Almost halfway through the book and we are on chapter/rule 5 which is ” do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them”. As a soon to be father, I paid extra attention to this rule. I would never say that I know how to be a parent yet because this is the first time I have done this, but the one thing I tell people is I do know what I WON’T do with my children.

I’d like to start by saying none of this is a critique of my mother, she absolutely did the best she could and knew how and I would never fault her for anything that happened when we were young. Growing up, I was the youngest of two and my sister was 7 years older than me. Single parent home with a Grandma that also lived with us we did not have the traditional nuclear family, which is something I have mentioned before, but our home life was not made any easier by the behavior of my sister and myself.

There is not really a nice way to say that we caused problems. A lot of problems. From, depression, trouble both with grades and behavior in school, drug problems, friend and girl problems, the list is very long of the things we are not proud of. Even after my sister left the house, after I got into highschool, that was really the beginning of the worst of my problems a youth as well. I think my sister was a little harder to control than I was, but I also think at that time in her life my mom was tired, and didn’t have the energy for what I was dishing out 7 years after my sister had done the same.

We both got into it so bad with my mom at times that we moved out. Both had serious problems with drugs and alcohol in our youth. Both barely graduated highschool. As dark as it might sound and many people may not agree, I think part of the problem is that neither of us had any fear of my mom. My mother would never abuse us, but we got spanked as a kid which I don’t think is a bad thing. But I don’t JUST mean a physical fear. The punishments we got for whatever we had done, rarely stuck unless there was no way to get out of it.

My mom worked all the time because she had to in order to provide for her family, so we were afforded time away from whatever restriction she had implemented until she got home. Many times she forgot she had grounded us from something, and sometimes if you complained about it enough she would give in and overturn the punishment. At a certain point I knew she was smoking weed but was being told I wasn’t allowed to. Which is not by any means absurd but gone unexplained to a child it can seed resentment. The boundaries we had were not always clearly outlined.

I think it’s possible that part of this comes from exactly what Dr.Peterson warns of in this chapter. My mom said to me many times that she loved me with all her heart, but sometimes she didn’t like me very much. I’m sure she said the same to my sister at least one time. I don’t think this is ureasonable. In this chapter there are a few stories that make it easier to begin to understand, by those who are hesistant, that it is only logical as a human-being to not look forward to spending time with someone who is constantly doing things you don’t want them to, even if that person is your child.

As I said above, my mother did the absolute best that she could and I 100% believe that. For a lot of reasons, many financial and social, I don’t believe my mother was afforded the chance to give her all at any one problem because she had so many that she had to deal with at one time. It’s one of the reasons I hold true now that two-parent households, in many cases, are important to all individuals meeting their full potential. I truly think that if this were the case for our family, mom would have had the opportunity to implement this rule I think is vital for all parents, to not let your children do things that make you dislike them. Not only for your own sanity and ease of raising your children, but to allow the two of you to establish and maintain the best relationship possible. This is absolutely something I will implement when Dax arrives.

Donavan Phillips

 

Hello everyone, Colin here again.

I’m going to keep this blog post short this time, I promise. My last blog was a little on the lengthy side which I did not intend so I’m going to give “short” another go.

As the week progresses ever forward, Don and I are busy digging into more of the news in and around the Kavanaugh situation, we’re looking into a gun control initiative that has made it’s way from the State’s Court systems and is being put to voters, and of course keeping our ears and eyes hard at work staying as informed as we possibly can.

No spoilers for this upcoming show of course but needless to say we’re both very excited, as always, to strike up the conversation again.

Episode 33, which we recorded last weekend was the last show for the month of September. Though we’ve seem steady growth every month since the conception of Salt of the Streets, last month was a particularly special month. As I eluded to in the title, we’ve achieved another milestone.

We hit 500 hundred listens in the month of September alone!

That is just simply amazing to even think about, and it’s all thanks to people like you! To all of our listeners, and with the launch of our Salt of the Streets Youtube channel, our viewers, we want to thank you from the deepest depths of our hearts.

If it wasn’t for all of your support, whether it is through ratings and reviews, views, listens, comments, everything, Salt of the Streets wouldn’t be what it is today. Your involvement and support gives us hope that we’re actually accomplishing our goal of bridging the gap between people and information.

