People don’t need to hear the words, “I love you!” to know if they are loved. Love is an action that is guided by the spiritual heart and soul. When a person loves unconditionally he or she cannot control the love that flows from their hearts. Gentle loving words, positive encouragement, and actions are the way that love is transferred from one person to another.
The person that loves you hugs you without warning because he or she feels a great comfort in your arms, or in wrapping you up in their arms.
You get random kisses, random cute moments, and you really feel wanted, needed, comfortable and secure, all without the other person telling you so.
 The is no force from someone who loves you. Instead of force there is encouragement, helpful comments, long discussions where both get to have their say.

° People who love you allow you to come to your conclusions at your own pace. They may hint, gently nudge, make suggestions, but they should not tell you what to think.
You need to develop your own mind, opinions and character by your own mental investigations, using logic, common sense, instincts and then you will gain confidence and courage as you progress.
° Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
° All the best from James M Sandbrook.
30 October 2016.

When there is no love in the system (I mean politics which runs for the existence of taxes and the success of the economy and big business) you have a situation where WINZ staff have to make a choice between helping people with their heart or with what the government demands.
 I have had some cruel WINZ (Social welfare) experiences, and some very heart warming people have helped me out when I was really down.
When I first ever went to WINZ I had not eaten solids for 3 weeks.
My children had not missed a meal and I was desperate for something to feed them before the money ran out, and the woman I saw at Social Welfare told me that I would not be helped for 3 weeks, that meant that I would not have eaten for a total of 6 weeks before we got any cash, and my 2 children (girls aged 3 and 4) not eaten for 3 weeks. In desperation I had to go humbly to my ex-wife who had left us a half year earlier and ask for food for the children, and she was on unemployment, she fed me as well.
Years later I have been treated very well by WINZ staff and they helped me get my course for my security guard licence and other things.
I tried very hard to not ask for any additional money unless desperate like for dentist work and that was it.
It makes a lot of difference who you get, but the staff also have to try to make the boss, government and the public happy.
I don’t envy the WINZ staff at all because the job can be very stressful and tiring. It is not an easy job trying to balance it all out.
The issue is government regardless of who is in power because at the end of the day the idea is to balance the bank account out and the government that gets into debt gets into trouble, so at the end of the day regardless of what they promise the dollar is more important that unemployed people. Also the government want to punish unemployed people so that they will get tired of struggling and will get a job, but sadly the governments offer a situation where there are not a lot of jobs at times and finding one can be a struggle for some. It doesn’t balance out at all. I firmly support family help, for many that may make all the difference for a reasonable week and seeing the children with full tummies from eating a good feed each night. Any government that punished the poor and needy so heartlessly is pathetic and cruel.

Labour will be just as bad. It is the system that operates this way, who is in power makes no difference because they all back the system.

The people who make the laws are all comfortable, rich, in secure jobs, and are ever faithful to the running of “the system” and the dollar.
“You” are of no value to them or of any interest to them until it looks like life may be turning in your favour in some way and then they panic and come down on you like Goliath attacking David. I remember missing many meals, not having the money to pay the mortgage, or for the power and phone and making many desperate phone calls to companies to try to keep the phone and power on so that my children could stay warm and healthy. Any gifts given from family should certainly be of no business to the government. If you look at the way that the Labour and National parties bail out big business ‘friends” and look after politicians and the wealthy you can see that this extremely sickening attack on the poor is completely appalling and unjustified. This is big bully government departments picking on small fry while kissing up to big business and their mates in high places. “Any” extra money when a person is on a benefit is a treasure and is desperately needed, especially when one has children to feed and keep healthy.

Thanks I appreciate that, I hope that my small effort helps out. This s a great own and the children are our future. The better we treat them the better the future will be for all of us.

This should probably be in every home and on every classroom wall. Children need to learn the value of good character and what the rewards are of being a humble charitable loving soul.

I agree, we should give people chances, but be somewhat careful unless they show us a complete change of heart.
I highly promote people getting the facts, asking and getting “Both” sides of the story instead of just accepting what they have been told.
I have never been so amazed and shocked at how easily gullible people can be as they accept character assassination as fact just because someone told it to them, and there is no attempt whatsoever to get the other side of the story, and every possible effort taken to pass the unproven story/lies/gossip on and on to others to help destroy the innocent persons public character. Doing this hurts the innocent person so deeply and hurts their family so much, especially the younger members of the family who are mistreated because the gullible public assume that the lies that they were told are true and that gives them some right to be mean, judgmental and to attack. I believe in giving people a chance. Many people have done me wrong and I have not asked for an apology etc. I am still nice, polite to them and help them, but they are at a certain distance from my heart and soul to protect myself from being hurt by them once again. But I do very much believe in repentance, when the person who does a person wrong, reviews their actions and has a deep regret for past wrongs, and this causes the turning over a new leaf, making things right and showing a complete change of character to the one that he or she has hurt. If they don’t repent and just apologise then the apology is fake and the tears fake and any promises fake. With a true apology, repentance, a new relationship can be formed.

Same experience with my mother Tony, but in my family both were seriously selfish and toxic. Breaking the cycle is so healing and good. In some families it is only the one or two that break the cycle and they are the courageous ones, the one’s who have what it takes to stop what went wrong and make things right. Some people like to think that what they do is normal and that they are innocent, so what they do is construct a truth that they can feel comfortable with and believe is real and good, even if it hurts others. Moving on from these types of people is very good for the soul. I have not seen my father since the 1980’s and I have no regrets about that whatsoever, I don’t miss him at all, because he was not good for my life at all, and he was a bad father. When we are brought up in toxic families I have found that we need to remove the thorns (family and relations) in our side one by one, these are people who are of no good or value in our lives who have made us so miserable and have stunted our growth in life, they need to go and not be held onto for sentimental reasons (like the excuse that blood/family can abuse us because of the myth that family/blood is thicker than water etc). Life is so refreshing without them for sure. 🙂 The courageous break the cycle, break the ties and move on, and they have better lives when they let go and start again.

When there is bad in a family like abuse and it is toxic for the children, when the children grow up they can support the parents or prefer to keep the madness secret because they are too ashamed to tell people that they came from such a home.

With my family I seem to be the only one who will publicly talk of the toxic upbringing we had and the abuse from our parents. What I have discovered on Facebook is that the more I tell of my family upbringing the more people who are healed from their toxic upbringing and they are very grateful that someone has spoken out and has gone public. I see it as taking half a lifetime of abuse and then using the second half of my life to do good for others and to help them get over their own family abuse. And many of the parents that abuse their own children were abused themselves, so we need to be sure that the cycle is broken and stopped in its tracks. ○ Tokoroa people can be quick to jump to conclusions (it is probably the same world wide) and assume that what they were told is truth. This is why it is so easy for people to be convicted in the public’s minds when completely innocent.

The narcissist types don’t need a person to go to court, they just spread lies and the well meaning flying-monkeys do their dirty work for them. Flying monkeys is a phrase used in popular psychology mainly in the context of narcissistic abuse. They are people who act on behalf of a narcissist to a third party, usually for an abusive purpose. The phrase has also been used to refer to people who act on behalf of a psychopath for a similar purpose. The phrase, originally winged monkeys, is derived from L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The wicked witch sent them to carry out her attacks [on the completely innocent Dorothy]. – Wikipedia.

Family can be a real problem. Especially families that have skeletons in the closet and do bad things behind doors.

I was falsely accused of stalking a female in Countdown back in 2009. No one wanted my side of the story, and everyone listened to hers. The staff were 100% believing her lies. From that I learned that a female can lie and people can support her fully and they don’t want his side of the story at all. It probably goes both ways, but that is what happened to me, and I prefer that it was dealt with professionally and that the guy isn’t hunted down simply by her say so. Sure he probably did what she said, but here is not the place for her to put it. Next thing you will have some female hating some innocent guy and accusing him here of unproven sex abuse, or whatever, and they poor guy will get beaten up for it. Too many innocent guys get setup just because some female had issues.

Years ago a local Tokoroa woman viciously started a character assassination on me, that still exists to this day in Tokoroa.
Many listened and believed her. While this was happening my children asked me things like: “Dad, why do they believe her?”
“Because she has a title and I don’t.” (I was on the DPB) “Dad, but he is lying, why don’t they know this?” “Because they trust her because she is well known and I am not.”
“Dad, why don’t they come and ask you about it?” “Because they believe her completely and think that what she says is the truth, and she cleverly used fear to scare people away from me.” “But dad, there is no evidence!!!”
“She has money and friends in high places, she will just make some up and fool people with fake evidence.” You see, I had to painfully try to explain to my children why the public were so willing to hurt me when I had done no wrong.

 My children wanted to believe in fair world, trust, justice and honesty. What they saw was the complete opposite. People need a real moral clean-up these days and to be responsible for what they say, who they accuse and how they treat people, and some courage to ask what is wrong, help people, and also go through the right channels to sort things out without using heresy, gossip and lies. We need to understand that if we are told something about someone we should get the facts, hear out both sides of the story, and go and ask questions of the person who is being talked about and accused. When an innocent person is accused then the whole family is affected and the innocent children are also emotionally and even physically hurt because of lies and character assassination.

I prefer to hear both sides of the story instead of just one side. The Police should get both sides too.

The most horrifying thing about this quote is that you can be the nicest person in the world and someone tells some lies about you mixed with some truth and people are lining (like for Lotto 🙂 ) up to listen, add to, and repeat the lies. What happened to the days of thinking for ourselves, investigating for ourselves, seeing facts and truths because we have the common sense and logic to know an obvious lie and what is an obvious truth. Fear is the tool for convincing people to see people the wrong way. If people can arouse people’s emotions with fears then the people will gather to remove what they fear. Like the witch hunts back in days of old. If a person did anything strange that the towns people didn’t understand or someone lied about someone to hurt them then the town would have a fake inquiry and then condemn the innocent person to death in the most cruellest of ways. Today a narcissist will simply make up stories, tell them to people they think are gullible enough to believe them, and then the gullible-well-meaning people (flying monkey’s) will do all that they can to spread the gossip and lies to destroy the innocent person’s public character while the narcissist hides away in the protective shadows smiling at the destruction caused to the narcissists pure delight. The innocent person is accused, convicted and destroyed all without a court case, or any fair trial.

If you have a legitimate claim then tell the Police or the employers. Putting it all on here is equivalent to gossip and causing hate etc, that could lead to violence or worse.

When we educate the heart and mind then we end up with adults that use both when making decisions.
One without the other throws life seriously off balance.
If the mind consults the heart then we make choices that are loving, logical, common sense and we do what is good and right for everyone because we love freely, we are responsible, and we want to do the best that we can for the greater good of all.

There is so much freedom when we don’t try to fit in and copy others, and instead we become the amazing person we were born to be, and people welcome our genuine character into their lives “because we are different and interesting and a blessing to their lives”.

Imagine if you were the person who you wanted to see in your life in the past. What I mean is, when you were down and no one cared, today you can be someone who cares for others when they are down because you know the pain, the sadness, the broken heart of being alone and needing someone to hear you, listen to you, and hug you. You can be the beautiful soul that you wanted to always see in others but didn’t have in your life in important times of need. You can be the light in someone’s dreary day, and you always try to leave people happier for having met you and known you. We can be the light in the world that we want to see, and like any light it needs to be bright enough for all to see and be soulfully warmed by. One of the most amazing, healing and beautiful things that we can do in this world is to be there for others so much so that they would prefer our company, friendship, love and hugs more than anything else in the world, because we helped to bring out the best in them. People don’t forget that. Our good, responsible, gentle, kind behaviour will be a good example for children and will bring out the best in others when they see what we have going in our lives. Like our different fingerprints we all have different characters and talents, and if we use those talents to improve our lives, others lives, and our world, we will love and respect ourselves more, and we are appreciated for the difference that we made in other people’s lives that they will never forget.

Some people should realise that when they open someone’s door they may frighten that person/people in the house and then get the biggest thumping of their life for their foolish effort. Fear can create some decent energy and action from the gentlest of souls 🙂 A fair amount of Tok Folk have done some form of self defence and some have weapons (like a hunk of wood) by their doors in case of intruders etc. The intruder needs to know that they will get no sympathy from any home they intend to break in to. One of my mates saw someone prowling around his back yard so he snuck outside with a big dolphin torch and crept up behind the young fellow and thumped him hard on the head, and the guy hit the deck. Them my friend invited the guy in for a coffee, gave him a lecture about the dangers of prowling and then let him go with blood dripping down his head 🙂 Only a fool goes about knocking on doors when he or she has no idea what is waiting for them on the other side.

When homeschooling my children I discovered that they didn’t necessary need to be all growing equally in education as one, because each one has a different learning curve.
I found that at the end of the day no matter who excelled in the beginning that they all ended up reading, writing and knowing what each other knew, there was no need to compare any of them or to see progress in one and struggles in the other – they were just learning at their own rate in their own time. In the end they were all the winners because they could all do what the others could do and equally as well.

When young, some people yelled at me, or lost control, and when they did I would feel terrible, guilty and ashamed, even though many times I had done no wrong or had done very little wrong.
Then as I got older I reacted with anger, or I would try to defend myself. I had became defensive and reacted negatively.
More and more recently I have just looked at the person who loses the plot at me and spits out the dummy and I see that even if I made a mistake or did wrong, the other person has no right to make me feel insecure, unconfident, not good enough by their attack of anger.
I discovered that the issue is with them when they overreact negatively, and that how they treat others is a reflection of who they are at this stage of their life (or what is going on in their own life) and it has nothing to do with the people that they yell at.
Some people have “issues” and they carry them around with them on their shoulders ready to unleash them on other people. They especially attack kind people, insecure people, meek people, good people etc (and those who cannot fight back, like a child).
These angry people don’t have the courage to deal with their own life, don’t have the courage to sort their act out and their life, so they look for someone to use as a verbal punching bag to get all their frustrations out and feel better.
Some are copies of their own angry parents and doing to their own families as their parents did to them.

They can get so used to the narcissistic behaviour that they come to feel that they have the right to do this to other people, especially those who struggle to fight back, or who allow themselves to be bullied.
The thing that we must realise and also we must teach our young is that “no person” has the right (this includes parents, relatives, friends, the boss, managers etc) to treat us with disrespect or bully us.
All people make mistakes and if we are treated with respect then we get over those mistakes and learn from them. If we are yelled at and shamed then we tend to not learn and we can make the mistakes over and over again.
This is what I did a lot as a child. Parents and other older people would yell at me, hit me, and then rant and rave in fury because I was “an incompetent idiot”. I grew up with some severe confidence issues and deep feelings of being unworthy and stupid.
 The trouble was, was that each time I made the mistake I was given the same violent or verbal bashing and that just made me terrified of being around such people (hard to avoid in your own home), and of course when nervous I would make even more mistakes and then get punished for them and on and on it went.
Parents must look at the child who they are correcting and see this child as a important wonderful human being worthy of love, compassion, respect and many many chances to discover, slip up, make mistakes, and try and try again, enjoy life and be treated as someone who is an equal member of the family and given the chances as all others in the family.
We all learn at our own rate, and a good parent and teacher will allow for this, while encouraging the child and giving us a gentle push along the way.

The same is in the work force.
The boss, manager etc will go a long way, be a great success, be liked and appreciated if he or she is an inspiration, encourager, friend and someone who treats all employee’s in a fair and respectful manner.

I didn’t have the radio on. That would explain a lot. The weather this last year had been very strange, and we have had some big storms.
I was on security mobile patrol when wet had one of the effects of one of those cyclones and it was real bad. Tonight was real bad too.
Seems to have calmed down here in Tokoroa, just lots of rain.

The white line can be a life saver at times. At one point on the highway with a line of oncoming traffic, lots of rain, poor visibility, I used the white center line to guide me. Glad you are home safe Heather.

I used to think, “I am a nice guy and everyone will see that and they will treat me as a nice guy.”
 To my unhappy surprise I discovered that this was not the truth. I guess I thought that observation would show people that this is a nice person or that is a bad person and to see them as such.
But that was before I discovered the very efficient method of destroying a person’s life (as much as a narcissist-type can) called gossip, and mixing the truth with lies, and how amazingly gullible people are in general.
When my marriage split up there were many people who took sides, and that was sad. As far as I know no one was asked to take sides, they just did so, and that of course meant that I lost friends.
Maybe friends assume that they must choose sides instead of continuing to be both people’s friends, after all the marriage break up was about them, not the friends.

I know that we all view life from so many various angles and we see things differently, but I would have thought that if ten people saw a good person doing good things then the verbal reports from those ten people would have been in support of that person being a good person.
Often this is not the case. many are easily led to believe lies, many have been convinced of an opinion of a person before they even talk to that person and nothing that this person does that is good or worthy will ever convince such a narrow minded stubborn view. I
 doubt that there is a person alive who has not been lied about, gossiped about or treated unfairly.
But what amazes me is that so many people have been treated bad and felt the pain and unfair shame and sadness, but so many are very keen to hear some gossip and believe it is the absolute truth immediately and will treat the innocent victim of the gossip harshly and will also spread the gossip.

○ What we discover in time, is that no matter who we are, what we try and how well we behave, there will always be people trying to make us look bad to others. Some people will judge us wrong and they will tell as many people as they can their false tainted opinion of us. Your good character and efforts to be good are completely helpless and will not convince the already convinced person who things that you are a liar or fake. So the sooner we discover that we will never ever please everyone we come to a new freedom, and we decide to let it go and not react to other people’s opinions and false judgements, and we just get on being the best person that we can be. This way we are not returning anger and bad feelings for people’s bad treatment of us and we are just getting on with life happily regardless of other peoples opinions.

