Protecting your child is, and should be, a 24/7 job until they learn how to protect themselves while learning the basics of right and wrong behavior.  Once the right vs wrong behavior is learned the parents need to monitor that the behavior is being learned and then the child can then start protecting themselves.

Protection can take many forms, such as should a parent continue to protect the child from punishment when they know they have done wrong, hurt someone and/or broken the law?  In this case the parent needs to analyze whether the behavior needs to be reported to right a wrong.  In this case protection takes on more of duty to do the right thing and protect your child from going in the wrong direction.  Protecting the child can also be pointing them in the right direction to do the right thing.

Now that I think back to the school days, I think School was better.  I had a great time in Middle and High School.  Although there was the home work thing, there were also lots of activities, parties and friends.  I made some of friends for life during these years.  I have good memories that I will never forget.  School was a blast.  School uncovered my potential and my weaknesses.  We can’t all be good at everything, but in School is where we tried it all.  The old cliche’ if I knew then what I know now, I would have appreciated more of the School days.

Work has its rewards too.  It allows you the opportunity to do what You want to do.  Make great money, or not so great money.  You can make the choice to pursue your passion (career).  Hopefully one you are good at with the skills you learned in School.  Work has the same pressure to perform as School, but with a down-side of more pressure, for example, if I lose my job (paycheck) how will I pay my bills and/or provide for my family?  I can’t get help on this project or deadline from my parents, like in the School days.  It is all on me to perform.

School is better in retrospect.  Work hard and have fun in School.  It will help you create memories, make great friends and provide you with a baseline to a great career. 

This is somewhat of a tricky question because it could be applied in many ways at different levels: relational, spiritual, familial, educational, occupational, etc.  After some reflection, I am going to say that the most important decision that I have made to date in my life has been the decision to be married.  Once that decision has been made, it impacts every other decision you make (including the decision to have kids, which is probably the runner-up to this question for me). 

You may think that it’s a fairly straightforward process – you meet someone, fall in love, get married, and off you go into the sunset.  Life, however, is rarely as straightforward as we would like for it to be. 

Prior to marriage, I think that there are two broad sets of circumstances which impact this decision to “take the plunge” – perspective and circumstance.

First, there is one’s perspective on marriage.  Am I interested in marriage, have a need or desire to be with someone, have a fear of loneliness?  Or am I not interested in the idea, unwilling to give up my needs, space, ambitions, career path, friends, etc.?  For me, I was not too particularly interested in it.  Marriage would be quite the complication.  It would probably cause me to have to do things that I wouldn’t naturally want to do on my own, things that would interfere with my comings & goings, job choices, living arrangements, etc.  I’ve been getting along just fine, thanks, so why screw it up?  I guess for me, the seriousness of marriage was too daunting for me to be very eager about the idea.

Second, there is circumstance.  Circumstances have a funny way of changing at the most uncomfortable times.  A person whom you have known so well through high school, have spent a few years together with, the one that everyone just knows you’ll get married to, turns out, for whatever reason, to not be the one.  Over time, other potentials come and go, with varying degrees of enthusiasm on your part, but since you’re not really interested in getting married, you don’t really worry about it and life moves along just fine.  Then the next thing you know, somehow you find yourself walking down the aisle, all the while thinking “…Wait a minute, is this right?  Of course it is… I think… don’t I…?”  And BAM, it’s a done deal.  Great party.  It’s all good.  Now what.

After marriage begins, and the reason that I’ve chosen this as my most important decision, is when it really hits you as to just what a significant decision you’ve made.  You hope like heck you made a good one, and now you make a determination on just what you’re willing to do to make it a good one. 

Of course there have been ups downs, but having been married for 20 years, it has absolutely impacted my life more than any decision I’ve made.  The impact has been overwhelmingly positive, although not without its painful moments.  I am a better person for having served someone else, for putting someone else ahead of myself at least some of the time, for making “sacrifices.”  I am a better person because of the support and commitment that I have received from my spouse.  I am a better person because I have decided that nothing will deter me from having a great marriage – not the fear of embarrassment, the fear of rejection, the fear of failure, pride or selfishness.  Has all of that been easy?  Nope.  Has it enriched my life and increased my capacity as a person?  Yep. 

Marriage is work, but it is the most rewarding work I have ever undertaken.  It has impacted every aspect of my life, from work and career moves, to raising a family, etc.  At the end of the day, sharing your life with someone could actually make everything go better, or it could double life’s troubles and make it worse.  For me, it all comes down to a determination of what is valuable.  What do I place a high value upon, and what am I going to do to honor that which is valuable?  I consider my marriage valuable.

That’s why I said at the beginning of this that the most important decision that I have made to date in my life has been the decision to be married.  Not the decision to get married, but the decision to be married.  It’s a decision that impacts my life in every other decision that I make, whether it’s how I approach my job, where we decide to live, how I take care of myself, how I contribute to my family’s well-being, how I act when I’m on the road for business, etc.  It’s a decision that I continue to make every single day when I get up in the morning, whether it’s consciously or subconsciously.  Some days I’m better at it than others.  Some days I don’t do as well.  And while that may vary from day to day, that’s all simply in the execution.  The real key is that I have made a determined decision, every day for 20 years now, to be married.  It’s been a good decision.

