Personal Respond-ability

May 21, 2017

By Rick Law of the Estate, Asset, and Retirement Tax Law Firm at Law Elder Law.  Along with his daughter – Attorney Diana Law – Rick is a partner at the multi-generation law firm at Law Elder Law in Western suburban Chicagoland, Illinois.  

We can choose how we respond to life’s circumstances…

This was the invaluable life lesson I learned when at 17 years old, my mentor Don L. Dise gave me the book Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz.  How we think about things will then determine our actions and our reactions.  Our actions and reactions will change our circumstances for the better or for the worse.

The bottom line is that we have the power to change our lives by choosing to improve our thinking and responding.  We have a personal responsibility to choose our thoughts and our actions.

I was reminded of these tenants several years ago when I attended the “Peak Performance 101 Workshop” at the Van Tharp Institute in North Carolina.  The focus of the class was on personal responsibility and improving one’s responses to circumstances.  “Respond-ability” is Dr. Tharp’s phrase for better living through better thinking and response.  These are his “Rules for Being Human.”

• You will receive a body.  You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period.
• You will learn lessons.  You are enrolled in full-time informational school called life.  Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.  You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
• There are no mistakes, only lessons.  Growth is a process of trial and error, of experimentation.  The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the life process as the experiment that ultimately “works.”
• A lesson is repeated until learned.  A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it.  When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.
• Learning lessons does not end.  There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.  If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
• “There” is no better than “here.”  When your “there” has become “here,” you will simply obtain another “there” that will again, look better than “here.”
• Other people are merely mirrors of you.  You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
• What you make of your life is up to you.  You have all the tools and resources you need.  What you do with them is up to you.  The choice is yours.

I can’t help but feel that these “rules” are invaluable for our day-to-day dealings with each other.  Especially in a family situation where you’re dealing with a health or wealth crisis, the strains on your relationships can be immense.  Your respond-ability is your ability to adapt and react to the situation at hand.

Too many families needlessly lose everything they have.  Don’t let that be you.  If you need help paying the overwhelming cost of long term care, give our office a call at 800-310-3100.  Your first consultation is absolutely free.  We’ll let you know what steps you need to take, right now, to protect yourself and your family.  Call now, because when you’re out of money, you’re out of options!

Sincerely,

Rick L. Law, Estate, Asset and Retirement Tax Attorney

8 times named the #1 Illinois elder law estate planning attorney by Leading Lawyer Magazine, Rick has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, AARP Magazine, TheStreet.com, and numerous newspapers and articles. Rick is the lead attorney for Law Elder Law, LLP, focusing in Estate, Asset, and Retirement Taxes. His goal is to give retirees an informed edge when it comes to dealing with an uncertain future.  Get flexible retirement strategies that work during good times and bad, plus information on how you can save your home and assets from being used to pay for long term care.  Call 800-310-3100 for your free consultation now!