Thank you so much for your kind words, they are very much appreciated. I always enjoy a chat with you ladies when I see you at the lake.
I truly think that you have brightened many lives talking to the many people there. I hope to get around the lake today. I hope you are well soon. The weather looks excellent so far. 🙂

For many years of my life I tried to hide who I was because it was expected of me.
I was encouraged to be like “successful people”, to change, to adapt, to follow the rules, to be submissive etc.
But the more I tried the more things inside me died. And they were called self-respect and freedom.

You see, the more that we allow others to guide us away from our natural character, the more we lose respect for ourself and the more we become like others, the crowd, just a part of the many, and nothing special.
To be free, you must be you and I must be me.

We can get on with others, we can adjust to what life throws our way, and we can learn and gather experiences, knowledge and wisdom, but we should never sacrifice our freedom to suit others and what they demand of us or who they demand that we should be. A few years back a very nasty character assassination was attempted to destroy my public character, and some people were very mean to me, and I lost many opportunities and my children suffered from it as well.

While this was going on I felt myself wanting to hide from the public and do very little locally. As things turned out I did a lot on Facebook and became well known internationally as a motivator and helped many. How I did this was I had finally got to the stage where I was tired of faking life and being a phoney. So I wrote on the Internet what I really felt, I wrote with my heart as the poet does and with the freedom of the song writer, I spoke of the tears, fears, anxiety and struggles as a single dad, of poverty and being hungry and also of homeschooling and that amazing experience. I also told of childhood abuse, and of removing anger, and bad thoughts from my mind and replacing them with compassion, forgiveness and love, even for my enemies (no easy task sometimes).

As I progressed I wrote about it and many many people have written to me and thanked me, religious and non-religious.
Many people have written to me and told of how they were going to commit suicide and didn’t because of something I wrote.
And that always amazes me. I have not been trained in modern mental health methods, my experiences comes from many hard experiences and facings suicide as young as 9 years old.
Recently a young woman in England sent me a friend request, then her mother. I wondered about it but got on with life. Then the mother wrote to me and thanked me for helping her daughter. I had no idea what she was talking about, and she told me that he daughter had broken up from the man who she loved and was about to commit suicide, but she went to a depression and anxiety Facebook group that I am on and read something that I wrote to help those on that group and this woman completely changed her mind about killing herself and is now doing well and learning how to cope again.

 I learned that being a fake, putting on a facade, false front etc is good for public image and getting votes and feeds the ego, but is completely hopeless and useless in helping people. ○ We are all imperfect, and we will never be perfect. We may be very good at some things, but at others we may not be so good. Thats awesome, because it is in our diversity, our differences, our different feelings likes and dislikes, debates and discussions etc, that are all honest and true that makes us all so amazing and worth knowing. ○ But we can only be happy when we are focusing on what is really important in our lives and that is love (giving and receiving without fear or shame), helping others when we can without wanting anything in return, not being egotistical or selfish, and facing the truth about who and what we have become and having the courage to change that to who we wanted to be and what we wanted to be when young and innocent. These days I am more and more taking risks, loving the interaction with people who want to know me and have found out that the character assassination was a big lie, and I am becoming more the me that I always wanted to be. We all need to do this, be who we really wanted to be before we were changed by others to fit in and be who society or they wanted us to be, Your courage and freedom is in you, take it, be it and live it.

True. Criminal people are like minded in their beliefs and ways. But so are good decent people, who believe in the same things and can live in harmony in the community.

The power to change, have a new life, to enjoy life as you want to do is within us all, we just need the will to make it happen, and the courage to go for our dreams and fight for what we truly believe in. 💛

The like minded people are those who we keep close to your heart. They follow the same kind of dreams that we do. They share the same feelings. They want the same things out of life that we want, and they want to see the same changes in the world that we want to see. The more diverse people and groups of people are those we all get to interact with, and of course we do need to be able to cope, deal with, and be with these people sometimes.

But these people who are like minded are more who we confide in, and who are our helpers, and those who we know that we can trust completely, and that they won’t let us down, just as they can trust us and we won’t let them down, especially in their hour of need. Many people settle for their own toxic family members, and they accept the narcissists in their lives because they are relatives or are accepted by others who they know, or have known for years. It is a very poor situation that many people sadly put up with.
Many people, especially teenagers and young adults, they don’t want to rock the family boat, they want to be loved, accepted, needed, and so they allow themselves to be in an unhealthy environment to please others, yet deep down inside it depresses them a lot, causes physical problems and illnesses, and mental illness.
Many turn to addictions, some suicide, some become mental health patients for life etc. For the plant the bad soil is toxic, and like the plant we all have “needs” and of those needs are not available then we suffer, fail to cope well in life, we never find true love, and we fade, wilt, and then one day die, never having even reached any real life potential, or doing something that we really wanted. Life was never meant to be a miserable experience, day in and day out.

Yet I have lived many years of my life, as many others have, with other people who were nothing but a bad influence or were bad for me, and I had no idea that life didn’t have to be like that and I didn’t realize that I was didn’t have to be used and abused, for years I just allowed it. Many people accept abuse as adults and bad family members etc in their lives because it is all that they have ever known, and because they fear rocking the boat. Like minded people are good for our soul, good for our mind, and they encourage us, they don’t fear our successes, they sacrifice for us, and we sacrifice for them. They are good responsible people, worthy and of the love, support and thanks we give them. Like minded people we get on with mostly, debates address clean, healthy and done with respect for everyone’s point of view and opinions. With these people we can create, grow positively with, and make a better world for the greater good of all. They are our own personaly chosen tribe who we value deeply, appreciate with all our hearts, and want to keep close forever, our own kind of people. But this kind of happiness, peace, love and harmony only comes to those who have the courage to make it so.

Awesome. Keep rocking that boat and doing what you believe in, the world needs people like that 🙂

By golly do I know that feeling 🙂 I don’t try through “normal channels” anymore because I discovered a few years back that the laws, and ways that those in power give us freedom of speech are also set up so that they can limit us, stop what is good, and only do what is on their own personal agenda. In other words when you go agaisnt the status quo or offer a new path, new ideas, vision etc, they will just shut it down because they don’t have vision, imagination etc, they are like dead fish, they float down the stream taking the suffering gullible public with them. Arguing, debating etc is a complete waste of time with those who are already completely dedicated to ignoring you and refusing to understand.

Like a flower you progress, grow healthily and happily in the right environment with the right encouragement and with positive life teaching.
We can all have our own garden of Eden here on earth, but it all comes down to being truthful to ourselves, facing the facts, looking around ourselves honestly and making the right changes that will bring us to that place where our heart feels is home and our soul is growing in knowledge and wisdom.
Goodness comes from goodness, love comes from people who truly care and this is seen by totally unconditional love and patience, happiness comes from you being where you want to truly be, doing what you truly want to do, and blooming in the way that makes you the most happiest.
All plants grow healthy in the right environment because that is where they were born to be and where they should be, that is the same for you.
But you are not a plant, you can move, you can change your situation, and you can find your true place in the world where you can share your talents, love and friendship wherever you go.
Please never forget, you are the difference that you want to see in the world, it just takes you to believe in yourself, positive change, and that your effort will help no matter how big or small.

The point Daniel is that when the people vote for the same thing then that is what they get. We have all read about and seen movies about that one inspired person who takes over as a teacher, mayor, business owner etc and changes everything by influencing others in a new wonderful life changing positive path. What I was trying to tell people in the community before the election was that this person of great imagination and vision was not Jenny, or her yes people who just follow along with no imagination and no real decent effort to make the town/community/business better. Dead fish all float in the same direction. Change for the better comes with vision, imagination, people who want to see the world/community a better place and they take new steps, step out on a limb, sacrifice their own time, and do it for the love of the people, not for personal titles and money. Many in the community complained about Sinclair and then voted in his right hand person, how from that could they have expected change. Since Jenny got in crime has risen, and all the negative effects from materialism have continued and the general public suffer. This won’t get better as long as people choose the same that caused the problem in the first place. This is not an insult to Jenny or the Council, it is simply a fact. At the next election the people will probably vote Jenny and co back in office and nothing will change yet again. This town, the South Waikato will only change when the general public have had enough of the high suicide rates, the rising crime, poverty and the struggles. And going by the example of the world it will be when hell freezes over because people just keep on voting for the same things and wanting change, the two don’t go hand in hand.

When the community votes in people who are dedicated to materialism and money you will get the results that come from their minds, money first people second or third, or forth etc.
It really is not the Mayors fault, she is only doing what she was voted in to do.
She feels that running the Council and community as a business is what people wanted, otherwise why was she voted in.
The buck stops with her, the ideas stop with her, and if the ideas don’t suit her and her Council friends, whether it is a good idea or not, it won’t go any further.
The community had other options but they went with the same old thing, and now they have the same old thing as what was happening with Sinclair.
It wasn’t hard to predict, all you had to know was what was the core-thinking of the mayor applicants, and Jenny made herself clear and got voted in.

Freedom is having the right to do what you think that you should do according to your beliefs.
 You have the right to set boundaries, the right to stand by them, the right to choose your own future path, and the right to choose who to spend it with.
○ You have the right to make mistakes, to fumble, to fall, to slip up and then try again. You were not born perfect, and neither were these who try to tell you what they deem as right or wrong for you and your future.
○ It is in this falling, making mistakes, slipping up etc that you learn. “You Do Not Learn” when others guide you to do this or that according to their views and opinions. They have made enough mistakes in their own lives and they stuff up daily in many ways, why would you want their mistakes and failings to be yours as well, you have enough of your own.
○ If you choose the difficult path of trial and error, the one of struggles and discoveries, you will progress, grow spiritually in courage and confidence, and while you are walking that amazing path you will also find yourself and what you are capable of without the crowd, and then finally your life will make sense.
♥
All the best from James M Sandbrook.

A person without protective boundaries is like a country without a protective border. People can come and go and do as they wish, using and abusing them, causing destruction and harm at their will, and it shows on the life of such people who have no boundaries of which to protect themselves. ○ Boundaries are very very important for a good life and self love.

To me this is kind of like, I think know who I am and what I stand for, but is this who I want my children to be.

Then I look at my good and bad habits, my attitude to life, my feelings towards people, how I react to life and people, and then ask myself, “Do I want my children to be like this, or do I want something better for them to develop into?”

 And with the discovery that I want something better for them, I start to make some serious (often hard) changes to my character, because I want to be a better example for them to look up to.
I am also very aware that a lot of a child’s learning comes from looking, listening, and copying, so I feel deep inside that they are going to copy some of my good and bad habits, and pick up some of my bad opinions and copy my actions. Being a parent can be a complete life change, a shock to the system, and an amazing journey of love when one discovers that they are helping create a new best friend to share life with, to have innocent fun with, and to help grow up and hopefully be an amazing gift to the world. The best advice is to always remember that your child is worth more than anything material, so if he or she breaks something, no matter what its worth is, it is no where near as valuable as your child, your child’s confidence and self worth.

And to remember this amazing miracle is a small human being, a living wonder, a bundle of joy, and through the early years a wonder to behold. And we, as parents, will have a strong influence on that child’s life, so much so, that the child will copy what we do when he or she becomes an adult, so we need to clean up our own act somewhat to help our own young along in life, to give the that example that will help them become confident and able to cope in this sometimes crazy world :-). I read years ago that it is better to lift people up than tear them down. As a child I was viciously torn down by certain people bigger and older than I, so much so that my confidence as a teenager was basically non-existent for a long time. So, through harsh experience I learned to try the other path with my own children and when the opportunity came to lose the plot and get angry I tried to find something positive to say and also explain calmly to the child what shouldn’t have happened and what shuld have happened, and the result, especially long term, of what we do. Many of us today have grown up in broken, violent, homes where much abuse or some dysfunction was evident and that stunts our life-learning. Because of this when our turn comes to be a parent we struggle and make many many mistakes (especially because in this area of life our own parents gave us a bad example or no help at all).

Discovery that our own struggles as parents is not our own fault then next step is to find the best ways to solve our problems that suit not only the innocent child, but the struggling parents, single parents etc. It all works out for the better in the end if the parent/s are educating themselves in parenting because he or she was not taught efficiently growing up or where given bad examples to follow. Being a single dad was worth it, and even though we were struggling financially, I would not go back in time and change anything, because of so much that I learned from my children and about myself and the amazing character building experience we get from bringing up our children.

That is an excellent quote Bruce Simpson. I remember how I felt the first time I read it. If good people don’t do anything about the wrongs of the world then the wrongs will just continue. I have always been greatly appalled at the unjust and cruel treatment of children and animals. In general they cannot help or protect themselves so we the adults must stand up for them and protect them, even with our lives if need be.

This kind of project needs the support of the local council or at least the people need to stand up to the council and demand support, the people (are we fed up enough of the current situation to volunteer our time and effort to making the town a better place, cleaner, safer and to change our values for the good of all? Or will we wait until things becomes intolerable and finally see that what is happening is fruitless and change is needed that will create a new positive area?), local businesses (who would gain good honest workers, less crime, less vandalism to their shops and workplaces etc). Basically the whole town must get behind it. All the fruits of materialism are killing us, harming our young, focusing the people on what is not good for them, and causing us all much grief and misery that does not need to happen. The Police would be behind anything that will support less crime and a safer community. Schools can be brought in, religions of all faiths, all working together for the greater good of all. But have we yet had enough to want groundbreaking change, or shall we go through this for another few years, decades etc?

Please accept what you cannot change – and be positive about what you can change.
Do something about what you can change, make a commitment and be sure of your effort to get the best results.
Dreams come from actions, they are only dreams before you take action, then they turn into reality.
So get real with your dreams!

Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen. -Michael Jordan.
It is in the “doing” that things happen. Wishing, hoping and worrying won’t make your dreams come true.
Finally there comes a time when we have to gather up our courage and do what needs doing on our part to make things happen.
That is when our dreams finally come true.
This is when you truly learn to respect and love yourself because you have the courage to stand up for what you want, what you believe in and what you really care about from the bottom of your heart and soul.

Do what you wish. Live your dreams. Look deep into your heart and soul and you will find what you are looking for, and when you find out, your dreams will only come true when you have the courage to live your hearts desires.

I love having a fire going. It’s lovely. As for Tokoroa weather, chilly as usual 🙂 C’mon Springtime.

Many people will not be alive tomorrow, yet most of them will have no idea that today is their last day alive on earth.
If you live, hope, and love like today is your last day alive you will be so happy.
Then you will take those risks, say what you feel, reach out to others in a way that simply does not care what the crowd thinks.
Wisdom is learning not to live to please people, but to live to be who you need to be.

When first really thought about regrets I was overwhelmed by my mistakes and also what I could have and should have done in the past.
If we have matured as human beings from child to adult we should be confident, have the courage to try things out, face challenges with the hope of success and the stubborn will to have a go.
The reality is that there would be no real regrets for people who are confident about themselves and life, because they know that even if they failed he or she still had a go, still tried to do what he or she thought might work, and with failure comes an ever stronger desire to try something else to achieve the goal, or to take another route, or to refresh the goal and make it more achievable.
Happiness is health, good people who are like us (Not necessary family) and doing what we have decided during our life that are the things that we think are the most important for us, even if the crowd laughs, even if the crowd is agaisnt what we desire.
Happiness is doing what we want to do, and the amazing feeling of going agaisnt the grain, stirring up the waters, and rocking the boat to get people moving and desiring change for the better for all.

By gosh, life can be so all exciting, inspiring, fun and joyful, if, and only if, we live life our own way and damn the torpedoes in the waters ahead, go and have a shot at it anyway! 🙂
If we have a go, and even if it seems that we will fail, and we go agaisnt everyone’s advice and do the thing that has been on our mind for ages, then we have no regrets.
Often it is not about achieving the goal itself, but having a go and trying to achieve the goal, then we know that we did our very best, and that is all that we can ask of ourselves.
And often in success true stories we will find that those that had a go, failed, had another go, failed again, tried another way, then another way, and then wow, got the goal. For some they discovered that the goal wasn’t really what they wanted in the end, and they went in the opposite direction and did something else, but there were no regrets trying in the first place for the goal that they didn’t achieve. And of course there is the wonderful feeling of drowning in the happiness of success and triumph agaisnt the odds that were heavily stacked agaisnt us.
But the most important thing is people and love. It is the heart that really matters in the end, and the people who have your heart, they have your soul.
They are your people, your tribe, your enjoyment, they help create your good health, long life, and good times.
They are the most important thing for all of us. In the end, even if we are poor, rich, or on the high seas, if we are with the people that really count to us in our heart, then we are doing what we absolutely want to do with the people who we want to do it with.
 Life does not get any better than being surrounded by genuine love. Home is not a building, that is a house. Home is where your heart really longs to be! ♥

People are more important. I discovered that with my first tow children.
The first one I spent a lot of time with, but by the time young Rachel was born the debts grew so I did lots and lots of overtime, I regret that now because I missed valuable time with Rachel as a child.

Thats awesome Billie Swenneker. They helped me too. I left my cell phone in the changing rooms a while back and went home.
Someone gave it to the staff and they held it for me. I was so happy because I had no idea where I had lost it 🙂
I am much more careful now. Dave is a nice guy, and so are the rest of the staff there.

Aha, you found me Maureen 🙂 It is always a pleasure stopping and talking with you both. I always enjoy the conversations 🙂

You look out the window and you see that person laughing, singing, skipping along, happily chatting with children, and you note that this person does not care at all what others think about their open display of innocent fun.
Then you look at your own life. “Are you openly expressing your feelings and doing what really makes you happy?”
If not, then you must ask yourself if you are really happy or are you people pleasing?
° If you long to be as free, happy, easy going, confident and as courageous as the person out the window, you are a slave to people’s views, opinions and are very possibly being dominated (by a narcissist type).
° Freedom is skipping down the road with the very people who are doing what you want to do. These are your people, and who your heart wants to be with.
° Do what is best for you, or you will never be happy.
° All the best from James M Sandbrook.

