A Lonely Christmas

This being the first Christmas since my separation almost a year ago I decided to write about the effect being apart from my son had on me these past two days. While being apart from my son anytime is a challenge, I share custody with his mother, I never expected Christmas would be much different. I have my son essentially half of every week, as I made a point of moving as close to him as possible so that I wouldn't have to be an every other weekend father. I honestly don't think I could have handled that because being a father is something I always dreamed of.

Growing up Jewish, even though I always loved Christmas, it's not a new experience for me to be alone during this time of year. Although for the past 15 years I always had friends that I would typically celebrate with. Of course 5 of those 15 years I spent Christmas with my son and in-laws, so that had pretty much become routine. This Christmas I was alone as most of my friends live at least an hour away and I guess being newly single I'm not on the top of most peoples invite list. To make matters even more difficult, I was very quickly replaced by another man mere days after I moved out of my former family house. For those who know me or those who have read about me, dealing with adversity is nothing new, but I must say this has been one of the toughest years of my life and this Christmas pretty much capped it off. To say I'm anxious for 2013 would be a huge understatement.

Christmas eve wasn't too bad, with the exception of the morning when I had to watch my son leave for what I knew would be his first Christmas without his father, because I hung out with a friend. Regardless of trying to enjoy myself last night, I couldn't stop thinking about my son and his anticipation of Christmas morning. I was also quite uncomfortable with the thought of my son celebrating Christmas with my old family and this new guy, but I guess that's part of life. Today though was a different story. When the morning phone calls and messages I placed to all my Christmas celebrating friends were over, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about what my past 5 years had been like on Christmas morning. It took all the resilience I have to not go crazy thinking about my son waking up to another man and his mom, running downstairs for Christmas breakfast and then heading off to his mom's family for the day of presents, food and celebration. I felt like I was in a time warp and everyone had moved forward and here I was stuck thinking about the past. I still can't fathom how none of my former in-laws have even bothered to reach out to me and especially during the holiday season to not get a card, a text, an email or even a Facebook message, but again, I guess that's the way it goes.

What I really don't understand is how all of them, who spent Christmas with me last year, would not even bat an eye at the fact that this year there is a new man there in my place. Yet we wonder why today's youth are struggling so much. I can only imagine what my son is thinking. I know that he's aware because when we are together he tells me how he wishes I could be there with him and his mom on Christmas and he often talks about how much he wishes we could go back to our old house where he, his mother and I, were all together. It kills me to think about how difficult it must be for him, but then I wonder if it's just me who is having such a hard time with it. I miss my family, I miss my son and even though relationships are tough, I was definitely in it for the long haul and being separated was never part of my plan. When I see my ex, it almost feels as if time stands still for me and it doesn't feel much different from when we were together. On her end, I kind of feel like that song "Somebody that I used to know" is how she looks at me. It's like I have been erased and it totally stings.

I'm sure many of you reading this may think I'm stuck and I have to move on, but I assure you I have moved on. Not that it makes any of this easier, but what other choice do I have. I love my ex for better and for worse, and I say love, not loved, because I am a firm believer that you can't turn love off. To me, if you ever loved someone, and I mean truly loved them, you will never stop loving them.

All I know is that Christmas day 2012 was a lonely one and it brought a lot of feelings and emotions to the surface. I figured the best way to deal with them, seeing that nothing else was working today, was to share some of those feelings and at the very least get them out! For anyone else out there who knows what I'm talking about, please hang in there. It will get easier and feeling this way is completely normal and understandable no matter what anyone tells you. Do not let others opinions get in the way of how you process things and how you deal. Trust your instincts and my thought is even though times can be tough, you will be fine. I for instance know for a fact that next Christmas will be much easier than this one and that is something to look forward to.

I hope all of you had a great holiday season and I'm wishing you a very Happy New Year.

Thanks for listening.

Connecticut Shootings

It's been a while since my last written blog, as I've moved more to video blogs on our YouTube channel at the Joshua Stern Project, but I've decided with the recent shooting in Connecticut to go back to the good old-fashioned written blog. 

As is everyone I would hope, I am extremely saddened and emotionally disturbed that yet again we've had a terrible and tragic shooting. This time involving elementary school students, 20 of which are dead and we are all left to wonder what this world is coming to. As usual the first thing everybody starts talking about is gun control. Now while I think this is definitely a good start, we also need to look closer at this whole situation. 

First off, guns are not the only weapon that an individual intent on causing harm can utilize. For example, the same day as the shootings in Connecticut a knife wielding maniac went to an elementary school in China and stabbed 20 children. Thankfully none of the children died, but it is still something we should all be aware of. Let's also not forget how easy that same individual, with the same intent, could make an explosive of some sort with all the recipes easily available on the Internet. 

Secondly, if we are going to talk about gun control, especially in the US, why don't we start with the banning of semi-automatic weapons and maybe start looking at the same sort of gun laws that we have in Canada. While you can still own a "long-gun", typically used for hunting and sport, it is very difficult for a citizen to obtain a handgun. Now I don't know about you, but I'm thinking that right off the bat it will be very difficult to have a mass shooting when you constantly have to reload a hunting rifle. It's definitely NOT the solution, but it is a great start. 

In all honesty though, why do we think or believe, that controlling guns or having registration of more guns is going to end the violence? These guns will still be able to be purchased, only illegally. Majority of the time these tragic shootings are not done by the legal gun owners and even in the Connecticut shooting last week, technically the guns were stolen from the shooters mother. We can also talk about how she possibly didn't have them locked up properly and was she the only one with a key. 

