We have a family tradition back home when the baby turns one – that is to cut a small part of baby’s hair, wrap it in paper (or tissue) and stick it in a book. We are six siblings and all our first cut baby hairs are nesting safely in a random page of a certain book. My mom believed the book plays a big part of what we would become when we grow up.

Of course it”s nothing but superstition but it could be something like Law of Attraction too, depending on your perspective.

My parents put my hair into an old Reader’s Digest issue. My four brothers’ hair were in a medical book, an Atlas, probably a travel book and the other I forgot.

8 years ago, I put Pristine’s baby hair in the dictionary because I thought I’d love her to be wordy. If you have met her and have sat with her, my apologies. She is wordy alright {talks non-stop}.

It was baby Benjamin’s time for a hair cut after he turned one a few days back. Snip, snip I made a quick cut, wrapped it in tissue and faced our book shelf…where will I tuck this in? I looked around travel books, Japanese novels, dictionary, children’s books,  inspirational/self-help books by Stephen Covey, T. Harv Ecker, Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill.  I was so confused that suddenly the thought of picking J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter didn’t sound so weird.

I finally picked a book I loved: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – this is the grandfather of all people-skills books first published in 1937 and never losing its purpose until now. I would like Benjamin to grow up not only knowing how to make friends but also develop the necessary people skills by understanding more about how human relations work so I chose this book.

I’d like to paste one of my favorite quotes from the book:

There is one all-important law of human conduct. If we obey that law, we shall almost never get into trouble. In fact, that law, if obeyed, will bring us countless friends and constant happiness. But the very instant we break the law, we shall get into endless trouble. The law is this: Always make the other person feel important.

Wouldn’t it be nice if he can live by this law all his life?