# 4 Moderation

Moderation

Have you ever had lunch with someone you want to get to know and they spend the whole meal talking about themselves and their accomplishments?  If you are like me you wanted to learn about their life but you wanted them to learn about yours too.  Boasting, bragging or monopolizing in conversation is a relationship killer. A good test as to whether there is moderation in your conversation is to look to see who has eaten the most food.  If your plate is much fuller then your guests then you are talking too much and asking too few questions.

# 3 Celebration

Celebration

When things are not going well, the last situation we want to be faced with is interacting with someone who is experiencing life’s great blessings.  Isn’t it interesting that when we are down we frequently face this scenario?  It is hard to celebrate someone else’s success when we feel unsuccessful.  When this is our reality we must reject the temptation to be jealous and simply act right.  We don’t want people to pull us down when we are flying high and we shouldn’t do it to them either.  Plus, the consequence of not celebrating with them can cause a loss of relationship.

# 2 Kindness

Kindness

Few of us are down right mean people but most of us fail to be kind at one time or another.  If you ever struggle with this, my advice is to simply act toward others the way you want to be treated.  The bumper sticker that reads “Practice Random Acts of Kindness” provides great advice.  Another remedy is to do something kind for someone who may least deserve it.  Performing such an act can be better than therapy.

It is such a great feeling to receive kindness. Our giving it back feels just as good to those we interact with.