I was doing some thinking one day, which I find I do best while driving, and I started thinking about a couple of issues. Fortunately, I was able to retain a lot of what I was thinking about long enough to be able to articulate it into words upon arriving home.

On patience:
With patience comes love, compassion, and empathy. It is never a virtue to be quick to anger. Patience requires discipline in holding back that impulse to react in a negative way. By imposing that discipline upon yourself, you're modeling discipline itself.

On raising children:
You have to go beyond seeing your children as these little creatures whom you could coerce, strong arm, and with whom to bargain to do your bidding. You have to look at them each as the person they will potentially become. Parenthood requires some ability in predicting the future especially when it comes to how your behavior will affect them down the road of life. It's much easier to think about all the good attributes you want them to have as an adult. But, to think about which attributes you don't want them to have requires taking some steps back and realizing that you, as their parent, are their very first teacher and role model and is therefore a major contributing factor to their outcome. To have raised an adult who posses more negative attributes than positive ones is like having soiled hands which no amount of washing will make clean.

Mind you, just because I think these things doesn't mean I live it every moment of every day. I am human after all and am prone to shortcomings. But I try my best and am hopeful that one day I will attain at least a 90% success rate on a consistent basis.