To our family, friends, loyal listeners and viewers, the hard work you all put in spreading “the good word” of the Salt of the Streets has been spectacular and we are forever grateful. To any newcomers, first off, welcome, secondly we encourage you to not just listen or watch. Come join our conversations in the comments sections and on social media, or even drop us a topic request if you want to hear us cover something your interested in.

500 listens a month is a great milestone but we’re not stopping there! Don and I will continue our blissfully endless effort to bridge the gap between people and information and we invite you to help us fill that gap, today, tomorrow and always.

Once again, we are eternally grateful to each and everyone of you for all your support.

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook so you can get access to our LIVE STREAM Preshow this Saturday, until then, stay salty and we’ll catch you on the live stream this weekend!

The Salt of The Streets wives Jordyn and Carolina join the boys for a very special episode where the four hit Judge Kavanaugh, Donavans inability to pay Les Schwab is displayed, Carolinas incredible adventures with Mountain Goats, Lady Gaga is a terrible actress, Fallout 4 and Spider Man, and as always SPORTS!!

 

***Some audio issues were experienced in the first 5 minutes but everything is fine after that. Sorry, guys!

 

This episode and ALL of our other are available on our SoundCloud and anywhere else you can get a podcast, the Pre Show video and all of our other videos are available on our YouTube page and the full show video will be available tomorrow evening! Reach out to us on any of our social media and you WILL hear back from us. STAY SALTY!

Rule number 4 in Dr. Petersons book is perhaps one of the most widely expressed of all of his rules but maybe one of the most difficult to implement in ones life. Rule 4 is “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today”, and now you understand what I mean. I think one of the things I really enjoyed about this chapter is that Dr. Peterson goes almost step-by-step through the subconscious process that one goes through in comparing themselves to someone else.

It is not unique that throughout my childhood, and even now sometimes, I was able to identify qualities and characteristics in other people that I wanted for myself. Physically, mentally, emotionally – on all sides of the human spectrum there are ways in which I thought I could improve myself. And I think when it comes down to it that’s what this chapter is really about.

I have always been a bigger guy. Born at almost 10 pounds and with several family members that are on the larger side of life, that is something that you could probably say is just in the genes, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. I aways hated to be active when I was young unless I was playing football which I didn’t start doing until 9th grade. I defintely always enjoyed being inside with my video games more. On top of that I was a picky eater which lead to me eating a lot of processed food, like many children raised at the same time I was. The combination of these two things helped set me into a cycle in my life of doing the same things when I was older and am now working to actively break those trends.

It’s much easier to fall into a trend of looking to other people and identifying qualities and traits that you want or feel like you would die for, but it is not only unrealistic it is unproductive. We all know that everyone is different, down to even the most minute features. Something I just learned from our OB/GYN that even in identical twins one of the childrens heads will be rounder, and one will be longer. So to compare yourself to whom someone else is or even traits they have is unrealistic. That is not to say that it can’t be productive to use traits as inspiration or as a goal for something you would like for yourself but a direct comparison is unreal, because even if you get those abs that Jimmy down the road has, they won’t look the same on you as they do him.

Instead Dr. Peterson proposes the theory to compare yourself to who you were yesterday instead. Identify a quality or trait that you would like to have in your life, and work towards in. Once you have done that it’s time to shift the focus. Don’t continue to focus on the person that bears that quality but on your progress to said trait. After setting a goal the only thing that really matters is how far you have gone on the path to it, the progress you have made.

I can personally attest that focusing on people who have what you pine for instead of what you have leads to nothing but depression. I have lost 30 pounds since I actively changed the way I ate and work out consistenly and also felt a marked difference in the overall health of my gut which is a major concern for me. STILL I have plenty I could lose compared to Ryan Reynolds but that’s not what I want, and after having lost weight and getting a better look at the actual structure of my body I would be more of an Ice Man Chuck Lidell in my perfect physical shape than any of the Reynolds type, but that’s another story. I don’t feel great when I compare myself to either of those men but when I look at my ID photo, I couldn’t be much happier with what I’ve done.

It took me THIS much time to even realize that. It took me reading this book and even sitting down to write this to realize that it is partially my focus and recognition of my progress that pushes me to continue, and to think when I gain a few pounds that maybe it’s not me giving up but me gaining back some muscle to replace the fat I just lost. That maybe the kettle workouts I’ve been doing are doing what they are meant for. It is only this shift in focus that allowed me to start being proud of what I have done and made me want to strive for more. Like all the other so far I think this was a fantastic rule, and I have already used its implementation to improve my life.