Food for Thought

So many experiences unveil themselves for us to learn valuable lessons. I am sitting in a doctor’s for that fun once a year women’s appointment.  I am sitting across from a woman who has studs in her face by her right eye.  I asked her how the studs stay in and she replied by hooks.  She stated that her body is a temple and she treats as such by getting piercings, tattoos, etc.  Interesting and this is the first time I heard someone say they put body jewelry and tattoos on their body to treat their bodies as a temple. Interesting.  I try to treat mine like a temple by exercising and eating right.  Recently, I was reminded how life can be so short.  I have an uncle who is facing his mortality.  I am only 15 years younger than this man.  I learned about a young person who decided to take his life.  Such a loss.  I want to celebrate each day. 

I like to focus on what’s going right in my life.  Our pets are healthy.  My husband is my best friend.  Our children are healthy and relatively happy most of the time.  I am able to take long walks, go snowshoeing, do 50 jumping jacks, and other exercises.  I am a good cook and relatively good housekeeper.  However, cooking and cleaning is not my life.  Family is considered one of my priorities.  I love spending time with my grandchildren and grown children. 

I avoid negative people who are self serving like the plague.  I know using words like the plague are over used; but I think it fits here.  I have had people in my life who believe they are entitled to more than I am willing to give because these very same individuals have been exploitive and downright mean. 

I enjoy having fun with interesting people. I spent time with people last Thursday who love animals as much as I do.  I chose my second spouse because he loved children and animals.  That was my barometer:  must love children and animals or hit the road.  He lived up to both of those personal expectations.  If he didn’t we would not be best friends today.  I examine my values and question if decisions I am about to make are associated with my personal values. 

My Core Values and Beliefs:

Integrity

Reliability

                Diligence

                Safe and Nurturing Environments

                Creativity

                On-going Learning and Growth

                Respect

                Flexibility

                Sense of Humor

I learned that the Southwest Airline Company have a requirement of the staff they are about to hire, they must have a sense of humor.  We need to be able to laugh at ourselves.  We are all a work in progress and make plenty of mistakes.  I have a saying that I use a lot: Mistakes are only mistakes if you don’t learn from them, otherwise they are lessons. 

I believe we need to put into our communities what we take out of them. We must volunteer for so many reasons from helping others to feeling good about ourselves.  I get a really good feeling when I volunteer at the animal control shelter and I pay attention to so many cats who need attention.  But guess what this fills my tank too. I feel good when an event is well received by the elders of the Lake Superior Elders, a group in which I was elected president. I want everybody to get that good feeling.  It’s like watching the last few minutes of Scrooged with Bill Murray.  I get it now, I really do.  It’s a feeling, a good feeling. 

Please do this for you, make a list of your values and beliefs, explore your sense of humor and try to nurture it, and if you can avoid negativity or people who are not very nice definitely do so.  Do it now.  Make yourself a priority.  You need to take care of yourself in order to help others.  Take time to get to know yourself.  I bet there is a really great person just waiting to get your attention.  Take care of your four selves: spirituality; physical; intelligence; and emotional selves.  Yes your body, mind and spirit need to be treated like a temple.   

 

 

The Importance of Setting Goals

“The past is a foreign country;

they do things differently there.”

L.P. Hartley

 

We can experience the satisfaction of knowing we can achieve any goal or objective we set out to accomplish. It is up to us to decide what we want from life. When we make decisions, we are in the driver seat and we can use our decisions to achieve goals of our own choosing.  Setting goals is a way of keeping our minds on the things we want, and off the things we don’t want. We need to set short-term and long-term goals on a daily basis. This is very important. We need to write our goals on a sheet of paper. Visualize ourselves achieving our goals and constantly refer to them in a hopeful, positive manner.

Everybody needs to sets goals in order to establish a future filled with anticipation and purpose.  I like to tell people about my goals so I can gain support and attain accountability.  It is important we tell others about our plans so if we falter and try to avoid doing what we said we were going to do, the individuals we told about our goals can push us in the right direction.  Goal setting happens all the time and sometimes we are not aware of it because it happens so often.  We do so when we wake up in the morning by telling ourselves what we need to do to get ready for the day. Goal setting needs to be taken seriously, written down and assessed on a regular basis. 

