Seems lately all we hear about is the gloom and doom of the financial crisis. Turn on the TV and you will see people fighting, blaming each other for the state of the world economy. Dire predictions of the end of the world seem to be made everyday by news publications and cable TV shows.

You know what?! Its all noise! Turn off that TV and tune into one of our wonderful and relaxing Celtic music channels and let the noise just disappear. Have a cup a coffee and enjoy the the birds flying by your window or the leaves falling from the trees.

We just can not let all of these predictions become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “The Only thing we have to Fear, is Fear Itself.” 

I think we all need a break from this never ending stream of panic stricken news casters and financial meltdown predictions! My recommendations would be:

mach zehnder modulatorCeltic Moon – Relaxing dreamy music.
online casino netBlueGrass Hills – Take a walk down the ol plank road.
SaltyDog Radio - Climb aboard ye ol clipper ship!

But most importantly let us not forgot the famous words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which seem to have more relevance today then any other time:

“I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.” лаптоп

It would seemed that my Dad’s life was always a struggle. He lived with his brother and three sisters in a house which was no bigger than my dining room and kitchen put together. Born into poverty and raised by two alcoholic parents, I can’t imagine what his life was like. My Aunt told me about the time they were left in a truck until two in the morning while his father drank his paycheck away at a bar. Then there was the time his father threatened to drive off a cliff; coming inches to near death. I never heard my father tell me about the time in War World II when he served with General Patton’s Third Army in Germany; crawling on his hands and knees in a field with his buddy one moment, the next his buddy was blown apart by German fire.

When I did hear my dad talk about himself it was usually for a good reason, a lesson, or to give someone a good laugh. I remember when he told me about his paper route when he was young, spending his weeks earnings on a 1/2 dozen jelly donuts and eating them in front of his sister! He told me about the time in W.W.II when General Patton walked right by him and he saw the famous General’s ivory handled pistols. Years later, retired and watching the gulf war on CNN, did I find out that he had worked on the Patriot Missile system used to protect Israel from Iraq’s Scud attacks. He had worked at Raytheon Corporation for over 45 years!

My Dad, like most of the W.W.II generation, served not only their country without hesitance, but their families. Even though my Dad suffered through twenty five years of often severe and unbearable ulcerative colitis, I can not remember a time when he used it as a crutch for his faults. He was a very opinionated man; a man with self built morals, a strong man that never cried, never admitted weakness and had a work and family ethic that anyone would be proud of. My father’s death and preceding 25 years of ulcerative colitis had a profound impact on my life and my brother’s life. I am sure that his illness effected our whole family in a way which we will probably never know. Looking back now, I don’t think my Dad knew that his decision to have an operation which would remove his colon and replace it with a colectomy bag, would have such an effect on the lives of his loved ones.

Dad always had a zest for the good things in life, but was never able to fully achieve his dreams because of his battle with a disease called Ulcerative Colitis. In short, this disease produces severe bleeding sores in the colon which do not heal. The disease, at times, made him short tempered and irritable. He was not capable of doing the normal father-son activities with me because he was very ill when I was growing up. I remember wanting to play in a baseball team, and not understanding why he would not take me to the sign up. I recall walking downtown with my Dad when he had an unexpected attack; he ran behind some bushes in embarrassment.

But even with this very harsh disease, he hardly ever let it interfere with family plans or trips. We went to Disney World countless times, numerous trips to Washington D.C., Gettysburg, Virginia, Amish Country, Quebec and endless times to the White Mountains and Lakes Region of N.H. were he enjoyed himself immensely on Lake Winnipesaki in his motor boat. I only found out after he died how many times he had been in severe agony and pain, but still managed to attend family get togethers with his cheerful and witty sense of humor. We would often share our thoughts on the wonderful food delights we indulged in over the years. How sad it is for a man to love the sense of taste and food so much, but to have an illness that would prevent him from enjoying the foods he enjoyed the most. I heard recently from my Mom that Dad would say to her, “Ruth, if this new medication works, you better watch out for me!” Sadly, in the year before his death, he sank into my mother’s arms and cried that he could not take the pain of his disease any longer. He decided in January of 1993 that enough was enough and he was going to have his colon removed and a colectomy bag put in its place.