Yes, but the important thing is to realize that you are not responsible for how others treat you.
They are suffering their own doubts, demons, regrets, issues, etc and many react to people and situations according to who they are (who they have become).

How they are is how they are. How other people are in attitude and how they treat you is a reflection of what kind of people they are, not what kind of person you are.

Tracy Perkins, Grace Grace Indiana Sandbrook. Racheldeep Kaur Badwal.

Hope is what stops us from giving up even when it seems that the whole world is against us. I know for me it was very hard when people lied about me, opportunities were lost, and it made me very sad. This went on for a few years, but each day I got to try again, year after year I made new friends and life got better. It can be really hard, but if you live with a song in your heart, a smile on your face, and you want to help make others happy more joyful times come and better people come into your life. Be strong, and please don’t ever give up on you.

The foundation that a child needs to become a capable confidence courageous adult must be based on personal experiences and “Life-knowledge”.

With a strong foundation below the young adult then he or she can stand up strong to life’s challenges, trials, good and bad times etc.
○ The cosmetic industry was designed to groom young females into believing that the make-up that they wear is who they are. In business they say that the clothes that you wear make you, they don’t, but it is supposed to boost a person’s confidence when he or she is wearing a super expensive suit and it is supposed to impress top executives etc, but it doesn’t, because they are looking for mental ability and they know all about people wearing to dress for success. The whole idea was invented to sell expensive suits and to boost the sales of the fashion industry.
 * Example: There was a female who decided that I liked her. She became fixated on me and what she thought was my attention on her. My children and I were amazed at her vanity, and everytime she saw us as she drove by she would flick her hair up and look at us in the most arrogant self-loving vanity I had probably ever seen. It was sad to see, but what was worse was that it was distressing to see how much this female adored herself to the extent that she believed that men/or a male could not live or breath without thinking of how adorable she is. Take of her skin and she is as gross as we all are without skin. Also she believed that her looks were a valid way to get through life. What this female didn’t know as she flicked her blonde hair in vain at me was that I had already been through a few versions of hell with females and respected myself not to allow myself to weaken for some vain pretty face that would only adore herself more than anyone else, and would be hopeless when the hard times came. These kind of women are of no consideration to the mature thinking man who really wants the best for himself and that goes far beyond a woman’s looks.
* A female who believes that her clothes and make-up, false eyelashes etc make her something special is completely losing the whole point of life, learning, personal growth etc. But worst of all her personal foundation, the structure below her holding her up is made up of flimsy sand and when she has to deal with some challenge or stress she completely collapses unable to cope or find a solution.
 This is because fashion and looks are not something to help a person think, use logic or common sense, they are simply something to look at. Before a female is believed when she cries wolf, a careful look at her life, mental stability etc should also be taken into consideration.
And also does she have a history of believing that guys are stalking her or are after her. Sympathy and attention are very attractive to those who have a sandy foundation below them, because they have very little self belief and few actual capabilities to get them through life,so they need to rely on something so weak as looks and clothing to make them noticed and to feel important to others.
○ Weak-minded vain females make false accusations because they assume that they are so attractive and that men cannot resist them, especially young adult females, because they are still mentally developing, and a few years in front of a mirror can be a misleading guide to life. And they love the sympathy and attention they get playing the poor victims. ○ We need to teach young females to think and then they won’t go with guys who only value them for their looks and not their capabilities and mind.
A female who respects herself for all that she is will not let herself be taken by some man who does not value all of her, her mind, body and soul. ○ The spiritual foundation that the young need is of self worth, because they need confidence, to be responsible decent people who have courage and are capable of facing life in a mature honest manner – and none of this can be achieved by fashion, looks, cars, house, wealth etc – the work of life must be done from within the soul to create a person who won’t collapse when faced with the difficult issues of life.
♥
All the best from James M Sandbrook.

That is what depression is about. Depression has us thinking that there is no hope for us and no future happiness. But depression is a lie, because as long as we are alive we can try, and life will get better as long as we have hope and do the best that we can be with the right people.

Freedom is having the right to do what you think that you should do according to your beliefs.
You have the right to set boundaries, the right to stand by them, the right to choose your own future path, and the right to choose who to spend it with.
○ You have the right to make mistakes, to fumble, to fall, to slip up and then try again. You were not born perfect, and neither were these who try to tell you what they deem as right or wrong for you and your future.
○ It is in this falling, making mistakes, slipping up etc that you learn. “You Do Not Learn” when others guide you to do this or that according to their views and opinions.
They have made enough mistakes in their own lives and they stuff up daily in many ways, why would you want their mistakes and failings to be yours as well, you have enough of your own.
○ If you choose the difficult path of trial and error, the one of struggles and discoveries, you will progress, grow spiritually in courage and confidence, and while you are walking that amazing path you will also find yourself, and then finally your life will make sense.
 ♥
All the best from James M Sandbrook.

Exactly, and the story of lies grows and grows, and like the paper spread around by the wind the lies are spread and the dislike of the innocent person grows and grows.
Gossip and lies are always done by cowards who hide in shadows because they don’ t have the guts to face the people they talk about face to face in public, because if they did then they would be found out to be the gutless wonders that they really are.
You see here on Facebook, on our profile pages or even on the Genuine Tokoroa Page the liars and gossipers who try character assassination haven’t the guts to say what they say about a person behind their back, and that proves that they are liars and cheats.
My advice is always that if someone tells you stories about someone, ask them to say them face to face with the person they are taking about and see then if they have the guts to do that. If they don’t then the yellow stripe of cowardice shines clear up their backs as they only have the courage to talk about people behind their backs.

My daughter Grace was taking about this to me recently and she said that people who gossip and lie have small mind thinking. The damage from lies and gossip can travel on from person to person, family to family for many years causing sadness and misery for the innocent person and his or her family.

Good on you Wayne. I too am very passionate about the subject and have been helping people for years counselling (Internationally) and giving advice to the younger generations, married couples, the abused, people of all races, and in all forms of employment, from the rich to the poor, and helping people wishing to end their lives get back on track and see that they have some worth in the world and they are loved and needed. It has been a very interesting experience, sometimes an experience that brings me to tears, but I do feel that nothing is more worthy than giving your help, heart and soul to others without wanting anything back I heavily promote giving, helping and doing what we can without expecting any returns for our efforts. Some teenagers and young adults have written to me and asked me to post motivational and helpful material on the Genuine Tokoroa page to help them out because they don’t get that back at home. That is why I post here.

You are being defensive Wayne Hill. I have always known you to be a staunch Labour supporter and union man, so I had (assumed) that your view of the issues mentioned was more biased towards the Labour party.
Maybe that was an assumption. My years of study of the human mind, psychology etc, motivation and the like lead me to a different view of the situation.
 I 100% believe that no political party on earth at this time has the mental ability of finding an answer because it is them that is creating the problem. It is harder to see the problem when you are on the inside.
So they remain completely committed to doing the same repetitive things that fail year after year regardless of who is in power.

That’s the reply I expected from you Wayne. You completely missed my point. The problem is the system.
And yes, Labour is as guilty as National in not addressing the problem, completely.
When the foolish are in power and are dedicated to themselves, the honest public suffer. For all of Labour and National’s big talk of change, very little changes under either of them for the common folk.
Suicide, child abuse, domestic violence are all on the increase. Clear evidence that the system is failing the people.

Wayne Hill, if my guess is right, you have a definite dislike of the party in power but not the system itself.
Both National and Labour are the problem. Having more money, more things and more jobs will solve nothing.
The issue is the toxic society that people are struggling to survive in, it has nothing to do with jobs or the economy. It has everything to do with the mental health of our young and adults.

I think that there is something for everyone in this article. The first time I read it years ago I was nodding my head all the way through it.
Society is often so confusing, untruthful and misleading and our lives become like that, so it is good to have that enlightening article that wakes us up and leads us back to wondering what is really important in our lives and what is it that we have become, and what is it that we really need in our lives that will make us happier and make us more useful etc.

Braden Karl, a bit of advice. Don’t come on too strong.
From personal experience I found that some modern females cannot tell the difference between a guy who is very enthusiastic about her and a stalker.
You may find the cops on your doorstep telling you to stay away or someone threatening you because the female you are interested in doesn’t understand your good intentions.
If this is the right thing for you it will happen, nothing will stop it, and all will be good. I, for one, hope that this turns out to have a happy ending 🙂

Thanks Elizabeth. I try to encourage because when I was growing up there were very few people who encouraged me,and I remembered what that felt like. I remember feeling alone, helpless, and not coping well at all. I used those negative feelings that I grew up with to give me a desire to take people away from feeling as I did. When I first discovered God I thought that now was the time to reverse the past. I knew that I couldn’t undo all the wrongs, mistakes and foolishness that I had done in the past because some people had left the country, were out of reach, and some had even died. But I was going to try my best to not hurt anyone anymore and try to bring hope to people, and let them know that there is a reason for living, and that each and everyone of us has talents and can help change our own little corner of the world. What good we do today puts our life on a positive path for the future. What good we do for others gives them hope, helps them feel worthy, and helps them believe in life and living. If we encourage and help for free then people can see that there are people who are not interested in profiting from other peoples misfortune, struggles and hard times. I really want to set change for the positive in people’s lives. I could write a book, but then poor people in Africa, the ghettos etc won’t be able to afford it. So giving away my life learning for free helps teenagers, housewives, business people, teachers, and people who are so poor that they struggle to feed themselves and their own families. I get international messages of thanks from people from all parts of the world in many different situations, and some of the positive thanks has me in tears because I am grateful that I was able to be of some assistance and help. Many people around the world cannot afford to get help, especially in the poor countries, so they use Internet cafe’s and the like to get help over the Internet. Materialistic societies are not very well geared up to help those who they feel are of no profit. So many people miss out on help and care when they desperately need it. By doing this I can help, lead from experience and do it because I care and not for profit of any sort. We have a wonderful world. And if we took the human race off the planet it would run efficiently and all would be good. This is clear evidence that the problems that the world is facing today is a human problem. This is something that we can fix, there is much hope for a wonderful future for the children yet to be born, and their parents.

What we sow we shall reap. What we give out to others will someday come back to us. If we really want a good future full of love, compassion, charity and looking after one another then we need to plant those values in the children of today, and then they will grow up to be kind, caring responsible adults who will fix up all the mistakes of the past and create an amazing future.

It is a requirement for peace of mind and happiness to look after ourselves. It is not selfish to do what we can to meet our needs, it is common sense.

I hope it turns out alright for you too, Braden. Tokoroa has some really nice woman here. As Vinnie pointed out, your ‘go get her attitude’ is to be admired.

My gosh you are brave putting this up on Facebook, but then again maybe many of us have missed out on love because we didn’t do anything when we saw someone who knocked us off our feet . Good on you! 🙂

Excellent comment Elizabeth. Those that we love are more important. Making memories and spending quality time with those who are special in our lives should be at the top of our attention list every day.

That’s cause we are an awesome bunch in Tokoroa 🙂

My pleasure!

I have put the image on the Tokoroa Day Facebook page (Amber Lockley) and the Positively Tokoroa Facebook page. You should be able to share them from there. I think that the settings need to be changed in this group to allow sharing of images. Have a great day!

For some of us we get into the habit of negative self talk when we have been talked to like that through our childhood, especially from adults.
We are told to respect and obey adults, we are told that adults are always right, so when we are verbally put down and abused by them it is hard to believe as a child that they are wrong.
And with time we lose our feelings of self worth, we ignore our achievements, and we can really dislike ourselves. As time goes on and those negative adults and other people leave our life we find that we automatically and subconsciously repeat the negative things that they once said to us. And we repeat them when we do something wrong, like for instance a simple negative mistake.
* Example: I was once in an office with a professional business woman who was doing some work for me. She made a simple mistake on the form that she was filling out and she palm slapped her forehead hard and called herself a stupid idiot. What she was doing was repeating what she had been called when younger (more than likely by family). It does not matter what you have achieved, how much money you have, or what your title, job and education are, if you were a victim as a child by other people, you will more than likely have picked up their negative banter and are today repeating it to yourself in your own mind, and wondering why is it that you are so negative and dislike yourself so much, and have low self esteem.
* If we lived with an older brother or sister, parent or relation who really liked to point out our failings and then make a big negative song and dance out of it then we probably now do it to ourself as an adult, but we have forgotten why, or who mistreated us.
We do a simple small thing wrong and we spent the next hour bashing ourselves mentally for the mistake, even though the mistake was nothing much at all. Martin Luther King Jr said that we can only hate when we are taught to hate. The same applies over negative self talk. If you talk down to yourself then the reason for this is not you, it was taught to you by someone else. No one is perfect, and from this we can know that all people make mistakes, all fail at times, all struggle and all are amazing, constructive in our own ways, and useful.
We really are amazing and incredibly versatile. And just as we should be encouraging, kind and forgiving to others, we need to be this for ourselves. We need to be constantly mindful of what we think, say and do, and make corrections and stop the negative talk and replace it with a focus on our achievement’s, what we want in the world and our good hearts. So please be careful about what it is that you say to yourself, because you are always listening to what you say, and you can convince yourself over a period of time that all the negative talk you say about yourself is true, when it isn’t. You are as good as anyone else alive. You just shine in your own special way. You may not be loud like the sports star, or the rock star, you may be quiet and in the background all the time, that is fine. Just keep shining, believing in yourself, and keep being the best that you can be, and be gentle on yourself, you deserve that.

We see what we see due to what we know and have experienced. If all we have known is negative and seems hopeless then that is what we can come to believe in as the truth and all that is possible. That is why we need hope, faith, and a belief in all that is good. Hope that true love and true people will be a part of our life. Hope that true people exist, hope that you will find true love. Faith in ourselves and if we care to, faith in God making it happen. Faith in love, faith in marriage. Love is where all things are good. Love has no cruel judgements, love does not keep a record of wrongs, or care how much money you have, love can live in the ghetto or a wealthy home. Many people today are brought up in homes that show no love. The poor home can be just as cruel as a rich home. And as a child if we see little of love, we tend to grow up thinking that what we saw was all that love is, or that what we lived is an example that love is not possible. Love, a happy life journey, can be a part of every humans life. But if our vision is based on hopeless thought’s, disbelief and negatives, then all that we will see all be dismal and disbelief. Please note that happy people are happy. People who have hope see opportunities ahead of them, they believe in life and they have a go believing that they have a chance of success. Pessimistic people go through life with eyes half closed to opportunity, while optimistic people go through life with their eyes wide open. Negative thoughts have us trying to avoid challenges and opportunities, positive thoughts have us searching for opportunities to have a go, and excited when challenges come our way. Imagine playing sports in a team. You are excited when the pass comes your way and you give your run all you have, or you are excited when you get to shoot for goal. Imagine the player who dreads the pass coming their way, or is frighted to have a short at goal. See the difference. Life is what we make it, but we need a good foundation below is to help us prepare for life, and to give us hope. A good soul is a treasure indeed, but we need to be capable of recognising one. To do that we need to be positive and believe that they exist, and we need to ensure that we are a good soul too. We will find what we are looking for, and we will see much clearer if we are looking both eyes wide open and with a hopeful heart.

It is a touching story. It shows the true value of having someone care when we are feeling down.

I don’t homeschool any more, but there was a club that Jennifer Tapatu was running or involved in. A few homeschooling families took their children along to the Balmoral Playcenter across from Balmoral Shops.

One of the saddest discoveries we can make when older is that we should have taken that chance.
Sure there was risk, sure we could have failed, but if we tried we would have learned from that failure and then tried again with a new determination and new attempts. I have read a lot of biographies and I have earned that many successful people have taken risks and not succeeded with what they wanted to do, but from what they learned from the experience helped them greatly later on in life. And also many have got exactly what they dreamed of. This is why people say that you will never regrets trying for what is important to you. One of the feelings I disliked when I was younger was that I would come up with an idea, want to speak out, want to try something new and yet I would do nothing. I would talk myself out of trying, and when the opportunity was gone I would feel sad and think that I should have tried. Because I was tremendously lacking in self confidence and so used to being a failure (in mine and some other people’s eyes) I just assumed that I didn’t try because I was not worth it, or not a winner, not capable etc. No one was there to tell me otherwise.
 ○ One of the things to do is get used to not caring what other people think (especially those close to you) about something that is very important to your heart that you want to do.
Many of us waste so many years, precious moments, excellent opportunities and such simply because we think, “What would my friends think, and what about my family. I netter not try, they would all laugh at me if I failed.” A relation once told me that my her husband had a dream to become a pilot, and he really wanted to do this. But his father got stuck into him and told him that he must get a trade, so he became a plumber and never realised his dream.
Sometimes doing what you are told, even by family, is not what you need.

Only you have your vision and desire to do something, only you. We all need that something to live for, and do. Life is hard enough at times with the unwanted or unexpected challenges that come our way, but it is much worse when we allow ourselves to talk ourselves of what is important to us, and it is especially sad when we worry about other people’s opinions.

Other people’s opinions are simply a reflection of the limitations that that have grown in their own minds. What they have lived, experienced, been involved is etc is what helped them form those limitations that they try to apply to your life. And yes, often, even for family and close fiends, it gives them pleasure to laugh when we fail because they told us that we would fail. I can tell you that it is an awesome feeling showing them all that they are wrong 🙂

The person who is making a statue from a hunk of rock has a vision of what the finished product will be. No one else can see it, and no one else can imagine it as the artist can. It takes a lot of chipping away at the rock and and time to finally show to the world the finished product and of course when they finally see the end result they all will say wonderful things about you, people are like that. They are unbelievers until they see the end result and then they are standing behind you patting you on the back telling you how awesome you are, and for some they even go on how they supported and believed in you from the start. Your dreams may come in a short time or take some time. The important thing is that what you see in your mind is what is important to you. Others have no idea, leave them to their limitations and have a go.
Try and make yourself happy.
Remember please that “Happiness is the journey”, not the goal.
Following your heart and trying will bring you self respect and that will make you happy.
Your life journey is worth you being happy.