Now that I have the opportunity to look back at some of the important decisions in my life, I believe, the most important decision is the next decision I make. It sounds simple, or stupid, but I see people not making decisions and letting life take them where it goes and then saying they never had the chance to do something different. We are always making decisions whether we choose to or not. If we decide to not make a decision the decision is made, time keeps passing by and the options change.

As an example, I was in a situation of a fire in a closed environment. My job was to go check out my area which was close to where the fire was. I could choose to go there or run away. I chose to go there and see what I could do to help. On the way I passed a person who was also supposed to go to where the fire was but chose to run away. The fire was put out and nobody was hurt. If I had chose to run away others may have been hurt.

The most important decisions I make now are those within my family and other relationships. I can choose to make decisions that uplift or support others or I can choose to hurt.  Important decisions are made without knowing it.  A simple yes or smile is a decision that can change a life immensely and forever without you even knowing it.

one very important decision i had to make in my life was to resign from a managerial position with my employer. i have been with the same company for 16 years. i can’t really say the type of work i do – for fear of disclosing my identity. i started with this company as a fax operator – yes, all i did was send faxes and deliver received faxes all day long. it was not a very glamorous job, but there was room for advancement, and it was a good opportunity for me at a relatively young age. within a short period of time i was promoted to a higher position, and within a year or so, had a good position within the company. after eight years, i applied for a managerial position and got the job! i was to be in charge of an office of about 15 people – i was scared to death! i was however, ready for a challenge. i was willing to give whatever effort the job required. there are times in a person’s professional life that they are really given an opportunity to show there “stuff” – and a time when that person is ready to do it! i was ready.

it happened to be a time at my company – that business was booming. it was difficult to keep up with demands of the customers, and i was new at this whole management business. to learn to coach and motivate people is a real challenge, particularly without any formal management training. fortunately, my boss was a good coach to me -she helped me on a daily basis. the employees in my office were another story altogether. there were some very strong personalities and most were very experienced in their positions. the expectations of them were extreme at this incredibly busy time for our company, and my challenge was to help manage their workloads – as well as their egos. i was younger and had less seniority than about half of the employees. i did my best. i listened, i helped, i empathized with my crew. i stayed late with them, i came in on weekends. i tried to be their advocates.

the challenge of middle management became evident to me rather quickly in my new position. how does one balance the workload and the demands of the customers, with the needs of the employees? it was the biggest challenge of my life! i was surprised at my tenacity to succeed in my position – i was going to make this happen! i had the energy and the drive, and wanted to prove to myself as well as the company that i could do it.

all of this leads to the ultimate question – a difficult decision. so – the year i started managing, our company had a record year. unbelievably, my employer gave an 18% bonus to all of the employees! this was a good incentive to keep doing my job, difficult as it was. another busy year went by, another year of 60 hours a week. another year with my child in preschool from 7 am to 6 pm, and coming into work with me on the weekends. the demands of the job were taking a toll on myself and my family. i enjoyed the challenge,but the demands were beginning to be more than i could handle.

another year of middle management, a few more missed field trips for my child’s school. it was 31/2 years into it – i was ready to call an end to the stress. therein lay the difficult decision. i wouldn’t necessarily seem diffcult to decide to step down from your job – but it made me feel like a failure. i had worked so hard and put in so much time and energy. was i not capable? my parents always told me i was, what a disappointment. what are my egotistical employees going to think? what will my family think?

i am a very confident person – this decision killed me at the time. i felt like such a failure. i failed the company, i failed the employees – or so i thought. in reality, i had done a good job – no, a great job! in retrospect i know it was the right decision at that time in my life. my family and my sanity were suffering. i had to do something. just when i thought i was climbing the corporate ladder….i had to take a step down it instead. and, i don’t care what anyone thinks!

now i work 30 hours a week – at the same company. i have more time with my family, i have much less stress. i ultimately made this difficult decision correctly. i was fortunate to have learned that salary and prestige are less important than health and family. it was truly a valuable lesson. the situation seems so much less dramatic now – but it was so very difficult at the time. it was one of the hardest decisions i have ever had to make.

Unfortunately, decisions like this are not always well thought out, the risks not totally understood and can be based on emotion or the need to prove something to another person or yourself (i.e., I’m doing my patriotic duty, this will prove I’m worthy, etc.). In my case a friend had wanted to join the Army since his father and brothers had done so in the past and wanted someone to share the experience with. Valuing friendship and the need to prove my youthful invincibility, I joined with him.

As it turns out, he was discharged early due to a medical condition. I was fortunate to be sent to eastern europe instead of fighting in Vietnam for what turned out to be an unwinnable war. We both had close friends who died in that war.

Looking back, we were both very lucky because our decision to fight in a war didn’t cost us our lives. In our need to prove something to ourselves and our families, we ignored the critical nature of the risk involved instead of making an informed and justified choice. Can you think of good reasons why we should have made a different decision?