We absolutely have to look at the bigger picture here. What is causing these highly disturbed people to act out with such violence and such a lack of concern for human life. We need to find out more about the person responsible for the shootings, not just that they were loners, highly intelligent, emotionally disturbed and possibly on some form of prescription drug. The United States has more people and children on prescription drugs than anywhere else in the world. Maybe that is something we need to look into further. Some of these prescribed drugs are as strong as heroin and if an individual misses just 1 dose it can have serious implications. With this shooting in particular there is one glaring piece of this puzzle that we need to know more about. We need to look into the fact that this individual shot his mother several times before going out on his rampage at the school. This right away tells me that there was another major issue going on here for him to take such vengeance on his mother. This is a question we should all be asking. There is more to this story than just a random act of violence. I guarantee there was a reason, however crazy it is, that this young man did what he did.

As opposed to blaming the guns, let's blame the system that is clearly failing so many people. Let's talk about what makes one individual commit the act while another individual facing as many problems or more, would never go to this extreme. When we talk about the parents who are burying children, I wonder if all they think about is guns or if they think about the person responsible for what has happened. I also wonder how helpful it is to have this flood of media attention and Presidential speeches, do we really believe this offers up any amount of resolution for these families? Maybe when the movie comes out that will also help them? Maybe instead they should take all the money generated from this media blitz and stories that are sure to follow and shut that school down forever. Memorialize that school and build a new one in its place. 

I could go on and on with this topic, but these are just a few of my main thoughts. If you enjoyed this post please leave a comment and visit us at our website, www.JoshuaStern.ca where I work with at-risk youth on the regular.

I thank you all for your time.

Some Thoughts on Bullying

When it comes to the topic of bullying, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple years, there is almost no hotter topic out there. Unfortunately the bullying phenomenon is nothing new. We all grew up dealing with it in one way, shape or form.  For me and countless others out there it took a major toll. My personal plight with the attention bullying is receiving is that it’s all for nothing. If we want to talk about bullying we should be talking about at-risk youth. So as opposed to bullying being the cause for all these issues, it’s actually the alarming amount of children who are growing up at-risk these days. The youth today are completely desensitized; they lack compassion, sensitivity, understanding, patience and most importantly they lack resilience. Outside of the usual suspects such as media, government, radio, Internet, teachers, etc. who routinely get the blame for everything. Why don’t we take a good hard look in the mirror and recognize that maybe the issue is a lot closer to home than we care to acknowledge.

I agree that video games are out of control, music and television are ridiculous and the news is more of a soap opera than ever before, but is any of this new? Did all the generations before not deal with the very same issues? The problem according to me is what is going on inside the family home. Let’s be honest, who else is supposed to teach our children how to be compassionate, understanding, patient, kind and loving? Last I checked there is nobody else in this entire Universe that is responsible for teaching our young those things, that falls on us, the parents. Obviously there are many circumstances for why families are extremely strained these days, but if you decide to have children, for whatever reason, who else should pick up the slack? It’s not something you walk away from, it’s not something you throw your arms up in the air and quit over and it’s not something you allow someone else to do for you! Nothing can be more gratifying then to be a parent, but god forbid you look at your children as too much or a burden, what do you think they are going to turn out like?

When we have children who are raising themselves, children who are neglected or children who are being raised by 2 very hard working parents that can’t be around enough because they need to support the family, you are going to have at-risk youth. In other words you have youth who are at-risk of having some major difficulties and struggles as they try to grow without all the necessary tools and without the necessary knowledge to use those tools. I see it everyday with the kids I try to help, the teenagers who are sliding down a slippery slope and the young adults who are so lost you wouldn’t believe it could be possible. If kids are raised without hope and belief I really don’t know why we are so surprised when we hear about the way they behave at school. Are they mimicking what they see at home or do we want to accept that they are getting it from television? My son watches a wide variety of shows and I’m certain some parents would be shocked at what we allow him to watch, but for me the explanation is simple. I am an extremely hands on parent who is consistently assisting my son navigate his way through life. Another aspect of my life that many would frown upon, is that as opposed to being overly concerned with making a handsome living, I work from home running a business so I can be there for my son instead of being able to buy him the best of everything. I don’t miss skating lessons, baseball games or anything that I can’t control because I want him to be strong and I want him to know he always has me in his corner. If children can be raised in a manner such as this, they will have the ability to flourish, as they will feel safe, secure, confident and most importantly loved. I am not a fan of focusing on the negative, so I don’t want to talk about the ridiculously large number of children who are struggling. Instead I choose to be positive and find constructive solutions for turning this around.

We need to focus on the fact that the average child can no longer weather the storm of a bully and that is what is being ignored. We are never going to get every criminal off the streets and we are never going to get rid of bullies no matter how hard we try to come down on them. If we as adults could regularly acknowledge that bullying goes on in our adult lives far more than it ever did when we were young, just in different forms, we would be assisting our youth without doing very much. We have to strengthen our youth that are falling victim to what we have all had to deal with in our lives. We need to focus on helping the victims a hell of a lot more than we need to focus on punishing the bullies. Think about what we are doing, instead of building up a child who needs it, we give them pity and we tear down another, the bully. Even the bully needs our attention and compassion, not our wrath. These kids are crying out for attention, begging to be loved and they are tired of having the people closest to them let them down.

At The Joshua Project we are dedicated to creating as much awareness as possible, while at the same time we run programs geared towards prevention and change. We need to remind these kids at school of what they may be missing out on at home. We as a society need to stop blaming everyone and treating everyone like an enemy. We need to teach our children the meaning of a team. We need to remind our children what it’s like to want to help others and to not be satisfied with feeling like they can’t stand up for themselves. When did we stop caring if a friend was being mistreated, when did it become so easy to turn a blind eye and when did we start accepting that this is just the way things are? If we can all come together and decide that a little kid who is rude, abrasive and a bit out of control does not need a drug to calm him down unless there is a major mental illness, maybe then we will be on our way to a new tomorrow. That young boy just needs some guidance, discipline, support and love and most times you will find that is all it takes.