A bit of common sense goes a long way.

The thing that we need is for the community to stand strong with each other.
If you are going to wait for local leaders and such to put something together you will be waiting for ever.
They have a separate agenda to what is important to the common folk.

Good communities stand with each other. Men need to stand with the community and be available to help anyone out who is in need of help, and this certainly includes helping people if they feel scared or worried about going to their car or to an ATM and back to their car. I have no problem walking someone from their car to the ATM and back to their car to help keep them safe or to help them feel secure or put off robbers etc. There is no harm in asking someone you trust if you are suspicious of people or what is going on around you. And for your safety sake don’t use your cell phone going to and from the ATM. If you arrive at an ATM and you see suspicious people or activity, or you just don’t feel good about the place then drive on.

You can get your money at another ATM or the next day.
When I had my Great Dane I would walk to town at night with him, and when using the ATM with my dog at my side at night all the people were well behind me because of the dog. I had no worries about the people behind me at all 🙂 If two people are at an ATM and they don’t feel safe about the situation one can call someone and talk on their cell phone while the other uses the machine. It may or may not stop the intended robbery, but it can warn the person on the other phone that something is wrong or that something bad has happened if the phone suddenly goes dead, and they can go have a look. Also, always let people know where you are going at night.

And if you vary off the chosen path too much then ring someone and tell them. Please remember to always trust your instincts. Even if the situation looks safe and there appears to be nothing to worry about, if it doesn’t feel right, then don’t do it. There will always be another day, but if attacked or abducted their may not be another day for you. And don’t send your teenagers at night to the ATM to get money out. Dads, husbands and boyfriends go to the ATM’s and shops at night with your female family members. Above all, trust yourself and not what you see. Remember, if it doesn’t feel right then don’t do it! Above all, parents teach your sons to be gentlemen, to be responsibly and to look after other people and protect them.

I see your point. A few years back some friends and I were discussing politics on Facebook and it occurred to me that if the Government or local politics (the local Council) were a business then they would go bankrupt, but they can’t. You see, the politicians covered their backs, they made special laws for themselves to protect themselves and to give them a god mine of cash. What they did was invent taxes that were paid “by law” from our wages, Gst and for rates. By doing this they get a non-stop continuous flow of steady millions each week – so they cannot go wrong, and the leader of the Council or the Prime Minister doesn’t need to be accountable for their own mistakes because they have an endless flow of your cash to cover over the mistakes and to replace the millions that they have wasted on failures etc. We, the public, have no control, and no real say of any of this because of the laws put in, the red tape used to limit the public say and to ward off our demands or wants, and that leaves the Mayor and the rest to play around with all that cash on pet projects that they feel are worthy of their beliefs of what the town should be and have. It is really sad to see such power go to waste when in reality they could do so much for the people.

It is still a wonderful town. Just a few problems here and there and the leadership is leaned towards materialism, profit, and business, and that means a lack of focus on the family and what is really important to the community and people, like good values etc. I like the town, it has a lot of potential for positive growth and improvement.

Yes, I know what you mean. That blonde tried to hit me up for money on Leith Place last week. I had not seen her in a long time so I thought that she had given up the begging, but no, she is still doing it. I think that they are annoying for sure. If I do carry cash around it is very little these days. The camera’s should be a priority. Others places have done it.
As a mobile security guard I have seen that there are a lot of camera’s in schools and businesses here in Tokoroa.
It seems obvious that the streets should have them, and in particular places where money is available like anywhere near ATM’s and banks. I would imagine that they should be considered high risk areas, especially if people have just got money out of the bank or ATM’s.

Part of the reason that I mentioned that they were attractive, is that like the banks they use pretty smiling females as a way to relax the customers and make them feel welcome etc.
Charities and sale companies have realised that pretty young females are a good way relax people at the door and make a sale or get a donation, but it also leaves them unprotected at strangers doorways. So working out a system to help keep track of each other and to keep a constant eye on each other is an excellent idea.

Not at all, they can use another system. The point is that it works and with a bit of imagination other methods (not mentioned that they think up can be used. No doubts charity sites publish this idea and use it as well.

Thats the attitude 😉

Thank Jen James, have a great weekend. God Bless you all 🙂

None of us need to beg others for friendship or to go out of our way just to feel accepted or worthy. Each and every one of us is special, unique and there is none other exactly the same. That makes us an awesome package. Some people out there won’t appreciate the package that you are, but that is fine, because people’s rejection (even family rejection) is how we weed out those who are our people, our spiritual tribe, our real friends. A flower grows in the garden that suits that flower. You grow in heart and soul in an environment that suits you. Anything that drains you of energy, makes you feel disliked, pushed around, unhealthy, abused etc, is only going to turn you into a withered version of your true self and a lifetime of regrets and self pity, a shadow of your true self. The simple facts are that your Garden of Eden is in a place that will help you bloom into the person you were born to be. Your value will be appreciated, your presence celebrated, and your love returned equally as you share it with others. A person grown in the right environment or living in the best environment for he or she will be a person of confidence, feel capable, able to cope with life’s challenges and unpredictable events and happenings, and will not fear the future, or their own choices.

Ok, thanks for that Sian Cox. I had heard something of them before but forgot what it was all about. I was thinking of painting some myself for the children to find too. Its a great idea. I was talking to this boys father and he was telling me that it got the children out of the house and into nature doing things and he is right. Excellent idea.

I think that it is the settings for the page that stop it being shared. You an copy and paste it if you want.

I used to write computer software and train people overseas (sell Delphi programming tutorials etc) and there were many times where I would input logical code, and it wouldn’t work. In theory it worked, on paper it was fine, but in reality when the code was run it didn’t work or it created a random act, or created a bug that would need fixing. It was frustrating but also very rewarding work 🙂 Computing is fun but ever-changing and sometimes very frustrating.

When a person is brought up in a violent, abusive, loud, bad language home they can struggle as a young parent later on.
As a teenager I swore on a regular basis, it was what we all did at home. It is what my parents did. But the day I saw my eldest use bad language as a 3-4 year old I was made very aware that they did hear what we say and that they do copy us. If we yell in the home, are pushy, loud etc our children pick it up. I once asked my eldest (because I was teaching her about sports) about the referee in an All Blacks game.
And she said, “He is the blind one!” And that answer came from watching daddy yelling at the ref while watching a game. She was picking up my habits, views and feelings abut the referee. I am sure that the referee’s deserve more respect than what I was showing my children. 🙂 Violence, smoking, disrespect for the opposite gender, undeserved disrespect for authority, drug abuse, bad language, etc all can come from the parents and not from school. They can just continue it at school and influence other children to have bad habits. No parent is perfect, and there never will be a perfect parent, but doing our best is trying to be aware of the bad habits that we pass on to our own children. It is like handing them a curse that they didn’t need that will burn their lives for many years to come.

My view about smoking, which I did for many years was, “Just because I do it does not mean that it is good for me, and it certainly is not good for my children.” I remember in Huntly with my sisters after one of my parents rages smoking the half smoked cigarettes lying around in dirty ashtrays (if that was what they were, could have been marijuana for all we knew), drinking the alcohol out of the half empty glasses and walking around and in-between human bodies that had passed out from their stoned drunken binges. I was probably around 8 or 9 years old and could have even been doing this at an earlier age, it is just that this is what I remember at the age of 9. We were trying to copy the parent examples that we had. Our parents did this, so we do this. No one was awake to stop us, and no one cared anyway.

We all went on to smoking, some drugs. Our parents were our starting point to disaster. Please, for the sake of your small children, give them a good example as best as you can. Whatever bad habits you have, if you remove them then it will be better for your mind, body and soul, and especially for your future relationship with your children and your own future. The horror of being the example that got your children addicted to something that ills them later on cannot be an easy things to handle for any parent. Be tough on yourself, no excuses, make your life count for the good it can be for the younger generations that need a helping hand, the helping hand that many of us didn’t get when we were younger. The little ones deserve a good shot at life from a decent starting point.

My Ginger walks with me somtimes. They are special cats.

The story shows that there are two sides that we can look at the blind person’s situation from.
And when we look at blindness from our own personal point of view, we discover with sadness in our hearts and tears in our eyes what the blind person is missing, and that we can take our own eyesight for granted.
It is so easy to walk away from other people’s suffering, to focus on our own people, family etc.
 ===
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other person’s frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another’s position. Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the “heart” of another. – Wikipedia.
===
 If our society was based more on empathy we would all surely be much happier people, grateful for what we have, sharing and giving away to others because we care for them, all of them.

We need to teach our daughters to distinguish between a man who – flatters her and a man who compliments her, a man who – spends money on her and a man who invests in her, a man who – views her as property and a man who views her properly, a man who – lusts after her and a man who loves her, a man who – believes he is God’s gift to women and a man who remembers that a woman is a gift to man. – Author Unknown.
 °
We need to teach our daughters that innocence is something to want, that love is a powerful fuel to a happier life, to look forward to having a new family, and that gentleness does not mean that she is weak, it means that she is kind and someone worth knowing and loving.
We need to teach our daughter’s to love themselves so they will have the confidence to deal with life and know how to enjoy it as the years progress.
We need to listen to our children because they have something to say, they are people too and need our love and respect too. Just like sons, daughters are treasures to bless our lives.
Remember that the more time that you put into something with love, that is what you will get back – your sons or daughters love is worth more than money, so share your time freely, because they need you even if they don’t say so.
°
 All the best from James M Sandbrook.

“We must teach and show our girls by example that the only path to real confidence, self-worth and fulfilment starts on the inside. No amount of frosting will make a flavourless cake taste good.” – Liz Dennery Sanders.

I understand your pain. Any sort of situation like this is not going to feel comfortable for the real victims. But sadly when we are treated like this it is really out of our hands and the only real positive thing we can do is to step back and get on with our own lives and see what develops in the future. The sad thing too is that the one playing the victim gets away with it for so long. Those who listen to the victim become victims in a way too, because they are being sucked into believing the lies of someone who is twisting the truth to gain their faith, trust, friendship and help. They think that they are helping someone who is in real need or protection etc, but in reality they are being seduced by a professional narcissist-type who knows what they are doing to get people to believe their side of the story and ignore ours or not even listen to our side of the story. For me, no one asked my side of the story, they just took the word of the liar and assumed that I was in the wrong because they were told that I was wrong. Wow, what a society when it treats lies and gossip as facts and then act on those lies and gossip as if they were truth. ○ Years ago a girlfriend was having affairs and when we broke up because of it she told everyone who would listen that it was me that was having the affairs. I found out when a relation of hers went on to me about how it was bad and dishonest to muck around on your partner and she kept hinting that it was me that did it, and I was shocked that these people who knew me and knew that I didn’t do that sort of thing still believed her rather than ask me. 🙁 Sad stuff for sure. Not being allowed to respond is sad, and unfair. I know exactly how you feel. All we can do is keep being positive about our life, have hope for the future, do our own best and hope that those who were lost along the way due to being gullible will one day discover the truth. Some won’t of course, some never do. But some will, and for you I hope it is the family that you miss. I do hope that something awakens them and they see the truth finally.

It is sad when people do this. Happened to me, I lost friends and was shocked that people believed the victim so easily and without proof of my so-called guilt. This can be very frustrating and can make a person very bitter and angry, so it takes some realistic thinking and removing oneself from the situation and those people to come out of it on top. What I would tell myself is that if I kept being the good person that I am then eventually people would see that they had been fed lies and who fed them these lies, and then they would come to understand the truth and what really happened. It takes time, but healing comes our way and finally other people will eventually understand and change their views of us. The one who played the victim is found out and then the real victim is known. It just takes time and faith that it will work out in the end.

The Bible is a book about change.
Change from one lifestyle to another, from living in one toxic Belief System to another.
This change is slow, painful, and of long suffering.
Jesus taught about change and what type of person we need to be to have a fruitful wonderful world and our own healthy Heaven on Earth. Sadly the Bible is a book that is interpreted to mean many things based on materialism and many have become businesses and such, but if we look at the things that Jesus said we see a pattern about love, compassion, of doing good because it meant that being good outweighed the evil in the world and blanked it out, and this created more good and more thankfulness and love. Jesus taught awarenesses of the bad in society, awareness of the lost in society and the blind leading the blind.
He taught about the churches being based on selfishness, hypocrites, greed, about money being the goal of the church and not love and compassion.
This book is not about the power of positive thinking, it is about facing facts and if we apply it to our lives we have more positiveness than we ever had under the toxic ways of materialism.
Jesus taught about looking at ourselves truthfully, and understanding who we have become under the umbrella of a society based on materialism and the love of money.
Positive thinking is great to a degree, but being too positive blinds us from the many truths that are negative, and we must understand both yin and yang to understand what is really happening around us and who is doing what to the masses and why they are doing it, and why we simply sit back and like blind sheep we allow it. Being free, which Jesus taught, was about being free form “all captivity.”
Jesus was very heavy on change from being a narcissist person to becoming a person who loved his or her people.
Jesus was all about us all being spiritual brothers and sisters, helping one another, forgiving, repenting from doing wrong, helping the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc.
Jesus was all about teaching people to be decent and having good moral standards because decent meant fairness, cleanliness, good communities, and the same with being unselfish, having empathy for others who are suffering, giving our best to others, giving a hug, listening to those who need help, not returning evil for evil or hate for hate, but being a Good Samaritan to a stranger in need and not just helping a person we know and ignoring those we don’t know.
Jesus knew that materialism of that time meant people thinking with apathy, selfishness, caring for their own goals and self satisfaction (lust, greed, gluttony etc) and the result was crime, weak minded people, laziness, greed etc, nothing good.
Much as it is today.
 Jesus was all about change in the heart and soul. And that change means that all things become new, new opinions based on being a good person, about love, about becoming like a child in innocence, about being charitable, and not making people beg or hold their hand out before we help them.

I was a bit disappointed because I had no cash on me when I saw them. I had no idea it was happening.

Good value for sure!

There are so many unbalanced relationships these day struggling to survive and unable to see what the problem is and why their lives are falling apart.
I know many people right now who are in relationships and the other partner is taking advantage of this person, using them, asking far more than he or she will give back, and that makes the relationship unfair, uncaring and the advantages far too much towards one person while the rest of the family are missing out. Respecting ourself is not allowing people to treat us this way. It is not judging the other person, it is seeing the truth. There is politically correct thing going on for some years now that you cannot state a fact because you will hurt someone’s feelings. That was just invented to stop people defending themselves against narcissists etc. They say, “You can’t judge me!” but the reality is you are not judging that person, you are seeing the truth, facing the truth and making valuable adjustments to your own life to help and protect yourself from a relationship that is doing you more harm than good. Respecting yourself is knowing that you deserve better than being in a relationship that is bent more favourably in the direction of the other person and he or she will not change so that the relationship is equal. ○ A balanced relationship is where both people are equally giving as the other. Both share, care, forgive quickly and apologize quickly, and really want to be with the other. It could be romance, parents and children, teacher and student, government and the people. local political people and the common folk. ○ If the government is taking too much and not giving back the same to the people then that is a dictatorship, same as with the local council, or in marriage. The people, you, all of us, we deserve to be treated as equals with those in authority, we pay their way, we give them the power, we must demand that they honour faith and trust that we put in them by giving us what we need for healthy living and a good life. ○ In marriage two became best friends, lovers, and givers of the heart. It only works if both have the same dreams, family and life values, ideas and feelings about life, and especially if they both have the same feelings for each other. If they share their hearts and lives equally with the other nothing could ever come between them and ruin the love.

My pleasure. Glad you like it. I love the message of such stories, and many of them I can relate to them in my own life. I hope to post many more.

It is always good to see the students out making an effort, especially for fundraising. Hope it goes well for them. Hopefully we are in for some sunshine today 🙂

When I was younger I did what all people did and that was make mistakes.
On occasion certain people of strong influence in my life informed me of my stupidity, foolishness, always making mistakes and sentences like, “Can’t you do anything right!”
This only increased my failings and mistakes to levels that no child should have to deal with.
○ Because the comments came from various people I became more and more convinced that they spoke the truth (after all, how could thy all be wrong about me!” I thought), and I became more insecure in character and frightened of making mistakes. I mean who wants to hear what an idiot they are from people who are adults. Because I hated hearing what a failure I was and a disappointment in some people’s lives I took on the task subconsciously of self abusing myself. When I made a mistake I followed it up with insults about what a fool I was and how I should have known better. I probably thought that if I insulted myself first and with much more dislike etc then I would get better and not be such a constant failure and then people would finally like me for who I am. I had taken over the role of abuser. ○ I probably thought that if I insulted myself first and with much more dislike etc then I would get better and not be such a constant failure and then people would finally like me for who I am.
○ It is hard looking up to some people with admiration (especially parents, teachers, (later on) bosses) and then they tell you how they are ashamed of you, disappointed and they show obvious disappointment when you fail or make a mistake (event hough they do this often themselves).
○ What I didn’t know was that I was originally trying the best that I could do for my age and the life I had in a very dysfunctional family. Finally as an adult I was given some motivational books to read, and I was very surprised when I discovered that my thoughts of failure as an adult were doing my life harm and setting my future up for guaranteed failure. At this stage I had pretty much given up on myself. So this new way of thinking and this new attitude they were pressing upon the reader was something that I had never really known. I had sadly become a pessimist, suicidal at times, and I didn’t believe in myself whatsoever. So these books were a big boost to my life. They had positive suggestions and some interesting life examples too. An example is that in the past I always told myself that I had a terrible memory (some had informed me of this previously). After all, I saw the proof all the time, so I was convinced of this. Then one day I refused to listen to that negative thought anymore and I stopped myself saying that I had a bad memory. Often I would say, “I will remember that later.” things like that. And to my amazement, just like the books suggested I discovered that I had a very good memory.
 ○ If you are right now, today, having negative thoughts about your talents, abilities and future, please understand that there is nothing wrong with you, what is wrong is your upbringing, events or certain people in your life, abuses etc. We all have physical weaknesses, we all fail often, we all succeed often. When we can see the failings, mistakes, successes and triumphs as a good thing, as progress, achievements and learning we can accept them, learn, celebrate and move on.
○ What I discovered is that someone can show me what I did wrong, and if that person has the answers then he or she can show me the correct or better way to do it. This is all good, encouraging and progressive. But if that person starts being insulting, raising their voice, taking on an aggressive stance, degrading your worth, and ranting, please understand that “no one” on the planet has the right to talk to you like that, “No one!” Not Even Family!
○ Please be open to constructive helpful and useful criticism that will help you learn, progress and become better at what it was that you are doing. But please never allow anyone to take away your confidence, courage and dreams. The barrage of insults etc is simply a reflection of people who are struggling to cope within themselves and that is why they are so insulting. You are worthy of self respect, kindness and encouragement, believe this because it is true. You make it happen, for you!
 ○ You are allowed to respect, love and care for yourself. Your emotions are tender and they need to be treated with respect.
You are worthy of anything good that this world has to offer. Just do the best that you can do, and encourage yourself all the time about how well you are doing. Look for success and improve on your born-talents, and you will find a new greater happiness within your soul and the future will look much better and worth going for.

