Taking time to invest in others requires just that: time. You cannot get very far in any relationship without putting time into it. If you are parent, take the time to parent well. Take time to get into the lives and hearts and minds of your kids. Learn about the things they care about; listen to the things they fear or excited about. Take your kids to their favorite park or read a great book with them before bed each night. Time is one of the best ways you can invest into children. If you are not a parent, find ways to interact with children. Offer to take the kids of your friends or neighbors for an evening. Take time to play games, go for walks, eat dessert or read books with kids. Invest yourself into the future of our country.

The second biggest type of thinking mistake is low self-esteem. Self-esteem means you believe in yourself and believe that you have the power to learn new things and get things accomplished. If you suffer from low self-esteem, you will not learn how to speed read because if you don`t believe in your ability to learn, you will unconsciously do everything in your power to prove to yourself, once again, what a loser you are! Beliefs drive all your thinking, and you’re thinking drives all your behaviors and decisions.

Some of you are probably thinking that you are parents and that isn’t that enough of a contribution to make to the next generation? Being a parent is one of the most obvious and perhaps best ways to invest in children, but it is not the only way. All adults, parents or not, have the ability and the responsibility to make life better for educational psychology. I believe we have this incredible job to do, that we have the task of spending our lives on things that make life better for others.

Yet the havoc the little ones could cause was not really the problem. I feared they would hate me. What was I to do with them? I was never good at babysitting and most people thought I was too serious and boring.

Getting along with Joel was easy. She was sweet and gentle. She even gave her mineral water to another girl who was thirsty. I was so proud of her I could not bear not to show it, and it was easy to tell she was pleased. Though she seemed to want to shy away out of embarrassment at my outright admiration, the flushing of her cheeks could not hide the fact that her eyes were dancing.

What choices will you and I make if faced with similar conditions? Houston made the choice to survive many times, though life handed her injustice, humiliation and prejudice. Thus, it’s only fitting that she closes her book with the recollection of her father’s kind of defiant spirit.

Why did I buy those books? Because I, like so many people looking for a way out of financial quicksand, have often just thrown up my hands and wished someone with more brains than me would give me a plan and tell me what to do.