October 1, 2009
It's all about healthy relationships (the only kind worth having)
We launched TheInSite in June 1997. From Day One Hey Terra received relationship questions from tweens and teens around the world. Twelve years later the email keeps coming. Pretty amazing this Internets!
After a couple of years of responding to this stuff every day, I decided to write a relationship book for teens. Can You Relate? was published in 2000. It’s my take on how to create and maintain healthy relationships with everyone in your life, including yourself. It got great reviews. Five years later it was re-released as The Teen Survival Guide to Dating and Relating. It went out of print in 2008.
David and I played around with the idea of reprinting it ourselves for sale. But then, last month, thanks to Chris Anderson’s influence, I decided to give my book away as a FREE download. No strings attached. You don’t even have to provide your email address, though I am partial to dark chocolate so if you wanted to send me a Panther Bar I wouldn’t be insulted.
Giving things away for free is not usually the way companies like to do business. That’s why I’m giving a big shout out to Free Spirit Publishing for being so supportive of this wacky idea. Shows what cool people they are. Check out their website. They publish great books for kids, teens, parents and teachers.
Anyway, here’s the entire volume of Teen Survival Guide to Dating and Relating. Everything your tweens and teens need to know about about guys, girls, growing up, and getting along. Give it to them with my compliments. Hopefully they’ll read it and think about how the situations and the advice apply to them. They might even remember the stuff that resonates and use it someday when they need it.
One more thing, if you’ve got friends with teens or tweens, pass on the free download link to them. That’s what friends are for.
June 8, 2009
Annoyance
Sure it’s Monday, but I had a good weekend and plenty of sleep. The shower was hot. My hair isn’t any more sticky-uppy than usual. And after 30 minutes of yoga, and a couple of buttermilk pancakes I’m feeling pretty mellow. But since this is Day 1 of my Annoyance Challenge I’m going to have to get with the program… fast! Not a problem. Even though I like to think of myself as someone who doesn’t get annoyed all that often. (How annoying is that?) I can always recycle some not-yet-expired annoyance or concoct a fresh batch out of nothing. And maybe that’s the point. All of us have the capacity to build on a present time or cherished inconvenience (frustration, rudeness, snub, etc.) and buff it to a brilliant gloss until we’re totally pissed at the whole freakin’ world.
Annoyance is like hunger… except backwards. When I’m really hungry I snag some Trader Joe’s dark chocolate. (Don’t tell David. He thinks we have mice.) That takes the edge off. Hunger + food = less hunger. But even when I’m mildly irritated, I can instantly rev up my grumpiness tenfold by mentally, verbally and/or physically attacking the cause of my annoyance. That squirrel on the bird feeder. My split thumbnail. The client whose check is still not in my mailbox!? Annoyance + mental garbage = more annoyance.
I’m nothing special. We can all work this little miracle of insanity. The question is why would anyone choose to feel more annoyed when it’s sooo annoying? Not sure about that yet, but I’m on a 30 day quest to discover as much as I can about my love-hate relationship with annoyance. And in the process, I’m also hoping I can locate the fine tuning dial at Annoyance HQ. Then I’ll be The Decider when it comes to dialing it up or down.
It’s all about self-control and my personal mission to help teens get along better with their friends and families. The Annoyance Challenge is also about world peace. Seriously! Obama goes to Cairo and tells a zillion people that those “others” who have always annoyed the crap out of you may actually share some of your core values. So instead of jumping down their throats or slitting them, how about working together and maybe we can all get some of what we want… peace, security, respect, and justice for us and our families?
Sounds like a plan to me.
See you tomorrow. When I’ll begin taking an unbiased look at the stuff that usually drives me nuts. If you want to share your own annoyance triggers, that’s what the comment button’s for.
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