Welcome AOL Readers! If you've just joined us from AOL, thank you for taking the time to check out my Red Room page. If you haven't read the piece on AOL, please take a moment and look it over. It is my wish for all of us in 2011.

 I was inspired by the following quote by  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. I hope it inspires you as well. Happy New Year!

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my
daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument
of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.
If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of
becoming."