So lets accept that bullying is a part of growth, it’s kids expressing their individuality and it’s kids behaving like the adults that surround them and maybe if we accept it, we can teach them how to deal with it effectively. 

Amanda Todd Part 2

So I decided, after much debate and many opinions for both sides, that I had to re-visit the Amanda Todd story and post some of my thoughts and comments, as well as those that came out of my program with Horizons Shelter for Youth this morning. Before I get into this post, I feel like I should start with a disclaimer, and I wanted to include a couple of links for those of you who don't know Amanda Todd.

I would like to just be very clear that nothing that I say in the body of this post has anything to do with, or is a reflection, about how I feel about Amanda Todd taking her own life! I want to be explicitly clear when I say that this is a horrible tragedy and all I feel is sadness! All I feel is immense pain for the parents, the families, the friends and all others who now have to deal with the aftermath, and I wish more than anything that I could've prevented it. But even more than that, I wish someone, anyone, could have prevented it. That being said, I believe it could have been prevented and this blog is all about how & why I think that, as well as I have questions. Many questions in fact, and I hope that some of you, not all of you, but some, will see where I'm coming from. At the end of the day my goal is to help kids and specifically to help them avoid becoming at-risk, that means that I am willing to do and say almost anything in order to save these kids, I hope that is what you take from this!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/amanda-todd-suicide-bullying_n_1959909.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Amanda+Todd+speaks+about+daughter+death/7384521/story.html

     "Amanda was 12 years old when she made a mistake that would haunt her until her death three years later.

Her ordeal started while she was fooling around online with friends. She probably didn’t think it was risky behaviour when she lifted her top to flash the person who was flattering her at the other end of the webcam.

Amanda’s moment of indiscretion was not unusual for someone her age: Sexting and using webcams to share sexual photos is a growing trend among children, some so young they are still in grade school."

It was this specific quote from the writer of the article from the Vancouver Sun that literally made me want to lose my mind. I had to say something just for the simple fact that she was trying to pass off a 12 year old flashing her boobs online as the norm and nothing to be surprised about! If it was not unusual or out of the norm, I wonder how many of Amanda's "friends" also flashed the webcam that night?

I want to start by saying that I don't know all the in's and out's of Amanda's particular case and maybe that is why I have so many questions. Shouldn't we all want to know more? How is it so easy for so many of us to just take what we have been given and accept it as truth? What I can say is that the at-risk youth I work with twice a week, every week, are all candidates for suicide. In fact most every youngster I meet and work with in this environment has mentioned to me that they have thought about suicide or considered it in the past. The age range I work with is typically between 16-23 years old. Do you want to know what the consensus around our group discussion regarding Amanda Todd was? It wasn't the bullying that caused her to take her own life, it was the isolation and feelings of "nobody is here for me". That was the number one response I got. One young lady told me that she could relate to a lot of the same things Amanda described and her response to the situation was, "If she didn't have a good relationship with one of her parents, that is most likely the reason she took her own life."

Doesn't anyone else out there want to talk about the fact that she attempted suicide on 2 separate and previous occasions? How did she even get the opportunity for a 3rd attempt? Had nobody seen the red flags yet? Did people miss it when she came home and drank bleach? She was rushed to the hospital in order to have her stomach pumped so it definitely did not go unnoticed! Did nobody notice she had been cutting herself? 

Maybe we should go back to the beginning, or let me rephrase that, let's go back to the beginning that WE know. Around twelve years of age Amanda flashed a webcam and essentially posed for a topless photo. Maybe we should stop right there, why on gods green earth would any 12 year old engage in that type of behaviour if they weren't ALREADY AT-RISK??? Maybe if we start to understand that there were other problems in Amanda's life other than what transpired after she took this photo, then maybe we could actually get to the bottom of this story and in turn actually learn a lesson. Why haven't we heard from any of Amanda's classmates or peers? What about her teachers and principals? Wouldn't they have an opinion? 

Once again, yes it is a tragedy of mass proportions when a young girl takes their own life, but wouldn't it be even worse if we all missed out on the reason she did so? If it was a lesson she was trying to share, what was that lesson? Was there anything positive to take from Amanda's YouTube post and subsequent suicide other than she was very alone and obviously lacked the strength to keep fighting?

Do you know how angered some of the youth I work with were about this story? 

"Why should she get attention, she killed herself!" That was one response.

"Ya, maybe if she posted that video and then a couple years later she showed the world how she overcame all that and turned her life around, that would be something to talk about, but why this? It seems like we are dishonouring her in a way."

"It's almost like we are celebrating the tragedy of Amanda Todd!"

I would hope that you won't immediately write off any of these honest comments just because of who they came from, but if we are being honest, wouldn't these types of kids have the "inside track" when it comes to understanding what Amanda was dealing with?

One kid said it to me best when she said, "Suicide is about stopping the people that are constantly hurting you and most likely those are the closest people to you. Maybe she did have a tough go at it, maybe she did make some mistakes, but maybe there was nobody there to remind her that mistakes are how we learn. Maybe she was made to feel bad every time she made a mistake!"

All I'm trying to say is that if we are to benefit at all from this tragedy we must find out the cause even if some of the questions are tough to ask or answer. If this was a homicide would the coroner just walk in, look at the body, and without so much as a single test determine the cause of death? We owe it to Amanda to find out what the cause was, because whatever it was she was afraid to admit it. There was definitely something other than the bullying and online attacks that caused this to happen, that's why I have so many questions. How about you?

I work with these kids every week and I care for each and every one of them, I couldn't imagine how I would feel if one of them took their own life. But nobody would benefit if we didn't do that individual the justice they deserved and tried to learn why they did it, so that we could help the next one.