The preceding days before my father’s death as he laid in that hospital bed still effect me today. It was in March of 1993 and it was absolutely the most fantastic and exciting time of my life. My dad, worried about the operation, decided to wait until after the birth of my son to go through with the procedure. I remember the excitement of the great blizzard of March of 1993, as my wife was in labor, the weatherman on the television was talking about a storm of mammoth proportions. How could I imagine that just a little over a month later I would be dealing with the darkest and saddest time in my life. My father had the surgery 2 weeks later, but the colectomy did not take. We found out later that he was not a very good candidate for the surgery to begin with. During the course of my father’s three major surgeries to correct the hemorrhage problems, my family and I were on a roller coaster of emotions. One day we heard good news of recovery and salvation for my father, the next, pure hell as our father lay in pain waiting for the inevitable.

For myself, some of the memories I have are imprinted on my brain as life itself. The first operation was successful, at least we thought, and I wanted to visit my father to see how he was doing. I remember it to be a Tuesday and I always refer to that day as “that Tuesday.” It was an incredibly beautiful day and the sun was shining in all of its glorious spring time rays. My Dad was happy to see me and he thought I had made a special trip to see him. I never understood why, but I told him that I had gone out to lunch at McDonalds and just happened to be driving by. Perhaps I didn’t want to seem weak in his eyes, but to this day I am bothered by not telling him the truth that I had come only to see him. I remember another time I visited with my Mom. My dad always loved to plant and grow marigolds in his gardens. It was truly a love that even today is remembered by everyone in my family. When we arrived in his room, my dad was under heavy medication and I really don’t think he wanted to see my mother at that time. We stood there for a few moments and let him know we were there. My mother told him she was planting the marigolds he had grown and they looked beautiful. My dad jerked his head up and looked around, pulling at the tubes he started to get up! The nurse repeated “Mr. MacArthur”, “Mr. MacArthur”, “Your a very sick man!.” My dad said, “I have to go home”,”I have to go home.” The nurse repeated, “Your a very sick man, Mr. MacArthur, and you can not go home.” He finally did listen to the nurse and settle down. My mother thought it best if we left at that point.

When my father died, it made me realize that the values that I thought were important, were not as important as they first seemed. What is important to me now are times with my kids, telling my family that I love them, believing not only in yourself, but in the people that you live with, living and breathing each day like it was your last.

I remember a dream I had years ago when I first met my wife and we were staying in her father’s cottage in Maine. In my dream I was standing next to a hospital bed. My father lay in the bed and all sorts of machines and tubes were hooked up to him. I was extremely distressed and I wanted to tell my Dad that I loved him, but the words would not come out. Finally, I was able to scream the words “I LOVE YOU” as it pierced the silent of the night and woke me up! It was not your normal dream, but rather a very vivid and terrifying dream. You could say that the dream was a premonition, or perhaps you might say that I knew my father was sick all my life and my dream was simply an expression of my father dying before I could tell him that I loved him. Whatever you think, that dream did stick with me through the years and I believe it saved me from living with a regret.

The night before my Dad died, the thoughts of that dream were in my head. Like destiny I found myself at the hospital at 11:30 p.m., alone with my Dad. His hand was tied to the bed railing and he had a very solemn look on his face. I tried to hold his hand and he struggled for a moment so I let go. He turned and looked at the clock, then turned and looked at me and moved his hand up to be held. I never saw my father cry, he would never have allowed it. I can’t imagine were he got the strengthen to hold back the tears as his eyes filled up. I then told him how much I loved him and how much my kids loved him. I told him that we were all thinking of him and that we loved him for everything he had done for us. He looked at me and tried to speak, but he could not. I knew what he was thinking though and it showed in his eyes; I love you Son.

