Peter

I have had several people in my life cause me harm. I forgave these people for what they did. They did nothing illegal or violent, but they were jerks for doing what they did. But I don't want to be around them anymore. Does this go against what forgiveness is or do I still need to be around these people?

I am not Catholic, so I have no particular dog in this fight. I am curious as to why people think this way. Please let me know. Thank you.

I am in the set up process of starting my freelance business. Putting aside for the moment delivering for my customers and making money, what people skills do I need to be successful ? I greatly appreciate your time and good input. Thank you!

These organizations could range from Cub Scout master to coaches to mayors to CEO to military officers to leaders of countries and churches. And if the distinction exists, what do you think it is ?

My wife has never told me explicitly that she thinks I am uptight. She has said that I worry too much and need to relax. She has also said that she is careful about what she says to me because sometimes I overreact. I admit that I am a bit tightly wound sometimes, but does that lead to divorce?

In the next year, I will be setting up my own business as a freelance business writer. I will be a one person operation and will be functioning both as management and personnel. I view myself as a quiet and competent professional. But now I will need to learn to think and act as a CEO, especially since I will now have to attract customers. In the companies that I have worked for, I noticed that the CEO's thought, acted and carried themselves in what seemed to me to be a certain way. They were obviously leaders, but there was also something in the way that the behaved that set them apart. I would like to know what that is and how someone would acquire those skills that I observed in CEO's. Thank you for taking the time to read my question and I look forward to reading your responses.

In a couple of weeks, my wife and I are going to be hosting a 40th birthday party for my wife's brother at our house. My wife's parents, brother and his wife along with their kids, and my wife's sister will be there. My wife's sister will be the oldest sibling there. My wife's sister also loves to take pictures and thinks is is her Constitutional right to be able to photograph our kids. I don't like this but my wife takes her side because she is afraid her sister won't a. baby sit our kids and b. will go into a depressive episode and do who knows what. I really want to confront her, but my wife is insistent that I don't. I don't want to spoil the party, but I also don't want to take any crap from my sister in law. What should I do?

Please state your reasons and please also keep the historical perspective of the statement in mind.

I am a defensive person who also beats himself up over my perceived mistakes and imperfections. This is due to my personality as well as my last three jobs where if I was not defensive, I would be eaten alive. I am afraid that my behavior has created a potential problem in my marriage of three years. It seems that my wife feels she cannot say what she feels she needs to say to me because I will beat myself up over it and she doesn't want me to do that. She is reluctant to speak to me because she will bring up an issue and I become a defense attorney. She feels like she is walking on eggshells For example, she might want to tell me I should have cooked something this way instead of the way that I did it but that if she did, I'd get mad at myself and beat myself up over it. Sometimes I don't know when she is kidding and I take things a different way than she intended and it will sometimes cause a needless problem. This doesn't mean that I want to let her, or others walk all over me, but if she feels she is on eggshells and can't talk to me, then there is a problem. How do I fix this?

For those who may accuse me of being right-wing paranoid, I think our government has done this for quite some time regardless of who is president or which party controls congress. For years, I think our government has used the "bread and circus" approach that the ancient Romans did in in controlling us. We are more concerned with "friending on Facebook,"or who won what game or "what is blowing up on the twitterverse." For the record, I am a sports fan who can also see the forest for the trees. We are too distracted with all of these things to notice an economy that is not really all that strong or a threat from ISIS or an attempted government takeover of the Internet through Net Neutrality. I am of the belief that the government controls all media and it always has. Nothing that we are seeing in the various media is there if the government, again regardless of president or party in charge, didn't approve of it. They control the message. What do you think?

Someone please explain this one to me.

Yes, I do understand that the amendment would have to be voted on, ordinarily, by Congress. But given Obama's propensity for using executive orders-which every president does- would it be out of the question for him to do it?

I have set a goal for the end of this year to start my own business. I fully believe in myself and my product. Yet, when I study successful entrepreneurs and CEO's, they seem to have a set of social skills that I think I do not currently possess. They seem to have high emotional intelligence when they deal with people, which is not one of my skill sets. Being somewhat shy and reticent doesn't help either.

In my previous jobs, I was very quiet and would not speak much. I avoided upper management like the plague because I was afraid of getting fired for doing or saying the wrong thing. I also saw anyone who interacted with upper management as brown nosing and I didn't want to do that. I also stayed out of office politics. I just wanted to go to work, do the best I can, take my check and go home.

In looking back, I see that this was not the best thing to do. It seems that good social skills, as well as the widely discussed "soft skills" are lacking for me. How does someone acquire these skills in order to be a successful entrepreneur. Thank you for your time.

According to a line from Obama's famous "bitter clinger speech, bitter clinger's "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them." This seems to be the case with ISIS. Yet Obama is doing nothing to these bitter clingers, but is instead going after the bitter clingers in this country by attempting to limit the US bitter clinger's ability to buy bullets. I guess the is scared of the ISIS bitter clingers but not those in his own country. Nice leadership.

If I were a Muslim leader, I'd be screaming from the mountain tops of social media that ISIS doesn't represent my religion. Instead, we hear nothing. Why? Could it be that they secretly support them?

I am married, but I see my wife's family as her family, not mine. I treat them with all respect and I like them, but I do not see them as my family. If my wife wants to see my side of the family as her family, that is fine, but I don't expect her to. I just don't understand. In laws, maybe, but not "family." Thank you for reading.

If so, what was your experience? Also have any of you ever used 1-800 Go Pack Rat or PODS? If so, what was that like for you? Thank you.

Six weeks ago, I left my job of nine years in the financial service industry to be a stay at home dad. My wife has been with her job for at least 20 years and it made sense for her to stay in her job and for me to leave mine. I also quite happy being a stay at home dad. I am grateful for the opportunity to do this and would not trade it for the world! Yet, I harbor anger toward my previous employer. The position itself was a client service position. We dealt with a myriad of people, or as a former VP said "we serve many idols," and we were on the low end of the totem poll. Everything was dumped on us. Our bosses told us to just deal and not take everything so personally. Internally, if someone made a mistake and did not have to face the client, we had to face the client and took the blame and a mountain of abuse. Or if someone in another department did not want to do something, we had to do it. I realize that in that type of client facing job. you do face a fair amount of abuse. But having said that, it made me very angry to be degraded and dehumanized that way. I left about six weeks ago and have taken to writing down my thoughts just to get it out and try to get rid of all this garbage. I still seem to be carrying this garbages around in my head. Maybe this is part of the process of letting things go, but the anger is still there. How do I get rid of it?

I have been a defensive person for most of my life. People have told me that I take things the wrong way. Someone would say something to me and I would turn into a cross between a defense attorney and a cornered animal. My mother used to say that she could not talk to me when I got like this. Part of it is me, part of it is the fact that I worked in high pressure jobs with very demanding bosses and clients, which only fed more gas to the fire. Sometimes my wife says something innocent to me about something that happened or didn't happen. I feel like I am back in those high pressure jobs and my defensiveness kicks into maximum overdrive and I over-react. For instance, she may say to me that the grass is kind of high. I take it as "WHY ISN"T THIS MOWED? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? YOU HAVE FAILED TO MEET MY EXPECTATIONS! " I feel attacked and give a defense and she says "all I meant was that the grass is a bit high." Things like this have happened more than a few times and she informed me today that she feels like she cannot tell me things. I know that this is not good. How do I stop?