It is sad that anyone would make such evil stuff just to hurt others and make money. 🙁

James M Sandbrook is against drug abuse. Seen it all my life, grew up with it, seen good people destroyed by it.
There is no way I would ever support drug abuse. If a person wants drugs to escape reality then modern society has created a pretty sad world for them to live in.
Note too, that the easiest victims are teenager’s, young people just starting to get their confidence, just coming to grips with the struggles of life, just learning to be independent and enjoy the good times, they make easy victims for this evil stuff.
To many young lives burned, society needs some serious changes and we got to protect and support the young.

It is so sad that people deliberately sell such stuff 🙁

Bruce Mason is a great guy. He goes the extra mile. Recommended.

Awesome. You have a wonderful day. 🙂

Happy New Year. Time to start again, look at our life, set new goals, look for new opportunities, think of ways to help others and lift their lives. Lets keep positive and look out for one another. We are all going to travel through 2017 together in some way in our wonderful community, so if we make it easier for each other, help each other out, encourage one another and be there as a listening ear, we can bring the people closer together because we value what is real, good and worthy, and that is people, each other.

Merry Christmas, you two have a lovely Christmas. I am working through the holiday season (Someone’s got to help hold the town together 😉 ). Thanks for brightening up our lives during the Christmas season 🙂

I noticed in town the last week that lots of people have been happy and smiling in the streets, especially at the checkouts and where people are served. It is nice to see that local people are happy and seeing the value of a smile and sharing their happiness with others.

The tall poppy syndrome is a culture where people of high status are resented, attacked, cut down or criticised because they have been classified as better than their peers.
This is similar to begrudgery, the resentment or envy of the success of a peer. The term has been widely used in all the Anglosphere nations. – Wikipedia.

Once described as “the city that almost was”, Tokoroa is certainly a shadow of the bustling town it was around a decade ago, but that’s the case with hundreds of New Zealand’s rural towns, all smacked over by the economic downturn.

All this said, a population pushing 12,000 hardly qualifies as small in terms of NZ townships these days, and it just takes a little scratching around to see what lies below the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it surface.
Why should I move there? It hasn’t been dubbed the home of affordable homes for nothing – so if you want a cheap mortgage look no further than Tokoroa.

And, just to make life even easier on the pocket you can expect a realistic rates bill too, according to the Taxpayers Union.
The lobby group suggests you will be getting bargain for your buck with one of the lowest average residential rates in the country at $1661. Also, being located in the central North Island you are only a hop, skip and a jump away from three vibrant cities, and serious investment from NZ Transport Agency is set to make trips to the likes of Auckland even quicker. Advertisement

Why it’s not for everyone It’s fog-bound, venturing into the supermarket in pyjamas is secretly accepted and you can’t travel far on a windy day without smelling the infamous Kinleith Mill.
While locals seem ignorant of the fumes, those passing through could argue that it’s more potent that the famous pong of Rotorua.

What’s the transport like? Taupo, Rotorua, and Hamilton are all less than an hour away on well-maintained roads, and Intercity buses pass by roughly five times a day. The town itself qualifies for taxis so getting around is no issue and, if you live locally, you’re only looking at a $10-$15 fare to get home from the local pub. Schools Two thriving high schools are located about five kilometres from one another, and with nine primary schools available, you are spoilt for choice. Amenities Fill up on fast foods or bakery carbs because there is certainly no shortage on that front – or indulge in a “healthy choice” *ahem* with Subway. The Warehouse caters to most retail needs, otherwise you can find gems in a few local stores including Morrisseys, and plenty of electronic goods in Noel Leemings. “There is also a heated indoor swimming pool, a reasonably popular golf course, refurbished library and a freshly-transformed 3D cinema.” Fill your car up at any of the three petrol stations and refuel yourself at any of the three, far-too-popular pubs. Where to eat out No one can say it isn’t a cultural town – take your pick of Italian, Indian or Chinese. And if you feel like being a touch posh you can always visit Central Wine and Cafe for a decent steak or seafood chowder. Sports Netball, cricket, rugby, league, polocrosse, volleyball, swimming – you name it and Tokoroa will probably have it. Famous for producing international sports stars, this is one important aspect of any community that the dwindling forest town can rightfully be proud of. Where to buy If you enjoy your privacy you’re better suited to the north side of town – from Baird Rd and everything to the right. Avoid the likes of Kelso St and Dalmeney St. Market values Snatch up a standard three-bed Forrest Products home for $55,000 but be prepared to put some work into it. In contrast, a three-bedroom high-end home on the north side with double garaging will set you back about $270,000. Good cheap rentals don’t come easy. No one seems interested in living in a small, damp box for $85, most opting to fork out $250 a week for something solid, safe and with a decent-sized property. Best buy Mortgagee auctions are coming up with the town’s best buys at the moment, selling anywhere up to 30 per cent below market value. But this four-bed, two-bath home with a cathedral-style ceiling and asking price of $325,000 is the one we’ve got ‘favourited’ in our smartphone at the moment. Notable Tokoroans Tokoroa is a breeding ground for rugby players, with Richard Kahui, Keven Mealamu, Royce Willis and Quade Cooper all boasting Tokoroa connections (Cooper lived there as a kid, leaving for Oz when he was 13). Other famous Tokoroans include novelist Stella Duffy, musician Jenny Morris and Destin Church leader Brian Tamaki (who moved there with his family in 1970). What the locals say Tania Thompson: I’m born and bred here and know it’s cheaper living. Shylah Wirihana: I like how everyone knows each other and how close the community is. Rebecca Russell: I personally like this town. It’s not too big and not too small and it’s got a good bunch of people in it. Barbara Veichelis: If people are looking for cheap houses I think this is a wonderful place to buy one. It’s a quiet town, no traffic lights and not far from Hamilton and Rotorua. – Stuff.

We feel that we are worth something to someone who takes the time țo listen to what is on our mind. It is a healing experience.

Remember that every time you say something that a word, sentence, meaning or feeling can make that person’s day better or worse. You can simply lift up a person’s life with love and encouragements or make it miserable.
○ Please keep this in mind when talking to other people. And if angry try to train yourself to “Stop, Think, Pray and Consider” the other persons feelings.
○ We all have the power to destroy or raise peoples hopes and courage with all the things that we say and do.
○ If we raise peoples hopes and encourage them then we gain good personal relationships and that always brings rewards that are countless and more precious than gold.
♥
All the best from James M Sandbrook.
 November 9, 2012.

It is the message that is important. The message guides people, shows them what is more important in life.

I can see them Graeme Sutherland. I am not a Facebook friend of Ann or Mohan.

Some people think that power is ruling over people, but real power is helping people learn to control their own lives with courage and confidence.

See, you are doing it again! Some words I picked up like [the word] narcissist, then Stockholm Syndrome, and things like that. I wanted to know what was wrong in society, l wanted to help.
My mental health vocabulary is increasing as I study more about what is happening.
But big words like schizophrenia and the like tend to still have me spell checking them.
The names of the medication used in the mental health industry are a challenge, especially since they keep changing. You, yourself, seem to have a good grasp of the language, it’s structure and usage.

Thanks. But I failed everything in school. No training. Big words confuse me.

Imagine if you will, a community that works together, trades its goods, helps one another out regardless of race, or standing in the community.

The enjoyment is in the living, the being oneself without being a fake. All work together to help the other out without wanting to take advantage of another.

Communities like this have existed in past times, but this world we have today is not an empire but a global world based on materialism, and with societies based on material, selfish gain, it can be hard to imagine that anything could be different, peaceful and good.
Of course in any good society there will be ups and downs, but not as we have today. The only reason for the increase in Police, more prisons, more court cases, gangs, violence, alcohol abuse, drug abuses etc, is because of a toxic society that they human being was not created to live in. In this modern society we are like a fish out of water, or a fish in dirty water, it keeps us physically alive but keeps us mentally sick and mentally struggling to cope.

We are putting in a good effort. We are trying to cope, to change, to adapt to this world created by industry, we are trying to make it work because the governments, schools, and leaders tell us that it will work. But it isn’t working. We are not coping.
I heard on the radio today while driving that suicide in New Zealand is on a steady rise.
And it is obvious that no one is able to fix the problem. And the reason that they cannot fix the problem is because a toxic materialistic society is not a natural fruitful environment. People lose hope when there is no love, where they are forced to complete against one another, where they feel unloved, where they feel weak, harassed, not comforted, not encouraged, depressed and not coping well. The mental health system takes the people struggling, tries to show them why they are not coping, they teach them to cope, and then they put them back into the toxic society to choke again. This is why so many people are repeatedly staying in mental health care for life, on antidepressants an o the so called successful medical breakthroughs – but if we have never needed these chemicals all through history why would we need them now?.
○
What the politicians and leaders, health authorities are doing is trying to run a toxic system and pretend that it is successful and hope that the people are so divided, entertained and lost that they have no idea what is really happening all around them. The politicians, banks and rich want us all to stay confused and submissive because we feed them billions of dollars a week as workers (taxes etc) and consumers, Money makes the world go round, and then it ends up in the banks and in the rich peoples pockets.
○
 When people can’t cope the authorities then tell them that they are the problem, and that they have issues, and that they need therapy. But the reality is that 50 years ago they had only started to really use chemicals in the mental health system, and 120 years ago there was barely any mental health issues, and especially not in the huge amount of mentally ill, depressed and suicidal people today. But the scientists, politicians, and “Experts” don’t want you to know, is that the suicidal rate is climbing steadily because they have completely no idea how to stop it. Millions of dollars spent on campaigns on all these issues fail. Look at the text and driving campaigns, the Stop drink driving campaigns running since the 1970s, did any stop it? No. ○ Every year they try the same things and the same result is a growth cancers patients (your family members, friends and coworkers), growth in diseases, in mentally ill, a growth in depressed people on anti-depressants, and more people trying to commit suicide.
○
 We have a choice, the people have a choice, of choosing a world where “money makes the world go round” or “Love makes the world go round”, currently money makes the world go round and look at all the wars, hatred, killing, and commercial that the world has become.
It does not have to be like this! The first step to freedom is to understand is that the “experts” don’t know how to fix this or how to stop it. And the main reason is that the experts are a part of the problem itself.

I had four children, no parents to help me, so much trial and error, but we got through. Just trying to show people that they can have hope for a more enjoyable life.

A good childhood always has children falling over and hurting themselves and learning what is good and not acceptable in a good society. Trial and error is a teaching tool for all children and adults, sometimes we get hurt, sometimes we don’t, and we learn from this what to do that is good and worthy and what to avoid that is harmful to our life. But we can always make life the best that we can, and that should always be an aim as we go from day to day.

There were times in the past where I had become so completely overwhelmed with the misery that I was in that I forgot that there had been good times in the past, good friends and that I laughed and was happy. In that miserable state of mind it is hard to hope, and hard to believe that it can get better. I learned a lot from changing how I see life and the damage a bad attitude is.
○ This is why it is good to remember that we have known good times, and that in our present there are good times, but feeling miserable we may not notice them so well or appreciate good people around us.
Knowing that the past had good times, and that they are happening all around the world to billions of people, we can also know that they will come back to us so we can have hope, because things will get better.
○ The future is not here yet, so now is always a good time to start making choices that will improve our future, instead of random choices that seem like fun but suck up our money, ruin our personal health and drain our resources. Thinking and planning for the future and for a good healthy life (We must look after the engine that takes us through our lives, our body), good eating, fitness, and entering positive material in the mind and soul like good books, movies and the like.
○ The younger generations need to know that their future does not have to be something that they have no control of. They can take all the necessary steps to improve their chances of a healthy, wealthy and happy life.

Developing courage and confidence is far more important than teaching fashion and physical beauty.

A few years ago a local school teacher started a character assassination about me.

The school teacher who told me that I was not allowed to walk down a Tokoroa street because her (then) teenage daughter “was scared of me” and I refused and said it was a public street, from that week onwards the gossip and threats started. It was expertly done and a few professional woman were involved as well. They obviously caused a big successful gossip chain among young Tokoroa people, probably because they thought that teenager were gullible and naive.

The daughter had been in a mental institution and the family covered it up to make out that she had left town to go to polytech. Being very mentally unbalanced the mother and friends taught the daughter when she was released that I was evil and that I had done things and that I was stalking her. I think people supported the school teacher because she was a professional to be respected and all I was a home schooler on the DPB. From then on these things happened. People would yell out of cars at me threatening, waving fists and beeping horns. My letter box got blown up with a homemade bomb. Our house was egged. A local cage fighter threatened me in the street.

The mentally unbalanced female’s friend, a local sports person would give me and my children the middle finger in the streets. When I walked into some shops females (Teenagers mainly or young woman) would run out with terrified looks on their faces. And when delivering pamphlets two females came out of a driveway, and the driver a young woman grabbed her head like at a rock concert at the sight of me and screamed and screamed at the top of her voice as if she thought that I was going to kill her. Her friend in the passenger side stared at her like she was crazy. On another occasion a local man came out with an axe and threatened me when I was delivering pamphlets and then threw the axe down on the ground threatening to beat me up right then and there, he said that I was gay (one of the lies of the gossipers) and anyone who knows me personally knows that I would never be gay. And when he has driven past her gives me the middle finger.

To all of these people I have done nothing. From this I learned. That people need to ask for both sides of a story and not just believe some young female who possibly has her mental wires crossed. Also people need to understand that when a insecure young female gets sympathy for saying that she is being stalked that she very possibly will enjoy that sympathy and will keep milking the cow as they say, trying to enjoy all the attention that she is getting and people flocking around her etc. Another point I discovered is that any innocent thing that a person does after people accuse that person of being a stalker, or whatever, is often seen as a devious act, such as simply walking to the shop, going to town or getting groceries etc. Another point is that narcissists play the victim, but in order to milk that cow they need some innocent person to blame and attack. I am horrified at the thought of how many males have been accused of stalking vain or mentally imbalanced young females and the guys did nothing to deserve it except to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

No doubt more than a few people who know about this will read this, hopefully they will learn more now that they have heard some of my side of the story. A few years back I sent away for my criminal record which is blank and I posted it on the Genuine Tokoroa page because I was sick and tired of my children and I being yelled at, I had to prove that I had no convictions, and had neve been to jail and had no criminal record – imagine that, all from being innocent. I can look after myself so I wasn’t worried about that, I was just irritated with how completely gullible people here are. Gossip as a weapon is very successful, especially for women. It is often called the devils radio station for good reason. It is a sneaky devious tactical war controlled behind doors and out of reach of the poor victim. The gossiper never has to face the victim and if they pretend to be a victim then the gossiper has a good excuse to try to avoid the person who they are victimising. In fact the gossiper or narcissist who plays the victim will in fact be physically protected and the poor scapegoat beaten up by well meaning people trying to protect the narcissist who they think is a victim. As for the daughter of the school teacher I avoid her like she has a disease. Last week I saw her coming towards me and I had a choice of jumping in front of a car to get away or stay and face her and I took the safe option, I jumped in front of the car.

I have no idea how messed up that female’s mind is and what she will do. She will probably start screaming in the street like the one in the car and I ma having none of that. My avoiding her could look like guilt, but in reality it is simply avoiding a potential bomb that could freak out at any moment. A lesson many of us guys learn and that is to be careful around some females because they are not emotionally in control of themselves. Anyway, that is a part of my story of being attacked by gossip and the power of it. Especially how lies and gossip, unproven can get people to spring into violent action on something that they have no idea in reality even happened. By the way, whenever I see the school teacher or her husband (who once threatened me and yelled at me from a distance) they both pretend that they cannot see me even though I am right in front of them. But I am always polite to them and smile, because that is who I am. Overseas my reputation is perfect. People have often invited me to their homes, churches, seminars, to speak, to preach, to help them out in some way, to be a missionary etc. My articles have been read at funerals, weddings, wedding anniversaries, in churches, a few have told me that they often read what I write to their congregations overseas. The images I have created are shown in churches in slideshow’s, are printed and put on walls, and in churches etc) People write to me and seek my advice. But here at home my character has been tainted by the simple “word of mouth” technique called lies and gossip. It is amazing what people will allow themselves to believe without proof.

