Set standards for yourself.

Your core principles are those principles you are basing your life on. You need to have principles; you need to recognize and actively live them. The proof is in the pudding. Our children and ourselves are our results, our measuring sticks.

The society around us is actively killing its sense of shame. We're encouraged to accept and not judge. Anyone who calls someone else out on bad behavior will be called out themselves: how dare they judge me?

In the process we've forgotten to set and maintain standards for ourselves. My own family has a set of standards to adhere to; my husband and I chose them based on our core principles. Do we fail to keep them? Yes, often. But we always feel guilty when we fail; we try to forgive ourselves and try again. We have a goal to strive for.

It’s tempting to accept whatever effort we feel like doing today, without any drive to improve or do more. It would be great to be on permanent vacation... for a while. Then life circumstances would (and do!) hit me upside the head. Dishes and laundry are great for teaching consequences; they get nasty and damaging if not cleaned. Likewise academics must be learned at some point or parents and children will be unable to function, constantly picking up pieces that should have been assembled earlier in life.

Here's to determining our own core principles and living them!