Just a quote I came across

"For to teach, encourage, cheer up, console, amuse, stimulate or advise a husband or children or friends, you have to be something yourself. And how to be something yourself? Only by working hard and with gumption at something you love and care for and think is important.

So if you want your children to be musicians, then work at music yourself, seriously and with all your intelligence. If you want them to be scholars, study hard yourself. If you want them to be honest, be honest yourself. And so it goes.

And that is why I would say to the worn and hectored mothers who longed to write and could find not a minute for it: If you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say: "Mother is working on her five-act tragedy in blank verse!" you would be surprised how they would respect you. They would probably all become playwrights."

from Brenda Uelands book If You Want to Write: A book about Art, Independence, and Spirit, in the chapter called, "Why women who do too much housework should neglect it for their writing."

This is applicable for more than just mothers. I remember learning about a study that showed that one person's decision to lose weight impacted people's weight loss 2 levels away... in other words, friends of the friend of the person who lost weight. So as we "become" something ourselves... we will affect not only us, but each other. Val's efforts to BECOME will increase my efforts. And vice versa.