Something was going on outside of school, outside of the cyber bullying and outside of the story we are all seeing thus far. I truly hope that we learn more so that we can continue to help the "next one". If we don't, we will just be back here again in the "not so distant future", talking about another child. We need to know what was going on at home. Like I asked in the earlier paragraphs, why did this happen, who dropped the ball? Do we really want to blame or accuse the wrong people just so the majority of society can go back to sleep while we sweep Amanda Todd under the rug?

We need to think preventatively and this is a golden opportunity to learn something valuable. If parents keep blaming educators and educators keep blaming parents and they both blame the government, are we getting anywhere? If nothing else why don't the parents and educators come together and agree that we want to put an end to at-risk youth and bullying? If nothing else I think we can all agree that Amanda never got the lesson that flashing your boobs online is not the norm and it's not appropriate. She also obviously didn't get the lessons about how you definitely never want to share private things with the Internet. Yet after all the horrible things that followed you still managed to meet another boy, who lied about having a girlfriend, and when he tells you she is out of town, you go over and have sex with him. If I'm not missing anything, does that sound like an average youth, a healthy youth or an at-risk youth, which would you choose?

I wish somewhere along the way I had the opportunity to meet Amanda, maybe I would have been able to help her because one thing is certain, nobody else in her life was able to. That is what scares me the most.

Wherever Amanda is now I truly hope she has found some sort of peace and I'm fairly certain that if she could help another young person avoid going her route she would do it in a heartbeat.

Please help me in truly trying to find out what causes children to become at-risk, if we look at my favourite definition, 

      "A better definition of 'at-risk youths', is youths who are at risk of being failed by one or more adults or an adult-driven system or institution.”

we can see that something has to go wrong for these kids to end up as bullies and victims, and if it isn't out in the public, where else would it be?        

Where does Amanda fit into all this? Who failed her? Why did this happen? Could it have been prevented? Why did she have more than two opportunities to try?

I hope there are many of you who see past my harshness in determining who is accountable here and focus more on my intent and I truly hope that many of you also have questions and you haven't already forgotten about Amanda Todd.

Amanda Todd

So here we are yet again. We have another young girl, a 15-year-old by the name of Amanda Todd, who has taken her own life in British Columbia, Canada, due to bullying. The facts surrounding the incident are the young girl apparently had taken a picture of herself "flashing" the camera, which typically means nudity. The picture got on Facebook and some people started making her life a miserable hell ending in her taking her own life. I first and foremost want to talk about how ridiculous a tragedy this is and how it's an absolute waste.

Another life that could have been saved has fallen to the wayside and now families and friends and all kinds of other people have to wonder why. Now they are left to pick up the pieces and for me personally, working in this line and seeing these kinds of kids each and every day, I'm just so fed up. I'm frustrated! I don't understand how the parents of Amanda Todd are missing this and how they couldn't have prevented their daughter from taking such drastic measures. I'm sorry I have to say it, but how did you not know more? How did you miss this? Does it make me a bad person because I ask these questions? Aren't any of you thinking the same thing? On the flip-side of this coin, I can't imagine how the parents of the bullies have no idea what their kids are doing! How can you allow your children to continuously behave in this manner? I'm so tired of the, "We didn't know what our child was up to" excuse, it's time we demand more. 

I've been around these young individuals all my life. Especially the ones who were on the brink of taking their own lives, the ones who've thought about taking their own lives and the ones who survived into their adult lives thinking about taking their lives for the last 15 to 20 plus years. The number one thing that seems to come out from all of them is it's not the act of bullying or the repeated acts of bullying that made them contemplate or actually commit suicide. It was the immense feelings of desperation, the feelings of isolation, and the feelings of being completely alone. The majority of these kids all talked about how they had a lack of trust or no trust with their parents and if they had a trust with their parents they would've continually talked to their parents about what was bothering them so much. These kids all talk about being ashamed at home, believe it or not, worse than going back to school to face these kids, it was going back to face their parents that made it worse. 

It's one thing to be bullied and picked on by kids at school, it's another thing to go home and tell your father or mother and they in turn respond to you as such,"What are you a girl or a boy? You going to let little things like this bother you? Why don't you go to your room and cry about it and don't come out until you know how to be tough! I don't have time for these insignificant things"! That is what I hear all the time in my line of work. It was a feeling of worthlessness and shame that these kids held inside and it typically stemmed from lack of support and understanding from their parents. Think about it, if we know that one consistent adult in a child's life is enough to build resilience, isn't it fair to say that the ones without a consistent adult are the ones who are falling so far?  

I remember working with a young individual who routinely spoke of his bullying issues, but more than those he described how he felt worthless around his parents, how they didn't care about him or his problems and when he tried to talk to his father he was too busy, he blew him off, or he didn't validate him. To make a long story short this young man took his own life and after he did his father came out and was the loudest person you could hear screaming for justice! It was the schools fault, it was the other juvenile delinquents in the neighbourhood, it was the teacher's, it was everyone but him! I took it as his immense guilt and disappointment that would not allow him to come out and say what he really felt. "Maybe if I had been there for my son this wouldn't have happened!!!" Maybe if we stop pointing a finger in every direction but at ourselves we would see more change. Maybe if parents these days weren't insulted or slighted when another adult points out their child is struggling, then we would have a chance at change. I know this may sound crazy but I believe that a child who takes their own life is being bullied or ignored at home as much, if not more, than they are in school or online. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we all need to come together; parents, community, teachers and all other individuals and we need to say "enough is enough". We need to educate our victims, we need to educate our bystanders, we need to educate our bullies, we need to assess all these individuals and we need to stop blaming. We also need to stop generalizing, and stop thinking that punishment and labelling is the best way to deal with these kids. Enough is enough there's got to be a better way and we need to accept that nothing we are doing is working. How many more kids, how many more videos, and how many more suicides? We all got to watch more of what's going on in our kids lives!