I will hand them in at the Police station on Wednesday when I go to town if no one comes forward before then. Thanks you.

No, what I mean is that what is done is done.
This is the democratic process that is deemed fair and right by the masses as the correct way to choose people to be their leaders.
Once the voting is done making a fuss about it or complaining is a complete waste of time because nothing will be changed.
The voting is over, counted, and Jenny got the most votes. The best thing that we can do now is to be mature about it and let the new Council (approved of by the people) do what it is that they think is the right thing to do.
They were all, each voted in because those who voted for them trust them.
Now we get 3 years to see what they will do. Some things obviously won’t change with Jenny at the helm. But those who voted for her wanted her, that is the democratic process in action and it is deemed fair and just worldwide.

Nothing to complain about, the people had their say and that should be final.

Narcissist Weapons: PROJECTION Hypocrisy is the narcissist’s middle name. What they say and do when no one is watching is drastically different from what they say and do in the presence of others. Since they are all about maintaining their façade they use projection to rid the chinks in their own character. But since they are the emotional equivalent of a 5 year-old, they magically disown the parts of themselves that tarnish their persona and accuse you of the exact things they’re guilty of doing. Did you ever notice how they will accuse the most generous person of being selfish or having a hidden agenda behind their generosity? The most honest person is accused of being a liar. Their devoted spouse is accused of being unfaithful? The narcissist’s projections are really confessions that reveal what the narcissist is actually guilty of and/or believes about himself/herself. In contrast, emotionally healthy people don’t use projection when they’re on the defensive. When and if they do attack their comments more closely resemble the truth and tend to be more slanderous in nature. Not the outright lies that characterize projection. – Bree Bonchay.

Removing toxic people from our lives is like a breath of fresh air and brings forth feelings of hope for a new life. Toxic people kill confidence and courage to keep people weak so that they can use and abuse them. Freedom, personal growth, hope and new opportunities are the results of departing the company of toxic/narcissist people. Toxic/Narcissists can be family members, parents, Pastors, bosses, work mates, even friends. They are very clever and very tricky. But once one realizes that the relationship is one sided and not in your favour, then it is time to move on where one can bloom into the person of value he or she was born to be.

My pleasure. It was wonderful talking to Lynne, she is a nice lady with obvious talent and ability. Just another person who is a part of your excellent team working for a better future for the South Waikato. Please keep up the good work.

It is always a pleasure catching up with you. You are looking well and cheerful except for that cough.
But like President Lincoln said, “This too will pass!” and you will be soon enjoying a wonderful Summer 🙂 Maybe off to the beach again, visiting your daughter 🙂

It is always a pleasure to talk to them.
They have so much hope for the South Waikato, and have very good ideas on what to do to bring positive change which the local businesses need and the public too.
Just what we need Julie King is positive change and I am sure that Tracey is the one to do it with all her experience and positive attitude.

My children often played at Tainui School, Cargill School and the lake.

My children used to go to the lake, never had a problem. There is a park there, gym equipment, and its a nice walk around the lake. If your children stay on the playground side there are often people there during the holidays with their own children.

When we discover that glamour, money and material gain is not the way to happiness we have reached a new level of understanding and wisdom, that will bless us for the rest of our lives as we make choices that are good for the heart and soul and bring internal happiness.

It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenseless one. Only the ignorant and narrow-minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things. – L G. Lovasik

We all make mistakes and can do foolish things, none are perfect.
We all fail, and succeed many times in our own lives. Once we accept this, life will be much better.
We can then apologize, forgive, and look after each other knowing that we fail just as others do. It is called maturity and having good character.
 °
We have no right to judge anyone. And not even the titled and rich have the right to judge the common people. We are all human beings, and we all deserve the basic rights of life just as anyone else does.
°
All the best from James M Sandbrook.

Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live. – Mae Jemison.

Life review: It is always wise to look back on our past and review what has happened.
What came out good for you?
What did or didn’t work for you?
What led up to bad things that happened to you? Are you following the same path as you did one year ago?
○ We can look back this past year time and think about what happened and use that past history to make sure that we are making the right choices for next year.
We can ask ourselves if we have discovered the real comforters who helped us and changed our life for the better. And have we found the people who limited our life and left us unhappy and unproductive.
○ You have to live with your choices that you make now so do be careful, think clearly about what it is that you want in your future and how you would like your future to go.
Consider the people who you followed in the past and where that led you. It is the person who stops and studies their past history that will not make the same mistakes again.
Be wise! ♥ All the best from James M Sandbrook. September 26, 2014.

We Need To get The Right Help!
 ===================
The worst of agoraphobia is that most sufferers are absolutely convinced that their case is hopeless, that they will never get better.
Even those who continue to fight and hope live with constant frustration. Most first see a family physician who may put them through a number of tests to rule out diseases that might cause similar symptoms.
Since agoraphobia is not a medical disorder, these tests will be negative and the doctor will probably prescribe tranquilizers for anxiety.
Many of those beset by Agoraphobia will go on to consult a psychiatrist or psychologist doing traditional therapy; they, too, prove to be of little help.
In fact many agoraphobic’s find their symptoms worsening in such therapy because there is insufficient focus on teaching the agoraphobic how to cope with everyday anxiety, panic and avoidance, which are immediate sources of severe distress.
When these skills are not learned, the agoraphobic becomes progressively more discouraged and out of control. – Dr Alan Goldstein.

Trusting yourself: When you were young, like all children, you used your parents’ approval or disapproval as a gauge to determine whether you were good or bad.
Because the approval of your toxic parents was so distorted, that gauge often required you to sacrifice your own version of reality in order to believe in something that didn’t seem right to you.
As an adult you may still be making that sacrifice…
You will discover that even when your parents don’t agree with you or don’t approve of what you are doing, you will be able to tolerate the anxiety because you don’t need their validation anymore.
The more self-defined and independent you become, the less your parents are going to like it. Remember, it is the nature of toxic parents to be threatened by change. Toxic parents are often the last people in the world to accept your new, healthier behavior.
That is why it is so important for you to trust your own feelings and perceptions… …it is up to you to free yourself from the destructive rituals of your family behavior patterns.
As you gain more control over your past and present relationship with your parents, you will discover that your other relationships, especially your relationship with yourself, will improve dramatically.
You will have freedom, perhaps for the first time, to enjoy your own life. – Dr Susan Forward.

The worst criminal is probably “tradition”, but also “patriotism”, and “our so called comfort zone”, anything that gives us this false sense of security that “Because it was always done this way, then this must be the right way to do it.”
 ° In a second there is multi-billions of changes all over the world, and far more in the universe. Change is as natural as breathing. But we can get caught up in family, cultural, political, ruts that after a few decades have lost their worth, but we cling to them defiantly because we are creatures of habit and in doing so we don’t progress. We think they we are doing the right thing, but instead we are just playing it safe and accepting what we know, and don’t want to risk something that hasn’t been tried before.
° If we don’t change we are like still water, eventually we become stagnant, deterioration seeps in, imagination is dulled, less chances are taken, and people tend to accept their fate that “life will not get better”.
The people repetitively do the same things, have the same false hope in the same failures, and the people sometimes complain and complain, but they have lost self-confidence and decades of sinking in a downward spiral has dulled their courage. In the end their greatest risk is driving downtown to get their groceries.
° This is why we need to stand behind people who wake us up and lead us in a new direction. These people are motivating, they inspire people to try new things, to get going, to have a go. Only risk and trying new things will change your world. They stir up the pond, rock the boat, and upset the old ways. But they bring progress, new life, excitement and positive change that is for the greater good of all.

When we stop supporting the corrupt people in power and the system that is destroying us, life will finally change as we see in each other hope, love, help and friendship.
Wanting change is pointless if we don’t act. If we want change, a new beginning and a life that our children will grow up in happy, confident and can face the world with courage, we need to act and make the changes needed.

Children aye 🙂 . Mine drew on themselves, the walls etc.
With all sorts of things, and made much mess. Mine used to get up to all sorts of silly things.
All 4 of them cut their own hair at some stage as a young child, that was historical and the shocking result was that most the hair had to be cut off so that the hair would grow evenly again 🙂 All part of growing up.

Many people are born in situations where there are few choices and the only choice that they think is the best option is suicide. I did a few times. Suicide is never a good idea, but I deeply sympathize with people who live such hard lives that they consider wanting to get out of it. The biggest crime is a society that is based on money and not love. We must let people know that there are better options, and that people do care, and that with a change of environment, and different people around them that they can be happier and find their place in the world. There is hope for all, but if people don’t know that then they will try to take the wrong course of action. We must be available and willing to help.

My cat has been called a ninja cat by a few people because he is so fast. He can run across the road or up a tree and catch a bird before the bird even knows what is going on. I am often getting the birds off him and setting them free again 🙂 Ginger cats are awesome 🙂

I got a distiller for about $45 on Trade Me a few years back, and it goes well. http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/kitchen/water-coolers-filters/auction-1154848613.htm

For those interested in boiling the chemicals out: http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/kitchen/water-coolers-filters/auction-1154848613.htm

Those who think out of the square are always seen as difficult and different, that is because they don’t fit in the “accepted leadership rules and control of the leaders”.

I just take out the chlorine. Its my life, my choice. It is also nice to know that I have done my research, made my choices, and do it my way.

It wasn’t aimed at you Pax. It was an expression of frustration at people being trained to be so gullible.

It is trained delusion. Years and years of being told to accept authority blindly and completely, even if they are doing you harm. Check Wikipedia out for the Stockholm Syndrome, used by political parties for decades. I mean honestly, they put poison in your water, your food, and then people defend being poisoned. Now you know how Hitler managed to convince millions of people to go to other countries and mass slaughter millions of innocent people and still think that they were the innocent ones. When people blindly accept authority and accept being controlled, and then they defend this and take on the side of their abuser in arguments it is called the Stockholm Syndrome. It is a mental illness and is widely supported by narcissistic political people, because these blind supporters will support the political person even when the political person is harming the voters etc.

This story is very touching and shows the complete innocent of a kind heart and soul, be it human or animal. Love is love and when it affects us and we accept it we are forever gifted a heavenly happiness of the soul.

Happy Birthday Tammy, I hope you had an awesome day 🙂

Hi Elizabeth, glad this was helpful. God Bless you. 🙂

When we take our “community focus” off money and we focus on “people” then community values change.
And people do things for people, and laws are created not to make the authorities more money, but to help the people learn, grow and change.
Some thoughts… In fact what seems more realistic is that the South Waikato would be a better place with the people being allowed to make their own decisions and choices “for the people” and not some people in Wellington make laws for us that don’t suit who we are. Sure the road rules and such can stand for all of us and some other more national rules and laws (like for murders etc), but how the community is run, our educational focus, quality of food and water etc, these things would be far better if we ourselves controlled them.

When we look at alternative ways to do things, especially ways that don’t involve money, then we are looking for more meaningful ways to do things that will bring more positive results and a happier community.

A world that has a focus on money, career and materialism will create children who have the same weaknesses and lack of values.
Children are taught to hate either by personal experiences (child abuses) or by guidance of older people.
The innocence of the child should be the example of innocence that all adults should use as an example of what a good person should be.

No I am not, but I do reporting for the Tokoroa Day page and Positively Tokoroa group, and I post items of interest that concern Tokoroa people. I have been visiting the new market for a week or so and just checking in and seeing what is happening. Last I heard was that not all the stalls were taken (Two I think were left), and that food is going to be on sale soon hopefully (possibly waiting on Council). I suggest that when people are downtown to just drop in and have a look and see if there is anything that they are interested in. Also last week I got to have a look in the old ANZ Bank safe, the door is really thick and the room made of thick concrete 🙂

Bringing up children to have manners, good values, courage and confidence, is a good investment for the future for everyone.

I had agoraphobia after my wife left my children and I back in 2004.
 I could hardly leave the house and going to town to get the groceries was a great fear, I was terrified in public places, very shy of simply saying hello to people I passed in the streets, and at one stage terrified of cycling on the highway and over Maraetai Bridge. It took me some years to get over it. When stressed I would crumble in tears and shakes, it was terrible and life then was hard to cope with.

By 2009/2010 I was able to get groceries and do many things that only a few years before frightened the life out of me. I even preached at church a few times and shook so much I could feel my knees banging together 🙂 And I had to constantly remove my glasses because they were constantly fogged – I was a total wreck preaching. Most of my sermons/messages had the word “um” as the most common word in them 🙂

I got over agoraphobia because I had to, I had 4 children to look after and feed so as the only parent I had to go to town, get groceries, take them to the doctors etc. My feeling of being responsible was far greater than my fears that constantly shook my body, confused my mind and set me to tears. Once in Countdown a woman at the checkout threw a fit because I was short some money, because I was so nervous I had given her the wrong amount and the tears just came out, I paid and quickly got out of there shaking like a leaf and having an anxiety attack. It has taken me years to learn how to develop small talk with checkout operators etc because I was never good at it and because of the past agoraphobia and anxiety etc. I stumble over words and struggle to say the right things, but I am much better at it now. Today I still don’t like crowds though, and I don’t like attention or to stand in front of crowds. ○ Back in the late 1990’s I was all night computer programming, homeschooling my children and for one year running a computer company. I must have run on about 4-5 hours sleep for a few years. It got so bad that I developed the shakes and had serious heart flutter etc, and I was smoking like a chimney and living on coffee.

Through all this stress, lack of sleep and a lot of arguing with my ex I developed a stutter and it became so bad that my young son started talking with a stutter from being around me all the time because I was homeschooling him as well. I was very tired, unable to think straight and then my ex and I would have a hour long (or more) debate/argument etc and I would lose control of my speaking and stutter until I did it all the time, and that is when my son picked it up – it took a while to teach him to stop it but we succeeded. Then I developed a “tick” with my right eyelid and it would flicker, and that stressed me even more. All this was from a very stressful marriage and always being broke.

Over the years after my ex left in 2004 I have become far more healthy by walking for long distances, cycling for long distances, used to play tennis at Tainui School with my children, walk to town etc. I stayed single because I didn’t want to make the same mistakes of the past, gave up drinking and smoking, and got lots of rest, and my stutter is only noticed when I talk too much or when I get excited about something. I don’t think that I will ever be able to preach or do speeches because when I stutter it takes over and it is often caused by speaking and anxiety (speaking in front of people) or excitement (debates or getting upset). In general conversation people have no idea of the stutter 🙂
And the more I stutter the more nervous and embarrassed I get and the more I stutter. I noticed that the stutter is coming back in general conversation, so when it does I just shut up immediately and listen to the other person until I regain control of my speech again. ○ Life has always been a challenge, and we all have different challenges to get through and to deal with, but we can in our own individual ways and that is what is special about each and every one of us.
We are all wonders of natures, miracles, and works in progress that will never ever be perfect here on earth but that is fine, because it is what is different about each and everyone of us that makes the world so amazing and our talents, abilities and characters are what makes the world and communities so amazing, fun and interesting. It is what we are to each other, and how we help one another and bring goodness, peace and harmony to life that makes us truly appreciated, respected, needed and loved.

Is just a reminder for people to think, and to not do something that might kill someone. And it’s better than the stickers because it’s big and easy to read.
The government should cover the back of lots of trucks with similar signs to constantly remind people. There are so many trucks on the roads these days.

The sad thing is that sometimes in life we have to sometimes make brave choices and make sacrifices for the ones that we love. It is tough though.

I found out the hard way Tracey Deane, I was heavily victimized a few years ago by a local family, and they said all these bad things about me that were not true, and after I did some research I discovered that they were the real ones guilty. I learned a lot about forgiveness, self control, and getting on with life while having my public character assassinated by these people. The saddest part is that people take gossipers at face value and believe them even with no proof. And it is so heart breaking to be accused, know that you are innocent and yet also know that people have fallen for the trap and believed in the false accusers 🙁 People can be very gullible and easily led. I recommend to people these days to always do their own research and as you said to look deeper into the accusers etc. The truth is out there but people have to be willing to see it.

Help yourself 🙂 I was watching the whole process from the start and reporting it on the Positively Tokoroa group and the Tokoroa Day page because I am one of the Admins for them both. I talked to the people measuring it out before the work was done, and the guys water-.spraying the bricks to get rid of the dirt etc, and then to the guys laying the sandy covering about how good it was and they told me that it was partly an experiment but that they were hopeful and confident of a job well done. Then I spoke to the council man chosen to inspect it after the first lot was completed outside the courthouse, and then I talked to the guys laying the varnish covering in front of the BNZ building area. I asked lots of people what they thought of it, and the only worry was that it might peel because the first lot outside of the courthouse bubbled a bit. But the general view is that it is a job well done and the public are very pleased to have a safe path to walk on in the wet weather.

Please do Kerry. I am very impressed by the new surface and am a keen supporter of it. It is the solution to a problem that has been with us for a while, so it is a great relief to see a positive approach taken and a good solution found and used.

I learned a while back to let other peoples negativity go over my head. That means that even if they are standing in front of me yelling or ranting I don’t “take in” any of their feelings. And in doing that I don’t retaliate. It makes me look more mature, more in control of myself and calmly I am able to figure out a solution. There are many ways to stop ourselves being affected by other people’s negativity. The worst thing to do is “an eye for an eye”, because all that does is cause anger and possibly hatred.

The problem is not the store. The problem is the people who frequent the many stores and keep them running. Forcing the store to close does not help the situation. What Tokoroa needs is an adult re-education program to help people deal with life without spending enough money on alcohol to keep the many alcohol shops open, and to keep them off drug abuse etc.

Children never see colour or race, they just see friends. Such is the wonderful innocent mind of children.

Chuck Logan up the chiminy 🙂

They have had a few “challenging” checkout operators at Countdown, but in general they have had some really nice people working for them. It is the good ones that make the shopping experience a good one.

