This past week has been pivotal for me. I have now had the privilege of teaching on every continent. I have not, like a handful of people I know, been to every country on Earth – but there’s still time.

In the process I read listen as much as I can and I gather people-stories.

While there are people in the depths and on the fringes of severe mental health issues in all communities and in all cultures and to whom this may not apply, I have discovered both up-close and casually, that people are much the same in despite differences in culture, language, race, and expressions of faith or the apparent lack of it:

• People are helpful and pleasant when you yourself are friendly and open.
• People want to belong, they want respect, they want worthwhile endeavors into which they can plow their idea, talents, and strength.
• People will do about anything for their children, especially their education.
• Bitterness and family resentments can lodge themselves in families, rich and poor, and can pervert thinking and perceptions for generations for those families.
• It takes just one family member who is in the midst of most entangled of toxic family circumstances to begin dramatic positive shifts when he or she embraces the courage to live a life of forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace.

People often find other people’s true stories inspiring.

Please tell me your story if any of the following topics apply to you. Try to keep it to 200 or fewer words and include permission for me to run it in You and Me.

I will not print your name unless you specifically indicate you want your name included.

• You left your spouse for another man or woman and it did, or did not, turn out well.
• You have seen a radical change in a family member for good or for ill.
• You were abandoned in a marriage but came back from the trauma to live really fully and well, or, if you never did really recover.
• You are an adult who was adopted as a child and finding your birth parent(s) was, or was not, a rich and rewarding experience.
• You left South Africa to live in another country but returned.
• You have witnessed amazing acts of grace and forgiveness and generosity.
• You have worked for the most difficult boss in the world and survived.
• You have witnessed or experienced a miraculous act of friendship.
• You found love in a most unexpected place or from a most unexpected source.

I have the joy and privilege of traveling this week – alone. My sons’ schools “spring breaks” do not line up with mine, and so they’re home and I have just ended a long trek to Curitiba, Brazil via Toronto and Sao Paulo.

Indianapolis was hit this weekend with a giant snowstorm and we sat in the plane on the runway for three hours waiting for the plane to be de-iced before we could head for Toronto. So the journey didn’t start well.

After a long night awake on the nine-hour flight to Sao Paulo and while passengers were emptying the overhead bins and waiting to de-plane, my name was announced over the intercom. I was asked to immediately identify myself to the gate agent. Mine was the only name called.

Connecting flight change, I thought. What amazed me was that in my tired state during the short walk from row 37 to the front of the plane my anxiety triggered. My sons have been in an accident. The house has burned. Your sister’s ill. Your brother needs you. You’re back on the next flight. Calm down, I told myself.

“Your flights been rebooked, Mr. Smith,” said the Air Canada representative, “you’re going to Curitiba three hours earlier than ticketed.”

HALT – Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired: messes with our thinking.

The Mercury / Tuesday

We are all immersed in an endless connection of triangles, the unavoidable building blocks of all relationships.

Our individual challenge is to keep them healthy. If you, in your corner, are as healthy (high-functioning) as you can be, and I, in my corner, am as healthy as I can be, we are positioned to ward off the dis-ease (the lack of ease) that comes with being unsuitably “cornered” by less than healthy men and women.

Keep the inevitable triangle as healthy as possible by:

• Knowing who you are and being unafraid to express it

• Knowing what you want and being unafraid to pursue it

• Refusing to engage in gossip of any kind

• Refusing to engage in negative talk about others

• Listening, really listening, not waiting to reply or formulating a reply while another is speaking

• Keeping short accounts with others by apologizing and forgiving regularly and efficiently

• Thanking others for kindnesses observed and kindnesses received

• Opening doors (literally and figuratively) for others and being willing for others to get the credit you could legitimately claim

• Valuing relationships over being right and over so-called winning.

The Mercury / Monday

Setting the tone for the workweek ahead….

• Clarify why you are at work in the first place: you are there to earn a living, to support your family, and to do your job to the best of your ability.

• You are not at work to check Facebook, sit on your phone, send text messages that are not work-related, play games, make friends, gossip, or be underhanded (speak ill of, undermine) about your workplace in any manner.

• Mind your own business. Focus on what you are doing and not what others may or may not be doing.

• Tell the truth to your workmates, supervisors, suppliers, and customers. If you are working where telling the truth is difficult then it is time to reassess your career.

• Be punctual, use no profanities (no matter what kind of job you hold) and never help yourself to anything that is not yours or for your rightful use.

• Don’t cheat – not with hours, reimbursements, sick days, leave time, or mileage expenses.

• Don’t speak or write anything about anyone that you have not first said directly to him or to her. There are extreme circumstances where this will not apply. In general, speak to people and not about them.

• Don’t talk about your ex, your surgery, your ailments, or your in-laws. No one is interested even if they pretend they are.

Things I remind myself about my children – please join me in my journey:

• Their lives are larger at their ages than mine was at their ages. Of course, they’re starting later and the world is a very different place. Their platforms are more complex, and more dynamic than mine was and, I admit, I am somewhat limited in my ability to identify with it. This means I should not be taken aback when I am blinded to possibilities and experiences they see and want to embrace. Rejecting an idea or a possibility simply because I couldn’t envision it is a good way to widen a gap that is mine, and not theirs, to bridge.

• While the world is a very different place than it was in my formative years, some things remain unchanged. Good manners, using please and thank you, looking people in the eyes, standing up for adults, dealing honestly with money and time, working hard, and displaying empathy in the face of those who are suffering – are values that cannot be discarded just because the world is faster paced than it once was. One of my jobs as a parent is to encourage, even enforce, some of these things if necessary.

• I am enough for my sons and the only dad they will ever need.

The Mercury / Friday

I meet a lot of people who want to change the world (for good). I recognize the impulse also lives strongly in me. I repeatedly read, “be the change you want to see,” and, as powerful as this exhortation is, the overuse of such exhortations can render the reader inured to its power.

This doesn’t mean we ought not try.

Here are a few things that have really helped me limit my focus, then, counter-intuitively, have resulted in a wider-spread of readership and more speaking opportunities than I ever imagined:

• Do immediately what is possible with those who are closest – keep short accounts, forgive deeply, and live cleanly.

• Be unafraid of stating your case, presenting your views, and learning about where you are misguided or just plain wrong.

• Appreciate that you can’t reasonably expect change if you also reject the idea of losing something or things getting out of your control.

• Own up to the reality that the behavior of others is out of your control but how you respond to the behavior of others is your responsibility.

• Take the long-term view – very little of worth and significance is instant.

• Assist others to design and live great lives – the spin-off is that it assists you to do the same.