One person that I admire most is my cousin Kathy. She has three children, ages eight, six and three, all boys. Aside from being a wife and a mother, she also works as an English professor and her husband owns a construction supply business. They sometimes invite me to their home for dinner and every time I go there, it never ceases to amaze me of how amazing she is, she looked so relaxed and stress free. One night after dinner, while sitting on the patio with her, sipping a glass of wine, I asked her "Okay, spill it out to me, what's wrong with you, cuz?" "What do you mean, Ruth?" she answered smiling, she knows where our conversation is heading.

"Well, you have a job that involves grown up kids, you are a wife, you have three great amazing children, a house to maintain and you still manage to look amazing! I look more stressed out than you and I don't even have half of what you have! Are you human?" I continued. She then seriously answered "There is no secret here, Ruth. The time Harry and I decided to get married I made a promise to myself to prioritize and nurture family commitment. Everyday I made a choice to cheerfully and happily do all the things I have to do.

I can choose to complain and whine but what good will that do, right? Everyday I think said to myself that how lucky I am to have dirty laundry, dishes and diapers to clean, stubborn college students to put up with and a house to clean up everyday and I can't do all that without Harry's help, both of us made that choice that family commitment should come first. So, the chores and all the cleaning up, we involve the kids, we make doing chores a family stress management and we make it as fun as possible. We can choose to do things in a stressful manner or do it in a de-stressing manner.

You always have a choice in every situation and we choose to be grateful of what we have- the good and the bad." What my cousin said really made sense. Being in a marriage and family and the obligations and responsibilities that tail with it can be overwhelming but you can decide to see it as a demanding duty or you can embrace it wholeheartedly. For couples, it is important that have a mutual decision for family commitment and to inculcate that family commitment to the children, to do family stress management everyday together. In nurturing family commitment, one important factor here is the quality and the quantity of the time you spend together.

If you spend whole day in the office and when you go home you do the dinner and wash the dishes then you will never have time interact or even see your kids because by the time you are done with your chores they'll be on their way to their bedroom to sleep. The best that you can do is to involve them. Have fun while doing the chores, all of you can save a lot of time and you still have a moment to talk to them and read them stories. This does not only apply in having a family but in business and in any relationships, too.

It is important to have that appreciative optimism in your life, to see things as positively as possible, even if under adversity, see it as a chance for you to be wiser. Everything is how you see it, everything is all in your mind.