We at The Josh Project are trying to make that difference. As a former victim of bullying and then the one who was rejected because he fought back, I have dedicated my life to making a difference in the lives of at-risk youth. We need a more balanced approach and we must start as young as possible. Why not start these programs that begin for Kindergarten age and go all the way up to graduating students? The more we educate, the more effect it will have on the decisions these children and youth are making in their day to day lives.

Do we really have to accept or believe that these kids have free reign over everything and that parents have no idea and teachers have no idea? Who does have an idea and what are we willing to do about it? Why do we have so many parents that don't know what their 14 and 15 year olds are doing? What is this world we live in? It's unfathomable to me that the parents or schools cannot intervene and do more.

The schools should have mandated programs, the school staff should have mandated parameters to take action and act on situations and there needs to be serious checks and balances in place that allow those who are given the charge to educate our children to be held more accountable if they do not take more preventative measures.

Please find a way to do more, www.JoshuaStern.ca, every life is important let's start acting that way."

A Bit About Me and Why I Do What I Do!

For those of you who are unaware, I am a writer, youth advocate, life coach and a mentor. I truly enjoy all of those positions and I truly feel fulfilled because I have the opportunity to make a difference in somebodies life. Writing is obviously very near and dear to me because I am able to share my experiences, my views on the world and for the most part I try to write stories that make people think. My aim is to hopefully teach a lesson or convey an important thought or message to all my readers. Outside of simply trying to entertain you and obviously be exciting, my main focus is to always engage the reader and try to share some knowledge with them. There's always a point to why I write and typically I'm trying to save you from going down the same paths I, my friends, or my characters have gone down themselves.

It's very important for me that when I write there is a purpose, and I want it to be clear that I'm not just writing to sell books. I hope that throughout sharing my purposes and my messages with you that I also entertain you, and I hope that you recognize that it's all tied into The Josh Project and the work I do with at-risk youth. So for example, every book I sell, 50% of the proceeds goes right back to the Josh Project and in turn we are able to create more programs for kids. I am essentially helping to protect the kids from going down the same roads I went down and they don't even have to read my books. I would like people to read my books and see the stories I'm trying to share, then by supporting me and my writing, you are also supporting the youth in your local community. Sounds like a win to me. Entertaining story for you and more programs and community centers for the kids.

In a strange kind of way it's actually something I've been working on for the last two years and I hope that the public and the community can actually get on board and start supporting what I believe is a really amazing initiative. If we all live in a society together why are we supporting actors, writers, filmmakers, entertainers and comedians that don't support us? We need to get back to the time where we understand the value of a dollar and if we spend our dollars, our hard earned dollars, we should feel good about who we're spending our money with and we should demand that we get something back for the money that we spent. That is the definition of value, I don't enjoy just throwing money away. 

In other words if I go to a movie, and these days I'm spending about $20 per person and that might not even get me a drink and a ticket for the show, I'd like to know that the actors or film company I'm supporting are also supporting me and my community. Am I really that crazy or out of line for having these types of expectations? If in Canada, where I live for example, we spent 500 million dollars on American movies and the American actors or film
companies don't spend a penny to help improve or support Canada, why are we still supporting them? Maybe we should support some Canadian films who in turn build schools in our home towns? Maybe we should make these companies be more aware of how and where they make their money, and who it is that should reap the rewards? I'm all for helping others, but isn't the golden rule that we fix our own house first, then we go and help fix others houses? I'm very happy to see actors helping kids in Africa, but when you still have a major problem with the youth in your own backyard, shouldn't we take care of that first?

Now I know it's a bit of a strange thought and I know you might be wondering how did I come up with such a thought. Well in keeping with a lot of the stories I share, the work that I do and who I actually am, I had a dream about it and it was a very vivid one. As usual when I have one of these vivid dreams, I wake up and I write down some of the finer parts of that dream and in my dream it seemed like a fabulous idea. Why wouldn't I spend money with somebody who wants to spend money with me? Isn't that the natural progression of how sales even began? It's the natural way to get a good deal, why would I spend $20 and get nothing in return? That makes no sense to me.

I truly believe the time is now for a major shift in our consciousness if we can all start to understand and believe that there is more out there than meets the eye then maybe we can once again see a mild form of evolution. Let's have a big conscious shift and I guarantee we can initiate change and we can make things happen, but we have to believe it's possible and we have to start thinking outside the box. If we can get to that point then we might actually start to see some of the changes we've been yearning for for as long as I've been on this earth and I'm sure longer. For example, if when I told people I had dreams as a child that I could remember and write down, then I'd watch as the majority of what I wrote would come true, and the initial reaction wasn't, "are you crazy", then I'd know we were closer to change.

To learn more about The Josh Project and what we are trying to accomplish, please visit us at www.JoshuaStern.ca

As always your support is needed and necessary!! Thank you for taking the time!

Change Is Essential, Without It We Deny Evolution!

I think we can all agree that it's definitely time for change. Now I know that there are many aspects of our lives and of this world that definitely need change, but the change I'm referring to is the essential one regarding our communities, our society, our education system, and most importantly the way we are raising our kids. That's correct, I said it, our kids. If they live in our world or our community, then we need to start looking at them as our children.

I think it's high time we recognize how desperately we need a major overhaul of our public school system for starters. The public school system needs a makeover, and badly!  Especially when we begin talking about grade-school, by which I am referring to kindergarten up until grade 6, we need to literally transform the way that these children are being taught. We need to put the emphasis on the right things and I think we're all getting to the point, and the level of consciousness, where we understand what is important and what is not important.  Specifically for kids between the ages of 4-5 years old, up until 11 or 12, do not need to be inundated with the majority of what they are being taught. Although math, science, history, geography, etc are always essential and will be tools that these children need, we also need to be more realistic and what they really need is to learn how to get along with each other, how to communicate properly, how to take care of their body and minds, how to eat properly, how to properly deal with emotions and confrontations, and I think we can all agree that being able to find Afghanistan on a world map or remember the date of the Spanish Revolution, is not nearly as important as the rest of what I've mentioned.

