to bring out the old and infirm to join with the employees and all of the townspeople to cheer the fish back. It was thought that such cheering would overcome what has come to be known as the Zottlebanger Factor.

Talk about positive attitude! Remember Contrary? They would have tarred and feathered Elmo and Alberta. Instead, the good folks of Caviar gave a two-week vacation to the Zottlebanger family -- and sent them to Highbrow, Alaska, the home of the Highbrow Caviar Retrieving Company. This company is Russian Delight's biggest competitor for the fancy-eaters market share in the lower United States. (Get it?)