A goal is anything we can have, be, or do.  Goals can involve finances and they can be spiritual, health-related, educational, social, family, professional, and/or personal.  They can be short-term and/or long-term.  Goals can be as simple as straightening a drawer or as complicated as seeking a college education.  When we set goals we  need to establish guidelines and our goals need to be realistic and achievable.  Are our goals measurable so we can determine our progress?  And they need to be within our realm of control.  Controllable means we are in control of the outcome, not someone else.  A goal of changing someone else is not a realistic goal, because it relies on others for the accomplishment of the goal and it is not up to us to change others.

Our goals cannot contradict one another.  If our goal is to spend time with loved ones, we shouldn’t have a goal to work longer hours to seek a promotion.  Neither will be reached.  Goals need to include action words, verbs.  Instead of saying I want to do something, we need to say we are going to do something.  See the difference.  A goal must have a completion date in order to enhance our accountability.  Without setting a time frame to complete the goal, there is no drive, no immediacy, and no sense of willpower to achieve the goal. 

In order for our goal to reach its full completion, we need to make a radical personal commitment to the achievement of that goal and again it must be written. We will need to think through our entire goal from inception of the goal to the completion, from beginning to end.  We will need to examine how the goal is written, how long we have given ourselves to achieve the goal, and we must take a look at what the achievement of this goal can do for us. 

Create a narrative statement which is a visual image we are creating in our mind about what our life would be like if we attained our goal. Picturing ourselves already achieving our goal is an excellent motivator.  Let’s say our goal is weight loss, a specific amount of weight such as 20 pounds.  How would losing 20 pounds change our life?  If we were 20 pounds lighter would we be more confident?  Would we have to go clothes shopping?  The narrative statement helps us see into the future.

Factors contributing to the failure of achieving goals:

·         Procrastination.

·         Poorly planned objectives.  Objectives are the steps drawn up to complete our goals.  For example, if weight loss is a goal, setting up a weight loss program that does not involve eating healthy foods is a poorly planned objective.

·         A lack of the necessary information to complete the goal.

·         Unrealistic and unachievable goals.

·         Lack of commitment.

We need to complete an on-going assessment of our goals.  Make a determination of what ones are working and what ones do not fit into our life plans. Even though we don’t realize it, we are changing constantly. We are not the same person we were a year ago, or even a month ago.  Review each goal including any new goals, and ignore any goals we decided to eliminate. Describe our progress in meeting each goal, and does it seem important to keep working on this goal.  Are there new ways of doing things or new skills we can use to work toward meeting our goals?  Complete this assessment for each and every goal we have set for ourselves.  Seek help from a friend, family member, life coach or a counselor if you are struggling with setting up your goals.

Our capabilities are not given to us in a ready-made package, they are fine tuned and revealed as talents which can be developed and enhanced.  Most people have a dream, realized or unrealized; but the dream does exist.  It’s not necessarily lined up with what others expect of us.  Our dreams are our own personal aspirations.  In order to pursue realistic dreams and goals we need to examine our strengths.  Another point that was addressed in an earlier chapter is determining what personal strengths we have that have helped us get through life?  For example, are you good at problem solving, are you good with getting along with others, are you good at being creative, are you good at being the peace maker in the family, everybody has something they are really good at.  Examine our strengths and write them down.  Exploring our strengths will aide us with developing our goals.

Setting, maintaining, and assessing our goals is a necessary component to living a healthier life.  Goal setting is essential for all aspects of our lives from completing day to day tasks, and accomplishing short-term and long-term aspirations.  We are all here to keep life going. We all have to do our part for ourselves and others.  We don’t live in a vacuum.  When I meet people who seem to be lost, I usually discover that they haven’t set personal goals for themselves. They are going through life by basically going through the motions without any real basis or belief in their own existence.  We can start by writing a to do list each night concerning what we want to accomplish the next day.  We need to ask ourselves where we want to be in three years.  Make sure our goals are achievable and realistic and again, don’t forget to write down our goals.  We will be glad we did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The History of the Sheriff's Department

The Office of Sheriff is certainly significant, and was in fact the first county office established in the United States.  Some very outstanding Americans have held the office of county sheriff, from the earliest days down to our present era.  George Washington’s father was an early Sheriff in colonial Virginia.  The first person to read the declaration of Independence in public was John Nixon, the Sheriff in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1776.  In Michigan, records reflect that Thomas Edwards was elected as the first Sheriff of Chippewa County in 1837 and Sheriff Joe Bayliss was called to Washington in 1912 to head the investigation of the sinking of the Titanic. 