We need to continue to teach these children as they grow to adolescents and teenagers, and if fact we need to teach them for as long as they are in school how to deal with their emotions, how to understand and diffuse anger in themselves and others, how to understand frustration and loss. We should have a course that teaches our youth how to make the most out of every situation. I think that our young children in public school should have a home economics course again and teach kids how to bake, cook, sew, and essentially how to run a household. Maybe its time to start teaching our youth how to change the oil in your car, how to rotate and change tires, how to do the the simple and basic things that can save you hundreds if not a few thousand dollars a year in service because you can do that yourself. I know for myself that being an adult who cannot do those types of fairly simple things for my own car bothers me. I wish I learned about my car and how to protect that investment a hell of a lot more than what I learned in Science class. We need to start teaching these kids how much money the cost of living is and how they can start to prepare for their futures. We need to teach these kids the importance of family and how you better have a very clear idea of when and why you are bringing children of your own into this world.

Most importantly I think it's time that more people from our communities start to stand up and be honest with our kids. It's on us as adults to stand up and say, "hey wait a second you know what, a lot of what I learned in school was a big waste of time, a lot of what I learned in school has no bearing or effect on my adult life whatsoever"! I think that if adults took the time to really think about what it is that makes us successful as adults, we would clearly see and understand what our children so desperately need.

We were taught while growing up that if somebody else can't do the job who do we turn to? Do we look to someone else or do we look at ourselves? We look at ourselves and if nobody else wants to do the job then we do it! We need to take that mentality and we need to  expand on it a little bit more. We need to understand that also includes our community and our society. I am well aware of how overwhelming it is just dealing with yourself and your own family, but we need to do more. What if there's a kid in your neighborhood and you see him struggling and you know the parents are struggling why aren't you doing something about it? Why are you sitting around waiting for a time bomb to slowly tick down and then explode does that make sense to anybody out there?

Does it make any sense to sit and watch a train wreck about to happen and tell yourself I'm not going to do anything about it because how could I possibly stop a train wreck? Well you're right, you can't stop it, but does that mean you should just sit there and watch, or do you think you should start running up and down the railroad tracks screaming to alert the people of what you've seen? Maybe try to convince someone to jump off to their safety? Maybe get the conductor to throw on his breaks 100 meters earlier then originally planned?

Hopefully the point I'm trying to make is kind of clear but just when we think there's nothing we can do there's always something we can do. To take a golf analogy, you will miss 100% of your putts that don't make it to the hole. In other words you can't expect to be successful if you refuse to try! 

I remember being taught as a child and maybe this is a lesson that needs to be re-taught, when I walked by some garbage on the street, and my father or mother I don't recall who, asked me to pick it up. I remember saying that I didn't throw it there, so why should I pick it up? That's when they explained, it's not about who threw it there, it's about you live in this area so you should want to pick it up. Okay so I picked it up and then I came up with the next logical response. How in the world will it make a difference if I pick it up, this world is so big and there's so many people so what does it matter if I pick up one piece while hundreds of people throw another piece? I hope we all know what my father's response was, and if we don't there lies half the problem, but he responded with, "it doesn't matter what other people do, you do what you do because that's who you are, if you see garbage on the ground you pick it up because you know it doesn't belong. Maybe just maybe a few others will see what you did and it will encourage them to do the same or something similar!"

The point is you never know what can happen when you try, but one thing that you can guarantee yourself 100% of the time, is that inaction will definitely get you absolutely nowhere. Sitting there and thinking about doing something will get you know where! Let's just do some things differently, let's just take some chances, let's take some risks and let's try to go against the grain and do things a little differently. I think it's time that we recognize that this world has majorly changed over the last hundred years and how archaic is our school system? it is archaic, let's call a spade a spade, we need to have change, we need to stop sitting around waiting for the government, waiting for our neighbour, and waiting for our educators to do something about it. We need to get up in our own neighbourhood, maybe go door-to-door, maybe call all the local parents you know and rally some troops! Success, strength, focus and commitment are all contagious, and trust me when the fuel for all these emotions is protecting/helping children, who in the world doesn't want to help with that?

Maybe if we taught our children how to love properly and how to take care of their communities we would have a much better society, I don't know, but it sounds like a good start to me!

Wishing you all the best as always.

Please feel free to contact us directly at joshua@joshuastern.ca and your comments and support are always needed.

It's time to make a change!

When dealing with at risk youth it seems that we always come up with the typical responses as to what it was caused by. Whether it was a single-parent house, alcohol or drugs involved, poverty and all the other usual suspects. But at the end of the day one of the things I think we're all majorly ignoring is the family structure.

The family structure I'm referring to has nothing to do with money, it has nothing to do with poverty, it has nothing to do with alcoholism, drugs or any other problems, but it has to do with young people who are not being educated properly presently, and literally an entire generation who were not properly educated period. 

Obviously as these individuals grow they are having children of their own, and how could we possibly expect that they will be able to lead or guide their children any better than the last generation if we don't initiate change? So we now have a society full of families that are very flawed and very incapable. We have children who have grown up, and are growing up, failed by the system and failed by their parents. Then these kids are having kids, and how do we honestly think the situation will get any better until we take the initiative as Community members, family members, and just damn people that care about the world they live in and co-habitate in, and let's find a way to get in front of these children in order to help!

