THE LIFE ENRICHMENT COURSE!

It is not often that I begin my column with a word of praise, but that is what I want to do today. I thank God that He has given me the wisdom and the words to enable me to explain a problem, and the solution, which affects every single person in our nation. The problem is an ever-increasing society that is full of violence and bloodshed, as people are killing each other from one end of this country to the other. We have now reached a point where no one is safe, regardless of where we happen to be.

To explain the problem, and the solution, allow me to begin with a question. Sometime back when I spoke to my local Kiwanis Club I asked, “By a show of hands, how many of you, when you were growing up, had parents who taught you “right from wrong?” Every hand went up, because 30, 40, 50 years ago and beyond, we were all taught right from wrong. Sadly, this is not true today. Here is why: In 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson signed his “War on Poverty” act, only 7 percent of babies were not born in two-parent homes. Today that number is around 70 percent.

Now, a question for you please: When a young unmarried girl has one baby after another to get more welfare money, and she may be illiterate and also on drugs, do you think anyone is there to teach her babies right from wrong? Of course, we both know the answer. Here is the problem that has been created for our society. When you dump several million of these children into our society for 20, 30 or 40 years, we have the conditions that exist in our nation today.

While I did not have this in mind when I wrote the book “Your Future Begins Today,” it can be a big part of the solution. I was turned on to this fact when I asked Jim Baker, our local county judge, to write the preface for the book. When I went to pick up his preface, he said, “Bring me the first 30 copies.” He also made the comment, “This book will change the culture.” He has since bought 75 more copies to give to family and friends.

The more I thought about Jim’s comments, the more excited I became. This book was written from a 1950s perspective from when I was growing up — the days when we did not have to lock our doors at night or take the keys out of the car’s ignition. If you are an older person, you know what I am saying is true. It was here that I began to think about teaching these principles to children in pre-school and lower elementary grades, and an idea came to develop a course that would do this.

The first thing I did was go through the book and select topics that had to do with “right and wrong”. These are topics such as: the law of cause and effect, why we should all love America, the importance of education, making a commitment to stay in school, how to become young gentlemen and young ladies, how to set and reach goals, how to form successful habits, how to be a giver and not a taker, how to be responsible for your own needs as an adult, the importance of reading, how to have your parents open up a savings account for you, and many more.

We have titled this course “The Life Enrichment Course,” and hopefully America’s children will have a much brighter future through its use. To be sure, this course teaches “right from wrong” so ALL of our precious children can share in the American dream.

—(For a personally signed copy of my new book ‘Your Future Begins Today’ send $20 — includes postage & handling — to Jim Davidson, 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034).