The Sheriffs of America have indeed played a significant role in the history of our nation, and the Sheriffs of Michigan are certainly no exception to this heritage.  A brief study of the history of Michigan will reveal the Michigan sheriffs have contributed greatly to the development of our state.  Today the Sheriffs of Michigan feel honored to be associated with this proud tradition of the past.

Probably more important, however, is the present responsibility that the Sheriffs of Michigan feel in helping their office achieve the modern standards of law enforcement professionalism and to be sensitive to the needs and desires of the citizens of their counties.  We feel that it is critical to keep the Sheriff sensitive to the needs of the people rather than by a few influential politicians.  If the Sheriff is elected by the majority of the voters of a county, it is essential that he/she remain sensitive to the needs of all the people and not just of a select few.  Electing the Sheriff is one of the privileges that has been a cornerstone of “government by the people.”

There are those today who believe that Sheriffs should be appointed rather than elected.  If the citizens are to preserve this democratic heritage, it is imperative that we take a stand and insist that the Sheriff’s Office be an office that belongs to the people of a county.  This is a statement that the public generally will misunderstand and criticize but every law enforcement officer knows that at time he/she must use discretion.  A judge may send one person who steals $1,000 up for five years while he puts another who steals the same amount on probation.  The law expressly gives them that discretion.  It does not expressly give like discretion to the sheriff, yet an officer cannot always ignore circumstances. There are times when persuasion is better than force; when a warning will do more good than an arrest. Probably it is true, as sometimes charged, that the sheriff goes a little farther in the matter of using discretion than do other police officers.  The test should always be what is best for the person involved and for the public, with the emphasis on the later, and the sheriff should always remember that the discretion he/she may properly use is rather limited.

The sheriff should glory in the fact that he/she is picked by the people themselves to serve them.  We have had freedom, personal liberty, so long and so easily that we place little value upon that freedom, but ignore the lessons of the past know that the elected sheriff is one of the bulwarks standing between us and the loss of those liberties.  You will not have Gestapo headed by an elected sheriff.  Turning that statement around, no Hitler or Stalin could operate with a police system headed by an officer chosen in a free election.

In Chippewa County in Michigan there are eight deputies and they take their cars home.  They do so to be ready to respond to any crisis that may come up any time of the day or night.  There are 82 Border Control officers in Chippewa County.  Because the sheriff is an elected official and the deputies are very visible in the communities as coaches for little league, etc. these officers are called upon a lot by the community. Because of this they have encountered and taken in more people who are not supposed to be in this country. 

The Sheriff’s Department is responsible for taking care of the county jail.  There are 177 beds and an average of 160-162 inmates on a regular basis.  They serve approximately 500 meals per day. The inmates are charged $20. a day for their room and board to try to recover some of the expenses.  80% of the inmates are local area prisoners and 20% are federal inmates, not from Chippewa County.  The Sheriff’s Department hold a contract with the U.S. Marshalls.  The Department is paid 1.4 million for transports and housing federal inmates.  There are two floors for the jail and male and female sections.  The inmates are separated by a classifications system.  Females constitute 35 to 40% of the jail population, mostly due to drug crimes.  The first seven years that Sheriff Savoise erved in the sheriff’s department there were no women at the jail. 

The Sheriff’s Department have to serve out the court’s orders which include foreclosures, summons and complaints.  This department is responsible for the lakes and streams.  They must recover bodies.  There was a discussion about airboats and hover crafts. 

The Chippewa County Sheriff’s Department was ranked two years in a row by the State of Michigan for one of the top policing agencies.  Sheriff Savoie was very proud of this prestige.  The sheriff’s office is an institution.  There is one in each of Michigan’s 83 counties and they work largely under the same rules.  No one sheriff’s office can be entirely disassociated from the other 82 offices.  If one sheriff fails in his/her duty, all other suffer and more than most officers the sheriff lives in a glass house.  His/her failures are publicized.  Conversely when one sheriff does an outstanding job, the sheriff’s office as an institution profits, the credit he/she has earned benefits the other sheriffs, with the public generally and with the legislature.  The standing of the office with the legislature is important.  At every session the sheriffs and other enforcement officers come to the legislators asking statutory changes that will make for better enforcement.  The more confidence the legislators have in them the better will be the results, and back through a third century at least, the success of the sheriffs in securing needed legislation has been decidedly unusual.  They have had the legislators’ confidence and the public has profited thereby.  If we the people continue to have enough governmental know-how to govern ourselves, we will keep the sheriff permanently, and will keep him/her as an elect official.