Are we really afraid to just start saying, "Hey wait a second maybe times have changed, maybe we're not in a big boom anymore, maybe our society should not be growing, so why are we populating like jackrabbits?" 

We need to tell our children, adolescents, teenagers, young adults and everybody else, that if YOU yourself are struggling, what are YOU thinking about bringing a child into this world? If YOU can't afford to eat, if YOU can't afford a car, if YOU can't afford a place to live what are YOU doing having a child? To take it a step further, if you are stressed out, anxious, easily aggravated and have a gloomy outlook on life, maybe you shouldn't be thinking about having a child! What chance does that child possibly have at success? Maybe it's time we change the paradigm and stop telling everyone that they should get married and have children because it's the natural progression of life. Said who? The government, the church, who came up with this amazing ideal and how many flipping years ago was it?? 

Here comes a really original and never thought up idea in the history of man kind so I hope you are prepared, "How about do what works for you?" I know, pretty insane, but it's how I truly feel. If we were all a little more aware, and probably a little more honest with ourselves, I think we would all be very surprised with where our wants for a family and children really come from. The key to life is LOVE, not children, not family, not money, not a house, nothing but love. So where in the definition of love does it say you must have children, especially when you can't afford to raise them, or be there for them? You can have and give love without family or children. Trust me there are more than enough super positive and happy people that are looking to share some. Heck, just think about all the people or family members that are currently in your life that need or want love? Instead of lecturing someone you care about, try giving them a hug and telling them everything will be okay, that is love!

Was the point of having children really so both parents could work jobs in order to survive, and all the while we can pay a daycare, nanny, teenage babysitter, or someone else to raise them? Maybe the reason for having children was sort of like a status symbol, "Hey look at us, we have kids and a house, aren't we special!" Sounds retarded doesn't it, but does it sound that far off to some of you? I truly believe we can make a major impact and really offset some of the problems we face today. We need to educate more, we need to communicate more, but most of all we must band together as there is always strength in numbers. We can create change, we have seen it been done all throughout our history and even at times where the majority said it wasn't possible. The more people that are talking about it, the more impact we will have! 

If we want to really take a step towards reducing the risks that all our youth face today then we have to be willing to get in front of them and be honest! We must tell them that the key to success is their own individual happiness, and I don't know about you, but I would never be happy having a child that I had to sacrifice everything about myself just in order for us all to survive or scrape by. That does not sound like a recipe for success, what do you think?

As always I can be reached directly at joshua@joshuastern.ca and I hope to hear from you. Have a listen for me today on the Scott Thompson Show at 12:10pm EST.

Thank you for your time and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Love

I have been tinkering with the idea of a "Love" post for quite some time, but for a variety of reasons I hadn't pulled the trigger until now. I must admit that outside of being busy and dealing with life, one of the major reasons for me not getting to this post sooner is that it hits very close to home and I wasn't sure I was ready for feedback that could leave me feeling vulnerable about myself.

It's kind of ironic when you think about it, I have had no problem talking about my sexual assaults as a youngster, my days totting guns and being a criminal, or the struggles I've had with drugs and addiction, but when it comes to the subject of Love, I get nervous and intimidated. It's almost as if there is this constant voice in the back of my head that says, "You're a man, you aren't supposed to feel this way about love, you're not supposed to be soft!"

The moment I begin to talk about those types of emotions it's amazing the way people can react to you. Well I'm here to tell you that I don't buy that for a second, and I'm going against the grain yet again. Just as I believe that it takes a strong man to cry, or ask for help as opposed to never shedding a tear or trying to figure everything out for yourself, I also believe that if I am going to be condemned for the feelings and thoughts I have, so be it. I'd rather be a part of that world than to be a part of a world where I can't say what I think or describe how I feel.

Now I know you have all heard of the saying, "There's a very thin line between love and hate", and I have to tell you that based on my experiences this seems to be one of the most accurate statements I've ever heard. I have done things, had things done to me, witnessed and heard of more than enough horror stories on this topic and I'm sure the majority of you have too. Maybe the problem is that we throw the word around way too loosely, or maybe it's because we love way too many things. Think about it, I love my soup, I love my favourite pair of jeans, I love my mom and I love my son, but I don't love all these things in the same way. Yet we don't have other words to describe the same emotion.

In the past five years, and I'm 36 now, I have heard of and witnessed the most mind boggling things that people, who I can only assume are either extremely hurt or just cruel or nuts, have done to their supposed "loved ones". I clearly am referring to individuals in relationships. From infidelities, to lies and backstabbing for all kinds of reasons, how could love ever drive people to do those things? If there is one thing I am constantly scratching my head about it's gotta be that one. I am aware that my perception only allows me to understand/relate so much, but I have been through my fair share and I have been surrounded by many people who have all gone through some pretty incredible things and yet when it comes to love, I still can't understand how people can do such things. It's worse than a gang war or a drug battle the foul things that people will do who supposedly are or were in love with another. I still am unsure of how you can actually fall out of love with someone. To me, and I know it's only my opinion, but if you loved someone once, you will always love them. If not, maybe it was never really love.

I guess at the end of the day it's just another one of life's many mysteries and to me, you can either spend a life time trying to solve the mystery, or you just move along. Is it really any different from many other aspects of life that can get us down? Look at it this way, lets just say you have been in bad relationship after bad relationship, and we will need another post to discuss what it is about you that leads to these repeat situations, but even if I put that number at 5 bad relationships in a row I want you to think about it this way. Should anyone let their personal experiences with a few people determine how the rest of the world would treat you? If there are 10 people out there that broke your heart, maybe there are a million more that would repair it? Do you see how we just flipped a negative to a positive.