Sadie Kaaho, nice lady, wonderful service. 🙂

Together we can make the world worth living in again. If we put aside all our egos, differences, pride etc, we can live in harmony. Love is the answer.

Very sad, but an important message for all. The thing to remember is that when she was wasted no one stopped her, and especially to keep in mind is that she had no logical or common sense over her own mind, and that means that all her logical common sense brain thinking was gone. When one is wasted, one loses all the teaching that he or she was ever taught and does completely dangerous and unnatural things. For instance guys beating up the missus, mothers beating children, a normal common sense adult being violent, driving a car etc.
When a person gets so wasted that he or she cannot control what they do, cannot remember what he or she did the night before, then it is time to chuck it, because eventually it is going to get them in some negative (and possibly devastating) way like it did for the woman in the video. She didn’t choose to drink and drive, the alcohol did it for her. To be happy is to be in full control of your own life.

I like these ones with lots of thoughtful suggestions and advice to help us out in our daily lives.

Combined Adolescent Challenge Training Unit and Support (Cactus). Pulling the fire engine.

It was hard work, they were very courageous and determined, but it was obvious that it was tiring. They did very well and achieved their goal.

I wrote an article a couple of years ago about holding onto grudges and the damage it does to our day, and also letting people get to us and ruin our day. ~ The example went like this. You are walking down the street and a car slows down and the occupants of the car start yelling abuse, then they laugh and zoom down the road. ~ From this moment on we have two ways of dealing with this. We can lose our cool and rant, rave and fume about it in our head all day.
 This bad mood will pass on to family, work mates, people we meet for the rest of the day. Our grumpy attitude will hurt innocent people’s feelings etc.
Or we can immediately let it fly over our head and forget about it and get on with our day.
°
We must remember that once we let people get to us in a negative way it grows and grows in our minds, and our anger grows as the day progresses, and people see it, sense it, and it also upsets our physical health. Pride, anger etc make us a slave and ruin our life.
 Thankfully once we realize that someone ranting on social media, yelling at us etc is just a reflection of their character, or that they are just having a bad day, we can let it bounce off us and get on enjoying our own day.
Why give them power to upset your day, especially because once they get down the road they have forgotten you after a laugh about it and they are getting on with their own day. You are out of their mind, so toss them out of your mind. The next time someone has been rude or abusive to you, please show them that you are not going to reply back negatives like them. And that, just because they lost control or they are rude to you that you are not like that, that it is not your style and you are not going to let their negatives dictate your day. This good example of self control that you show will be an example to younger people (for instance your own children) and they will want to be strong willed like you. They will admire you for your strong character and how quickly you pull yourself together and don’t let the negatives of life get to you.

°
 All the best from James M Sandbrook.

Yes, there is always two sides to the story.

The good thing is that this new surface has good grip and is far safer than the bricks that are so slippery. Many people are using this new surface and the feedback I have received is very positive and people are happy, especially at this time of year.

God Bless you all. Well done Libby.

I’ll keep a look out for the cat. I hope you find him soon.

All those things are instances of people bring careless. It doesn’t matter how many examples there are, what matters is that the public help stop it as well and do what they can to stop it happening.
You could be the next victim. Anyone of us could be the next victim, or our children.
We need to help out and as a community make a difference by showing the people who take the risks that we love them and don’t want to see them hurt, and we don’t want them to hurt others.

I hope schools teach children to teach their parents. That would be a good idea I think.

Sure is. What I don’t want to see is some irresponsible texting driver plow through some kids walking across a pedestrian crossing or something like that.
If trying to save lives is snitching then I am happy to do it over and over again.
What we really need is for some re-education, people need to know the true value of being careful and responsible.

You must be proud of your 8 year old for speaking up like that. This should mean that if your children are in someone else’s car that they won’t accept the driver using the phone and driving. Good one! Good parenting is teaching them what matters.

Good on you for doing something Jasin. It can be frustrating seeing people texting while driving because it is obvious that some kind of accident will happen in the future. You just wish the texting driver would figure it out.

Years ago when I was a teenager or in my 20’s if I saw children in cars without seat belts on I would yell at the parents to put them in seat belts.
My ex-wife growled me for doing this because I would love control in my frustration. I couldn’t understand why the parents couldn’t understand that seat belts for babies and children were important.
I have had many a strong argument with parents over this.
 These days I am trying to help people understand the value of their lives so that they won’t take needless risks, and for parents to realize the value of their children and what an honour it is to be a parent and to bring up confident, courageous children into adults that form good communities.

Far too many people have titles, education and such, and they rely on those to impress people. But the real reason that we should like people is for their heart, charity, humility and kindness.

I am not sure Neville. It was off before I went to church. I was cycling to church and the thought to make a post about the dangers of leaving electrical appliances on kept returning to my mind, so I posted it. I hope it helps people be prepared when the next power cut happens. We must all be careful. If we keep these thoughts in mind if may save a life or a home.

They do that. I found one some months back and it did the same thing. Little rascals.

We have had a few warmer Winters, but this year so far has been a chilly one in the mornings. Beautiful days though.

As a teenager I had to live in a small shed because there was no room in the house. I was greeted by frost on the black lining paper on the ceiling on frosty mornings, and I didn’t want to get up because it was so cold. The floor was concrete, so it was cold. Chilly memories for sure.

I reckon Cathy. It was a lovely walk this morning. My ginger cat was too chicken to come out for a walk though, too chilly I think 🙂 There will be many more of these frosts to come. We had a few very cold ones last year.

That’s the right attitude 🙂

The thing about modern society is that many bought the story that this society must exist “for our own good”. That’s like putting poisons in food and water and then telling us that, “it is for our own good”. And as long as the public does believe the teachings of patriotism, that working your life away in constant debts is the natural order of things, and the bank charges, rates, Gst etc, are, “for our own good” Then the general public will fight in support for the captivity that they live in, totally unaware that they are being used to pay for rich people to have extremely expensive holidays, the best health care, fancy cars and homes etc.

There is a thing called, “baiting” where someone keeps commenting little bits of aggravation to set people off. They don’t give up until people finally get sick of the fight. It seems that Joshua is doing this here. He does have a few good points, but it is laced with much annoying comments that bait people to lose their temper. The best way to deal with such comments is it just ignore that person until he or she finally says something worth saying. The art of good constructive debate and conversation is about the subject, shouldn’t be personal, and is respectful of others. Sometimes we lose it, especially if wrong has been done to us, we are not perfect. The thought I want to leave is that when people are abusive, rude and baiting we don’t have to reply to them. I learned years ago when I was young when being picked at and bullied that in many cases the sooner I stopped reacting back to the bad person, the sooner the at person gave up in boredom and left me alone. Another point is that when people are baiting and abusive it is a reflection of what they are going through at the moment. So ignoring them teaches them that causing trouble will just be ignored.

The less control local and national politics has over us, the more control we have of our own lives.

I had a long discussion with a friend yesterday about people trading for goods and services. No using money means, No power over the people. No banks. No loans. No mortgages. No fines. No cash theft. No capitalists. No rich. No student loans. No wages. No paying taxes. No tithing money. No rates to pay your Council. No dog fees. No Gst. Etc, etc. A society that helps reach other out removes a huge amount of general stress by just removing money from that society. People can deal with one another face to face, and personal deals with no contracts are made. Any dishonesty is soon sorted out in a decent society by honest people. People instead make their own products in their town, barter. This keeps everyone honest and busy. === Exchange (goods or services) for other goods or services without using money. === There would be community stalls, gatherings, friendly get-togethers, and a person’s word worth gold. ° Life changed for us when the rich got more greedy. The political people don’t want you to look at the huge amounts of local money that leaves the local community to fill some rich person’s pocket, taxes, big business, what the banks get, etc. And yet local people are struggling, small local business struggle. Millions of dollars leave our town to feed the rich elsewhere. They forget that they need us to survive, but we don’t need them at all to survive. Debt and struggle never ends in a society based on materialism and money.

I dropped it off at the Police station.

Happens here in Tokoroa too. When society is based on materialism people will do anything for money.

A month or so back I found a little boy toddling along Bridge Street (by Clyde Street) drinking his bottle of milk. He was probably a bit over a year old maybe. I had to wait for the traffic to cross the road to get to the little fellow.
He was just walking up the road and back. But he was far too young to know the danger he was in.
I followed him and kept encouraging him to go home and he walked up a driveway and a young man came out and got him.
We need to keep an eye on the little ones all the time especially on busy roads like Bridge Street etc.
Little children are fast and can be off and down the road before you know it.

This is how our adult minds are supposed to be. We should all have the generous hearts and souls of a child. It is the child’s truth, innocence and giving heart that adults admire. What we sometimes don’t realize is that the child is a reminder to all of us how great life would be if we were like them in heart and soul.

Let’s hope it stays that way 🙂

The lake is awesome at all times if the year for sure.

I totally agree, being yourself is the most important thing.

I find it easier to observe myself now and see and understand my own faults and mistakes, and observing other people now than I did as a teenager.
Things back then that I tolerated that I would never accept now. And there are people I used to allow to push me around when I was younger that I would never let do that to me now.
I make friends with people much easier now than when I was young. Probably because back then I was trying to prove something, or to validate myself, to make myself seem important, at least to myself.
Both my parents were very judgemental of other people, especially their enemies. As a teenager onwards I had to try to remove what my parents had taught me that was wrong and to learn lifes important lessons the hard way, and try to understand those lessons and then apply them to my own life. What I try to do now is instead of judging those who attack or hate me (sometimes I fail, at least at first) I try to understand why they have decided to hate me, or why they have decided that I am their enemy, and why they want to hurt me.Understanding them and how they think, what they fear or dislike makes it far easier for me to forgive them, or if I did wrong then to go and apologize.
I have an attitude that the door is always open for people to apologize, or to come and make friends after conflict. I know that I am not perfect and sometimes I do or say foolish things. My feelings are that the sooner the conflict is over the sooner peace will come, and a nice feeling of accomplishment doing the right thing and making friends again etc. The walls I had to take down that I learned from adults when I was a child was to not judge people by appearances, instead to give them a chance and to get to know that person’s character, and that can really only be done face to face, by getting to know them.
The biggest lesson probably was to realise that I didn’t know everything, and that a self opiniated narrow view just makes me a fool and loses friends. It is a wonderful revelation knowing that we don’t know it all and that we need an open mind to learn more. The more we learn, the more we try to understand, the more we try to help others without wanting returns, the more happier we become, and we sleep better too. What I try to do on Facebook is to try to pass on what I have learned to help others (especially young adults) learn what took me years to learn. The younger they learn the better for their lives. Doing this for free makes my life worth living and gives me a wonderful feeling of accomplishment, it is a nice feeling being told by people that something I shared on Facebook helped someone and gives them new courage and confidence to go on with life.

Loving and respecting ourself is not selfish as long as we are honest with ourselves. Loving and respecting ourself is being healthy in body and soul. This means making good healthy life choices that will progress into a healthy enjoyable future.

Know your worth and stand by it!

Tracey Deane, we need new refreshing leadership. Someone who is not all political, and can see the need of the community. The political people have lost contact it seems with what the community is all about. We need change, positive change.

This is a great town, the South Waikato, etc, the people here are wonderful, we shouldn’t give up.

The proposal I put to the mayor a while back which was turned down was about using Council resources free of charge, schools working together with the community, and a re-education program that involves teaching the basics of good parenting, good living, and creating a good community. There was a lot more involved but it was all about the community, business and Council working together for the greater good of all.

I was married once, had a few girlfriends, but it always went wrong because none of us new how to be stable of how to have a stable relationship. Family basics is parents teaching their children how to be stable minded people, and two of those makes a strong stable marriage.

I kind of woke up back in 2004 and discovered that I was just “going through life aimlessly”.
I didn’t need goals, what I needed to be was the kind of person that someone would appreciate and would feel blessed that I was their friend. What I discovered was that an aimless life brought no meaning, and I felt empty and alone even though I knew many people.
 I discovered that society was leading me from happiness instead of bringing me happiness. Bad parenting meant mixed up and confused children.
Far too many people have been in my life that didn’t care about me, they had a friendship with me for their gain, or they wasted someone to waste time with. And I was eager to hang on to fruitless friends in the hope that they would one day discover that I was worth something to them. I had no idea that I could do better than this because no one told me that I could. A lost society is a people who have drifted from the basics of good family values.
I had never known good family values. What I learned as a child was that people got drunk, got stoned, partied, adults looked after themselves.

Parents could be unfaithful. Money was more important than children. Children feared parents. People could be cruel for no reason. Girlfriends felt that it was their right to sleep with other guys for fun or “to get more experience” etc. In defense I tried to be tough, macho, a man of the world, but I failed miserably, and being like this did my relationships no good at all. Like many of us I really wanted to feel appreciated, understood and loved. I wanted to be happy. I wanted a happy family of my own. I desperately wanted one female to love me and stay with me. And all the things that were the most important to me never happened, or they were short lived. I got many glimpses of happiness and then it was gone all over again. I wondered what was the point of it all so many times. Sometimes the problem was my troubled character from a very crazy, sad, troubled childhood. I was mixed up, unconfident and sensitive. Some of the problem was that the people I was with had a different idea of what love is. I kept putting myself subconsciously in bad relationships and paid dearly for it. And because of this I became frustrated, sometimes angry, confused because life was not turning out well at all. I failed as a teenager, boyfriend, father, husband in so many ways, succeeded in others. And other people failed me in many ways. I realised that there must be something better than this. It takes effort but we can all be better people than what society tries to turn us into. We need to make young people aware that life can be better if they learn to stand up for themselves and make choices that may be unpopular with the crowd and family, but they are the best choices for them. We need more confidence in the individual, more courage, people who can cope, and every time things go wrong they are willing to get back up and try again, and again, try something new, and be the best that they can be. Everyone needs to know that they can break restricting boundaries created by others, and change society for the better. We must learn to look out for one another. We need to teach each other that we all have a voice, and that what we have to say deserves to be listened to and considered. From the business person down to the unemployed and pensioners we all deserve a say without restrictions. To have a better world we need to be the individual parts that make an honest difference to our community. Life is about people looking after people. Caring and looking out for each other is very important to community happiness and protecting families etc.

Those that we love rest in our heart for eternity, their love is something that no one can take off us.

I hadn’t put anything motivational on The Genuine Tokoroa Page today because I have been very busy, but when I got home from town I found this and thought it good to share. 🙂 Glad you folk like it.

We are all awesome here Jas, it’s the magic of Tokoroa, awesome people. You have a blessed day. 🙂

Not at all. I have had some wonderful conversations with you. You think, question, and many people don’t do that. Many just accept what everything is. People who question or see things differently help us all question and think, and also we see things differently. You are fine. You have made some really good comments on Facebook, and especially on The Genuine Tokoroa Page on some tough topics and that can be a challenge for all of us 🙂 We have some really good thinkers in Tokoroa. This can only be good for us all.

Not at all. You just saw it differently for a second or two, no problem at all. Shows how well your mind works.

Your comments totally took me by surprise Jas Simpson. That didn’t even occur to me. The sentiment of the story, the moral, and the lesson we learned are what I was thinking about. I am always seeking ways for people to remember that one day people will die, and that we must take those opportunities to see people personally because one day they will be gone, and we won’t get that chance again for the rest of our life. We must never take love for granted. We must make the extra effort to be with the most important people in our lives whenever we can.

The most beautiful way to live is the simple life. The most peaceful way to think is to think for the moment and to be uncomplicated. Peaceful living is uncomplicated simple living in nature with love and respect for all of life and existence.

Good thinking. We learn from experience.

Excellent. I didn’t report it because I saw that young teenagers had accepted the friends requests and then I posted it here hoping that the parents would see their children’s names in the friends lists and take a more careful look at who their children/teenagers are accepting as Facebook friends. I had a look this morning and some of the teenagers were not on the friends list anymore. So hopefully parents got in on the act.

Rita Maree Newton, it would be nice if Facebook would come up with a way to stop them. Hopefully they will come up with something in the future, until then we must protect the young.

Facebook has its place though. I see The Genuine Tokoroa Page as “The People’s Voice”. The South Waikato News is some ways like a public notice board with not much else it seems. They don’t do much about controversial topics or what is upsetting the people, and there is very little interaction with the public. The mayor is often will presented no matter what trouble he is in on The Genuine Tokoroa Page or when the public are upset with him. People report that the mayor hates The Genuine Tokoroa Page because of the negative feedback and possibly what he thinks is a lack of respect for his position in the community. He probably doesn’t like the people having their own voice. People have a right to complain about his and the Councils efforts, after all they take huge amounts of money off the taxpayers pocket each year. We pay them to act for us. They must be accountable for bad choices etc. And if a local business rips someone off, or the service is not up to standard and that is announced on The Genuine Tokoroa Page that gets the business cleaning it’s act up super fast. We are the winners because we are customers. That is awesome 🙂 If authorities start to demand censorship of free speech then that is the first signs of dictatorship. The Genuine Tokoroa Page is where everyone gets a say. If every community around the world had a page where the people get their own say then there will be far less ripping off the public and political people will be more accountable for the things that they do. It is all good stuff 🙂

Obviously the person has access to many Tokoroa people’s names. I never accepted the friend request, I hope those that did realize the error of doing so, and I hope that the parents of the young ones who did accept the friend request do something about it.

True. As long as we look out for one another as good communities should it will make a positive difference.

Good on you for reporting it. We at least should try to do something to stop stalkers, and people signing up children/teenagers who have bad things in mind. We must do what we can go make Tokoroa a good decent town for all, especially the young.

I learned this lesson about listening after some years, but there is so much to be gained from being observant and listening.

