Not too long ago, someone told me they enjoyed reading my blogs and especially the way I used stories to make a point. You can learn a lot from hearing another person’s perspective. I know I like to use analogies when explaining concepts so it was an unconscious choice to talk about my thoughts using stories. After all, our lives are really the best stories. Each one of us should be our own favorite story. As we see it, it’s called our autobiography. As others see us is a biography. And which is more accurate really depends on your point of view. Sometimes people turn ahead in a novel to see how it ends, but I have never heard anyone say they just had to see how a biography ends, that the suspense was too much. And of course, with an autobiography, the book may end but the story goes on.
So how is your story coming along? The end is not critical; it will be as it turns out. The most important part is today. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow does not exist yet. All you have to work with is today. Since it is your story, make it a good one. Notice the details; they are what make a story come alive. Breathe. How does that make you feel? What aromas do you detect? Me? Right now I see the split end of a mustache hair that is poking out into my field of vision.
It is evening, and so I need to rest up for tomorrow. I may live in today but if I want a glorious adventure tomorrow, I need to be prepared. I don’t know exactly what will happen, but I will prepare the best I can and enjoy the journey.
Thursday
Monday
The gift IS the journey.
A few days ago I was at a celebration where I heard a story I want to share.
A teacher decided he wanted to do something different, so he moved overseas and began teaching in a refugee camp in Africa. The conditions were poor – no electricity, and few supplies for the one-room school, but the refugee children and their parents were excited about learning and the opportunity it provided. The teacher loved their enthusiasm which somewhat compensated for the conditions and he stayed for a number of years. Eventually, it was time for the teacher to retire and return to America. At the end of the year, the students and their parents had a celebration because they loved the teacher and his commitment to them over the years. There was one boy who was sad because he was very poor and did not have enough money for food, let alone for a present. This really bothered the boy and he thought a long time about what he could give his beloved teacher. Finally, he had an inspiration. He borrowed a bucket and walked to the ocean, a three hour journey. When he arrived, he filled the bucket with white sand from the beach and carried the filled bucket the three hours back to the refugee camp, where he proudly presented the bucket of sand to his teacher. The teacher was puzzled, but thanked the boy for the present, and said, “You didn’t have to walk to the ocean, you could have given me sand from here in the camp.” The boy shook his head and explained, “You don’t understand, the gift is not the sand. The gift is the journey.”
So, how about you? Do you miss the journey because you only focus on an end result? You may have missed the best part. The entire testing craze that grips the country focuses only on the bucket of sand and misses the drama and beauty of the education journey.
Wednesday
Like it or not -- change happens.
During a recent meeting, a teacher spoke about how often she moved in her district. She enjoyed the change of culture from moving to a different building. She felt that it kept her fresh, and prevented her from falling into a rut.
I had a similar discussion with the WEA human resources director. He shared how working for several different companies had broadened his perspective, especially when problem-solving difficult or complicated situations.
I moved around a lot as an engineer, and I experienced how each jobsite had its own culture on the proper way things should be done. I had to quickly learn how people expected things to be done so that I did not make them nervous with unexpected change. But when an “impossible” situation arose, I knew there were several ways of approaching the situation, and perhaps only one of which was impossible. Sometimes people thought I was really smart. I thought I paid attention to details and tried to learn from all my experiences, not that I was really smarter than others.
An extreme example is when I taught anger management classes to aggressors in domestic violence. Often, they became angry with people who did not see the world as they saw it. As we sat around a table, I would put a pop can in the center and ask what they saw. All would agree they saw a pop can, but then I would show them how, if they drew a detailed picture of what they saw, it would be different from mine because I saw the label from a different angle than each of them. In fact, we all saw something different and the only way to know how someone else saw the world was to sit in their position (seat), or take the time to hear how they see the world, not how we think they should see the world.
So why is this important? Some of us are comfortable with differences and can handle the differences that come with change. Some of us resist change because it makes us uneasy. But change happens; it is part of life. The trick is to be calm enough to evaluate which change to embrace, because some change will help us and some will hurt. And no matter what decision you make, it will have a life-long impact on yourself and others. So you can agonize over every decision, or you do the best you can with the information you have. And remember that the people who say you did not make a good decision are just looking at a different side of the pop can.
I had a similar discussion with the WEA human resources director. He shared how working for several different companies had broadened his perspective, especially when problem-solving difficult or complicated situations.
I moved around a lot as an engineer, and I experienced how each jobsite had its own culture on the proper way things should be done. I had to quickly learn how people expected things to be done so that I did not make them nervous with unexpected change. But when an “impossible” situation arose, I knew there were several ways of approaching the situation, and perhaps only one of which was impossible. Sometimes people thought I was really smart. I thought I paid attention to details and tried to learn from all my experiences, not that I was really smarter than others.
An extreme example is when I taught anger management classes to aggressors in domestic violence. Often, they became angry with people who did not see the world as they saw it. As we sat around a table, I would put a pop can in the center and ask what they saw. All would agree they saw a pop can, but then I would show them how, if they drew a detailed picture of what they saw, it would be different from mine because I saw the label from a different angle than each of them. In fact, we all saw something different and the only way to know how someone else saw the world was to sit in their position (seat), or take the time to hear how they see the world, not how we think they should see the world.
So why is this important? Some of us are comfortable with differences and can handle the differences that come with change. Some of us resist change because it makes us uneasy. But change happens; it is part of life. The trick is to be calm enough to evaluate which change to embrace, because some change will help us and some will hurt. And no matter what decision you make, it will have a life-long impact on yourself and others. So you can agonize over every decision, or you do the best you can with the information you have. And remember that the people who say you did not make a good decision are just looking at a different side of the pop can.
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