Maybe if we changed our outlook on many situations they would get a little easier to digest. For me Love is grand, I'll admit I'm cautious and easily jolted based on past experiences, but I can also tell you that it never stops me from exploring the possibility of love. Besides, which is the better way to live your life, full of love and feeling sure that love will always be a part of you, or devout of love and believing love is a sham and you'll never find what you're looking for? Once again I'll leave you with this simple thought and hopefully you can draw the comparisons. If I wake up every day and tell myself that life sucks, there's no such thing as love, and I hate everything, what kind of day do you think I would have?

Let love in, let it be your guiding light, and even when someone comes along and tries to extinguish that light, just move on and understand that individual needs to see your light shine even brighter.

As always I can be reached directly at joshua@joshuastern.ca and I hope you enjoyed my foray into the  topic of love.

Hoops For Hopes

As I sit here resting my aching out of "full court basketball" shape body, I am still smiling at what a great event it was. This was our 2nd annual Hoops For Hopes Event and what a difference a year makes! Apparently we have even already secured Maple Leaf Gardens for next years event. Before I go any further I wanted to thank everyone who came out to support us, all the volunteers, all the organizers, all the sponsors, all the media, and anyone I'm forgetting, thank you too. This event is double special for me because not only am I friends with the organizers of the event but I am also the Spokesperson for Youth Assisting Youth, www.yay.org, who were the main benefactors.

Youth Assisting Youth and the Peer Project are wonderful initiatives which specifically focus on mentoring youth. They have a success rate over 95% with the 30,000 plus youth they have worked with over the past 30 years and it's an honour to be associated with them. I implore you to have a look at their website and see if there is a way you can help! Special mention to my man Andre, you did a great job!!

This year the Hoops for Hopes executive committee, made up of several of my friends and associates, plans on introducing 3 programs throughout the G.T.A. come December.

Books and Basketball, Hoops and Homework, and Shoot Hoops not Guns. The first program is for elementary school aged children, the second is for High School students, and the third program is specifically designed to benefit at-risk youth on a one to one basis.

We need to do more as a community to help support programs and initiatives such as these if we are to actually make a difference with todays youth.

Special thanks to Mark Strong (host of the Raptors & Argos) for once again coming out and supporting us. I also wanted to thank all the support from Ryerson University's Men's Basketball team, Jana from JogawithJana.com, Tamara and Alisha Tatham from the 2012 Canadian Women's Olympic Basketball Team, D.J. Starting from Scratch, Akil Augustine, Ray Robinson, Devo Brown, and so many more amazing people!!

Hope to see you all at Hoops for Hopes 3!!!

The wonderful world of perception; It truly is make or break!

This was actually the blog I was planning on writing last week, so instead of ditching it due to the overwhelming week I had, I've decided to do two posts this weekend. The second post will be all about the wonderful time I had yesterday at our 2nd Annual Celebrity Charity Basketball event called "Hoops For Hopes".

The reason I decided to do a post about perception is simple; it's very needed! Over the last almost 2 years now, since I began this current quest of mine, I have been asked one question more than any other one by a landslide. As I have shared my story with so many people, the number one question I get is, "How did you do it, how did you turn it all around?"

There it is, the golden question. "How did you do that?" It's a question that mankind has asked so many times and for a variety of reasons. Here is the secret and super special answer. Everyday I make a CONSCIOUS effort to be the person I want to be and to live the life I want to live. That is it, no great mystery there. To further illustrate my point I will give you this example. If in the past I would have depressed or negative thoughts, or perhaps I would be dealing with some memories that were anything but palatable, I would typically turn to drugs or crime to feel better. What I do now when I have those same experiences is I get out a pen and paper and I immediately write down exactly how I'm feeling and all the expletives and emotion that I can muster. Than I have a read over what I just spewed out and I do my best to analyze it, and understand what got me to that point in the first place.

As this process is underway I start to realize that the emotions that had all built up to a rapid boil, were slowly starting to make it's way back to a manageable simmer. Just by reading over what I had just written I almost get a 3rd party view to a very personal battle. It almost becomes humorous as I read things that I just wrote and yet I find myself thinking, "Really, that's what you want to do, that's ridiculous!" When I get to that point, I'm literally laughing as opposed to being angry, and I can get back to whatever else it is I need to do. The second part of my exercise is that I always have a copy of my "Life Map" with me. What I mean by Life Map is simple, it's basically a map or guide of who I want to be, how I'm going to do it, and why it's important to me. When I find that I am struggling or things are not going to plan, I pull out my Life Map, have a good read, and I remind myself that there is a bigger picture and a bigger plan going on here, and all I have to remember is to stay on the path I chose for myself and I should be okay.

In other words as far as I'm concerned it all comes down to perception! If I wake up in the morning and I tell myself life sucks and it's going to be a horrible day, well guess what, it most certainly will be. However, if I wake up and I tell myself that today is going to be all about new experiences, I'm going to have a great day, and the fact that I woke up breathing is already a pretty good thing in my books, you may just find that your day turns out a lot better than you expected. Let's not forget one of the oldest sayings we have, "Glass Half Empty or Glass Half Full", how do you want to view it! Notice how I didn't say how "DO" you view it? That's because I want you to realize it's not about how you do anything, it's about why you do it! If you want to have good days, and you want to enjoy life, than make it so. Take control of your life and you determine how and what works for you!

So there it is, no big mystery, and no magic cure. I still have times where I get mad, I still have times when I want to go back to who I once was, and I still want band-aid fixes because I became accustom to them over the past 25 years. The difference is that these days I take control of what's swirling around that busy brain of mine, and I don't allow it to waste time/energy on negativity. I am able to dissect my emotions surrounding the anger and frustration, and once that is the case, you are able to get passed it.

If you don't have a Life Map and you are unsure of how to start one, please feel free to contact me at joshua@joshuastern.ca and we will help you get on your way to building the life you've always wanted.