Take photos if you see anything suspicious or suspicious people. Take photos from a safe place before you talk to them. Photos and video footage is proof and if they know that you have proof that the person was stalking your property they won’t come back for fear of being caught.

There is no need for you to pretend to be something you are not. If you don’t like being around a crowd of people, don’t be. It’s okay to have one, two, or three friends you feel comfortable being around. If you don’t like putting on a façade around people just to please them, you don’t have to. It is okay to show people the real you. If you don’t like doing things a certain way, you don’t have to. Don’t apologize or regret being you. No matter what you do, there will always be criticism from people who don’t know anything about you. No one on this earth, including family and friends close to you, church family, colleagues, etc. have a right to make you feel inadequate or inferior. You were never created to be or feel inadequate or inferior. You were never created to be unhappy in this world. You were created to be victorious, great, and happy being the person God created you to be in the midst of a cynical society. Who are you to believe you are not good enough for anything? God is not a God who regrets what He designs. He is a God who fearfully and wonderfully designed you just the way you are with all the flaws, imperfections, and limitations. Inadequacy is not a trait you were born with. Inadequacy is something you learn being brought into a world of criticism. And guess what? You can unlearn it. It doesn’t matter if they said you wouldn’t amount to anything. You can unlearn it. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been rejected and/or abandoned. You can unlearn it. It doesn’t matter if you were told you don’t have the gift or anointing to do what God has called you to do. You can unlearn it. It doesn’t matter if your evaluation at work entails you don’t have what it takes. You can unlearn it. Any bad seed that was planted in your life can be unlearned! – T E Rowell.

There was a mother who became ill, and she was confined to her bed upstairs in a two-story house. As far as I remember this was before electricity was in homes. Her young daughter was given the job of looking after her mother, seeing to her mother’s medical needs, her mother’s health, food, demands, etc. Time went by, the mother did not seem to get better and she would not leave the bed. She became used to her situation. The daughter from that point on worked hard to keep her ever demanding mother happy. Years went by. The daughter became used to her situation. Then one day the daughter, in her early twenties died from exhaustion and not being able to have a life of her own. She had given up hope of having a husband, children etc, she had given up hope that life would ever bring her any form of personal happiness and joy. She had given up hope that she would have any normal life of her own. She was held to her chore by obligation, guilt, demands from her mother and the other family members, etc. After the daughter died the mother realised that no one else was going to become her personal slave so the mother got out of bed and got on with her life, a better life. She got on with her life because there was really nothing wrong with the mother at all except what illnesses she created in her own head that fed her wants for sympathy, and her fears of coping in life without someone holding her up etc. Some people are afraid of coping in life so they create illness in their minds and their body acts out the plan so it becomes a real illness of sorts. ° The mother could easily have lived without her daughter, and her daughter could easily have lived without her mother but both got used to a situation and neither had the courage to break the chains that held them together, even though the daughter was killing herself with misery and the mother would have eventually died a fruitless life if the daughter had lived on. ° We humans can get used to a situation, adjust to it no matter how miserable, and then miss out on freedom and a better life, a life of value that each one of us deserves. Be brave and please don’t allow yourself to be goaded, pushed, bullied etc into a life that you don’t want. °

Self Confidence and Self worth You probably have an idea of what self worth is. However, do you know how to tell between self worth and being snobbish? It is being aware of your true potential. Self worth is your worth in this world measured in terms of how much you contribute towards it. It is your worthiness and what other people make of you. For this, we need to understand whether or not you think of yourself as being worthy in the first place. If you were always a not so good student back in school, did you often question what did it take to be the first in class? Did the best student get 25 hours in a day? Was he or she blessed with supernatural skills? Are the best students’ species from another planet?
Do they have extra chromosomes in their genes? The answer to every single question is no because all of us are the same.
You were born with as much bones and muscles as Albert Einstein. The core biological framework was same for you and William Shakespeare.
So, what ensured that these men ended up immortalizing history, while you ended up being another dot on the map?
I am not just talking of name and fame here, success is a subjective parameter. Being successful does not mean owning a million dollar villa shores of the sea.
Success means doing something and clinching it. Your goals may be very basic – from earning two meals a day to extremely complex goals like eliminating all types of corruption from the world. It might be a minute thing that can be accomplished in a matter of minutes or something that takes years and years to achieve. Isn’t that something to be happy about? Self worth is being sure of your own capabilities. It is the feeling where when you look at yourself in the mirror, you can give an accurate depiction of the skills you have and the work you can do. That is, you have to have a fair idea of what you are worth and how much you contribute towards the various activities of this world. “You should neither sell yourself short nor beat your own trumpet.” Self worth is opting for an efficient analysis and being sure that you know yourself inside out. You have to understand what you are capable of before you set out to do something. Do you think it is possible for you to start a task without knowing if you can complete it? That is not the way it works.
You need to be certain about some things in life and that includes knowing about your worthiness.
People need a certain assurance before they decide to trust you and your capabilities. If you portray a weak picture then chances are they will judge you as being incapable and not worthy of their time and effort. When you are aware of your own capabilities, it becomes a lot easier to understand your goals and analyze if you are up for the challenge. The confidence you have in yourself can help you conquer some of the biggest frontiers.
This will definitely bring in greater rewards for you. – Stephanie Beyer.

There is a good lesson for all of us. I like these stories. I always learn something from them, and even something more about myself and what I can be capable of. These are life lessons.

Always remember to exhaust all your options before you make a decision that is very important to you.
° The crowd is well known for trying to push us into situations that can change our life for the worse. Avoid the crowd that pressures you, and avoid the individuals who conform to the crowd-thinking, no matter how supportive they seem, they will drag you back to the destructive past.
Please don’t leave a stone unturned. Do check out all your options, even those that may seem doubtful.
 ° Your future is important and you deserve the very best that you can get. You need to look after your own life so that the rest of your life can be a wonderful blessing to others. As you can see from this common sense you need to make good choices to help yourself and others. Have faith in your instincts and believe in yourself. God has big plans for you in the future. Please don’t throw your life and happiness away over peer pressure from weak-minded people who have already given up on their dreams.
° Stay with your dreams, make your dreams come true by denying the crowd their choice for your life, and do investigate all your options carefully and completely.
 ° You can be happy, but you need to do the thinking, investigating and legwork. ° All the best from James M Sandbrook.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. – Søren Kierkegaard. . You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past. – Chuck Palahniuk.
 I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. – Beryl Markham. . We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it. – Rick Warren. .
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin. – Mother Teresa. . Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present. – Bil Keane. . Sooner or later we’ve all got to let go of our past. – Dan Brown. . Before you can live a part of you has to die. You have to let go of what could have been, how you should have acted and what you wish you would have said differently. You have to accept that you can’t change the past experiences, opinions of others at that moment in time or outcomes from their choices or yours. When you finally recognize that truth then you will understand the true meaning of forgiveness of yourself and others. From this point you will finally be free. – Shannon L. Alder. .

Being friends with the neighborhood makes a huge difference. It really helps if we all support one another, and we let our neighbours know when we won’t be home etc. And especially we should never mention on Facebook when we are out of town, just mention it when we get back home again.

It took me many years to realise that I was being fooled. But once I found out, distance was the best cure.

You can say what you want, but don’t tell us what to do. This is still a free country.

What’s the matter? You have a problem with free speech. I never start these posts, I just say what I know.

Proper channels where politics is concerned is a way in which the political system weeds of the ideas out the people’s ideas and proposals that don’t suit them. There are delays, red tape, talk, talk, and not much else, and then we have tons like the flag saga, or the new proposals from the Council that had upset many people.

People pleasers lose everything while they try to gain everything. They are their own worse enemy. They need to learn that to gain life they must make their own choices according to their own will, instead of allowing themself to be shepherded around to please other people. A requirement for personal happiness is for us to stand up for ourself even if that upsets the family, church, friends, relatives etc. The courage to make our own choices and to live our own life is the fuel that leads to the future we deserve.

If the authorities are behind it then the Police will back it as well. But the question is what will the local authorities do, just sit and watch while crime grows, or make the required adjustments and efforts to help the community be safer.

Vigilante is illegal. If something is done it needs to be approved by local authorities, and that is where the real problem is.

That’s exactly the problem. The Council and government have all the money, that they got off the people.
So it is their responsibility to us to keep us safe and our property safe.
If it is done by the community then it will probably not have police support and will have little authority and little finances behind it.
Those that already get our money each week have all that is needed to fix this, but their priorities are elsewhere.

Get on to your Council. Let them know that they should be involved making the area safer. It is a part of their responsibility too. I would like to see the Police (government) hire people to walk around town, walk or cycle the streets to “just be out there” to let thieves etc know that they could be caught. These people could have the same power as security guards, and would possibly need to do the security guard training. In the past the “Bobby”, a Policeman, would walk the beat to assist the public, help with directions and enquiries, and be a warning to the criminal types that the chances of getting caught had increased. The government and Councils need to look into ways of stopping crime by changing the attitude of the public, encouraging a change in heart, and encouraging honesty. This modern “business only attitude” needs to stop from the political system and they need to get back to the basics of life. ° They need to understand that life is not about money and materialism, and that it is about the humans that vote them into power.

I would like to see the Police (government) hire people to walk around town, walk or cycle the streets to “just be out there” to let thieves etc know that they could be caught. These people could have the same power as security guards, and would possibly need to do the security guard training. In the past the “Bobby”, a Policeman, would walk the beat to assist the public, help with directions and enquiries, and be a warning to the criminal types that the chances of getting caught had increased. The government and Councils need to look into ways of stopping crime by changing the attitude of the public, encouraging a change in heart, and encouraging honesty. This modern “business only attitude” needs to stop from the political system and they need to get back to the basics of life.
° They need to understand that life is not about money and materialism, and that it is about the humans that vote them into power. They are supposed to be our servants.

The simple things of life are the things that truly relax the soul and help us enjoy life.

Why good friends are so important. A lot of research has been done looking into the benefits of friendship, and the research has found exactly what you might expect. It turns out that the better quality relationships you have; the more likely you are to be happy.
 Therefore it’s good for your happiness to be a great friend to someone and to have a group of good friends supporting you. But it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what makes a good friend.

Signs of a good friend: Friends will come and go in your life, but more important than how long a friendship lasts, is that a good friend will love you for who you are.
The way you can tell the sign of a good friend is by looking at the actions they take –big and small – that show they care.
Some common signs of a good friend include: someone who will support you no matter what someone you can trust and who won’t judge you someone who won’t put you down or deliberately hurt your feelings someone who is kind and has respect for you someone who will love you because they choose to, not because they feel like they should someone whose company you enjoy showing loyalty being trustworthy and willing to tell you the truth, even when it’s hard someone who can laugh when you do someone who is willing to stick around when things get tough someone who makes you smile someone who is there to listen someone who will cry when you cry. How to be a good friend If you want to do all or many of the things listed above for someone you care about, you’re already a good friend. It’s also common though, to not know exactly what to do or say to be there for someone. Some practical things you can do to be there for a friend include: Listen. Listening is so important not to underestimate, but it can be hard to do. The best way to listen is to try and understand the situation from your friends’ point of view. If you aim to do this, you’ll naturally find yourself beginning to ask the right sort of questions and they will appreciate having someone who really cares about how they feel and what they’re going through. You don’t have to have all the answers, and you shouldn’t assume your friend wants advice – they might just want to talk so that they can work out what they’re going to do themselves. Ask them what they need. If you’re worried about someone and you want to be there for them, just ask them what they need- that way you know what they find helpful during tough times, and you can be there in a way that’s most useful to them. Get physical. Smiles and hugs are a great way to show friends that they’re not alone, that you’re there for them, and that they are important. Keep in touch. Even if you guys aren’t nearby each other, making an effort to keep in touch through facebook, emails, texts and calls will show your friend you are there for them. Tell them how you feel. You don’t have to make a big deal of it all the time but sometimes there are moments where letting someone know that they’re important to you through something you say, can make a big difference to how someone is feeling. Get the facts. If your friend has a medical condition, or a mental health issue, a good way to offer support is to learn about what they’ve been diagnosed with. Taking an interest in what they’re going through shows that you care, and that you’re planning to stick around no matter what’s going on. Be willing to make a tough call. If you think the safety of your friend is at risk, you might need to act without their consent and get help. It can be a hard choice particularly when you’re worried about their reaction, but remember that you are acting because you care and you don’t want them to be hurt. – Reach out dot com.

No, no, no, real friends don’t ask you to do things that will get you into lots of troubles 🙂

Shared on Tokoroa Day and Positively Tokoroa. Thanks.

It is said that Jesus was more spiritual than the people of that time. What this means is that Jesus was more focused on people who were gathered around Jesus as a spiritual family, those that were more interested in helping one another, those wanting a decent society that was not focused on money or materialism. People that looked after themselves and didn’t want political people overruling them. People who were not focused on killing, but focused on good decent communities, people who looked out for one another and helped each other out. Being more spiritual is being free from all addictions and nothing carnal controls a person. The message that Jesus taught was how to become free from the seduction, temptations and trappings of a society that had lost control and had forgotten what was right or wrong, a society that destroying itself, destroying the land and animals, and not caring about the results of what they did to satisfy themselves.

A perfect life would be a life where the authorities worked for the love of the people and they were not in it for the money or as a career. Food would have no chemicals in it and water would be fresh and clean. All forms of health care (including dentists, therapy etc) would be free. The billions of dollars given to the government a week in Gst, taxes etc should be used as a direct benefit to the people. There would be much less interest in politics and the economy, and more interest in helping our own people and our own land. Governments would do what the people needed and governments would create a healthy lifestyle for all of the people. We would make our own items in the country and people would work for each other and not for the rich. Export quality would be for our people and not go overseas. Overseas trade would be only for the materials so that we could make things here by our own people. * In the past there have been entire societies that have not used money at all. Females are equal to men in such societies with organizing and leadership, and none put above the other. People grew things and traded them for other things like clothes, shoes etc. The goal of the society was a good life. The goal “was not” to work our lives away for a few rich people who got the best of everything while those that worked for them struggled to survive. People who live simple, help each other, maintain a peaceful community. This should be a goal for all of us. * There really is no such thing as perfect. All there is, is trying our best to live the best way that we can. A good society is based on good standards, fairness, charity, friendship and people really wanting to get along with one another.

I was walking to Tainui shop or coming home around that time. Must have been another part of town. I remember the earthquake we had probably ten years ago and I was using my computer and the floor shook.

The SPCA didn’t pass the buck. There are ways to do things and that was the advice you were given. The SPCA is a good service, they do a work that the community needs.

Those that respect and appreciate you will support you, those that don’t will try to correct and complain – it is wise to know the difference.

I would like to be involved in this if it turns into a reality. These (like the Community Gardens) are good ideas for the town/country.

I would suggest that the public be educated to the value of such a service.
Bunnings etc have classes to teach people how to make things with their gear, that encourages people to buy their Bunnings products and do things for themselves.
Some free garden courses. Horticulture 1 day lessons, courses etc. There is obviously enough people here to support such a business, so if they haven’t before it is because they don’t know the value of doing things themselves, healthier foods etc, and they probably don’t know how.

I saw them when I was riding around the lake. They are painting at the other side of the lake – “Friends of the lake”

The only way that you can be happy is by being courageous. There is no other way. I know because that is what I have discovered with my own life. The greatest courageous act is following your heart, and you will find that this will always lead you away from “the norms of society” to the people who will change the world for the many. Yes, it is hard. Yes, you will struggle and have doubts. Yes, you will wish that you didn’t have to do it! But once you have done it you will be very deeply sorry that you let unfounded fears hold you back from a better life and true happiness. Society is breeding people to be sheep. Those that have courage to speak out often come under many attacks, because the attackers fear change, and they fear someone who they wish that they could be. You will only find yourself, hope, happiness when you face life head on and go where you need to go, to do what it is that you need to do. This is for you. This is yours. This is your future, destiny and where you will be at your strongest and best for the world to see, for the greater good for all. So take up what you need and find your own way, as your own hero, defying all those that said not to do it, and that you cannot do it, “do it anyway” and watch them eat their words of defeat, because their words of defeat are simply a reflection of who they are and their lack of life, adventure and desire for a better world. Just because they tell themselves that they can’t does not mean that you can’t. To make life happen for others, you must make life happen for you first, then you will be prepared to do your important life work that you were born to do. ° All the best from James M Sandbrook.

I wave to babies and children all the time. Some wave to me and yell a bright and cheerful, “Hello!” with a bright beaming smile. Children are one of the most positive blessings that we have, and if the adults appreciate children the adults day will be brightened by the cheerful innocence of children.

Awe, gee that’s bad mate. I’ll come over tomorrow. Your mum told me about it but I hadn’t seen the photos.

They get the movie on hard drive these days and they pay for a period of time to play the movie (I think that is right) and if the movie is popular they have to pay for a special code to play it for another week or so. It is amazing how it runs now. No person runs the equipment, it is all computer run, and controls like you have on YouTube on a single computer, very cool and simple. The “kids” as we called them, Junior etc, they all work hard. In the short time between movies they have to go and clean the Cinema, pick up popcorn, and vacuum etc. They are awesome. More than a few times people walked in and I was still vacuuming 🙂 To be fair we must remember that the Cinema must compete with YouTube, Dvds and movie streaming sites on the Internet, especially in Autumn and Wintertime when people prefer to stay home. So getting people there would not be easy sometimes. Personally I believed it should have had a different focus than it had when I was there. But people do things as they feel fit. I wasn’t management, so I had no say. I remember many times showing movies for only a few people, but that was the way it goes. We always showed the movies unless no one turned up. I hope that the Cinema stays, it is still a good night out. Last I heard Tony Richards owns it. He is from Thames. (Tony Richards Toyota Racing if I remember correctly) He seemed a nice guy.