As I stepped out into the cool of the spring night, I knew that was the last time I would see my father alive. It would be a few years before I could sort through my life with him and a thousand different memories from the past. When I did finally come to terms with my father’s death, I found that I am not the same person that held his hand that night. I realized how important it is to tell your kids and your family that you love them. The last lesson I learned with my Dad was to tell the ones you are close to that you love them; before it’s to late.

I’ve started a new section called ‘Life’ which I plan on publishing various self-improvement articles and short stores. This article is about Teamwork and I hope you will find it useful in your own Life and Work. ~

In the work force today, more and more companies are relying on teamwork to achieve projects and to set goals for the company. No longer do you see power hungry managers controlling every faucet of the work flow and day. In order to be successful, both managers and employees must work together to provide products that meet the needs of the customer and are profitable. For the company that does not empower their employees to achieve their goals through teamwork, it will certainly result in failure of a product. Of all of the skills that are most important in the business world today, teamwork is high on my list. My own experience has shown that teamwork means placing the teams objectives above your own, displaying sound judgment in your decisions and helping your teammates obtain their objectives.

Placing the objectives of the team first, rather than your own agenda, is a good sign that you are practicing teamwork. In the company I work for I have seen teams disintegrate into pure chaos as each member will try to push through their own agenda. The problem with members having their own agenda is that nothing will ever get accomplished and in the end, the goals that the team set out to achieve, will never be made. To be a successful team player, you must remember what the goals of the team are and stick with them. Some of the most successful teams in the sports world have great athletes who are also great team players. For example, Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics was a great athlete, but he was also a great team player who on many occasions would unselfishly set his teammate up for a play, rather than take the shot himself. Learning not to be selfish in tackling the objectives of the team is the first step towards building teamwork skills and in finding success within a team. But this skill alone will not build you into a great team player.

Realizing that the image of the team is reflected in your own actions – this is called sound judgment -  is another important step in learning what teamwork means. This holds true not only for work related teams, but in sports teams and in family teams. Poor judgment in the actions you take will certainly result in embarrassment for the team you are on and in the credibility of the team. Take for example the recent incident with Drew Bledsoe of the New England Patriots. It was not the great pass or completion of a play that earned him the undivided attention of the news media, rather, it was his actions at a local Boston bar, (jumping foolishly into a crowd of people),  that resulted in his picture on the front page of the Boston Herald. This reflects poorly not only on Drew Bledsoe, but on the New England Patriots as a organization. Six months from now, most individuals outside of New England will not remember the name of the player who displayed poor judgment, but they will remember that he was a member of the New England Patriots. Displaying sound judgment in the actions and decisions you make will put you on the road to becoming a successful team player.

The most important part of being a team player is helping your teammates achieve their goals. The very basis for teams is the concept that each member of the team will help other teammates out so that the team, as a whole, will move ahead and achieve success. A good example of this teamwork can be found in the traditional family. My own experience shows that when a member of the family suffers a setback or is having a tough time with work or school, the members of the family come together to help the family member with their support. This, by far, is the greatest asset of teamwork and is the very basis for why good teams can be so successful. Translating this to the business and sports world has equal similarities. For example, a team that is created for the purpose of researching, creating and introducing a new product will rely on the strength of its team members in the event that a team member suffers a setback; a divorce, death or other misfortune. Suddenly, the team is focused on what its members can do to help the ailing teammate. This is the magic that builds successful teams and the acquired skills that go along with teamwork.

Teamwork certainly is an important part of our everyday lives. If you think about it, almost everyone will play a part in the makeup of a team at some point in their lives. It is up to you, as a team member, to display and work towards the skills of teamwork. By focusing on the skills I have mentioned -  putting the team objectives first, displaying sound judgment and helping your teammates obtain their objectives – you will certainly find success in using teamwork in your endeavors for success. This is what teamwork means to me.