The truth is that most of us will never use the myriad of math facts and algorithms in our post-school lives. However, that does not mean that math does not have some valuable lessons for us.

A few weeks ago my Aunt Leona passed away. Her life is a testament to something I teach in my professional protocol seminars. Life is about actions. In both your personal and your professional lives, others make decisions about you based upon your observable behaviors.

Cancer. It teaches so much, even as it confounds and confuses. James Dean, whose young life was snatched not by cancer but a car crash, wisely advised, "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."

The constructs upon which I co-built my family are different now. We have been through upheaval in more ways than one. We have learned that upheaval is the natural course of life. It doesn't have to be "bad" or scary or resisted.