Happy New Year, everyone! Of course, I’m about a day late, but I needed the relaxing time yesterday. I figured that with the new year should come some advice learned from the last year. I had a “Teachers” daily calendar on my desk full of interesting teaching facts and inspirational quotes. Of course, most of those quotes and tidbits went into the trash as soon as the day was over, but there were a few that made an impression on me when I read them. I figured I’d share with you what I felt were the most important statements over the last year.
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” (Dorothy Parker)
“Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.” (Shirley MacLaine)
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” (G.K. Chesterton)
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.” (Mohammed)
While not all the most inspirational to everyone, more than one of these quick pieces of wisdom crept into my head while battling what I considered one of the most testing events in my life–the first year of teaching. And, as anyone reading this blog may know, I had some very low spirits after less than a semester in front of my very own class. From that experience I learned about perseverance and tolerance, as well as patience and hope. This year, though, has provided a completely opposite insight into the world of education (a good thing since I was on the brink on the last experience!). It’s difficult to know exactly what your place in life should be, and often it takes a period of trial-and-error to arrive to a place that feels comfortable. Some are fortunate to quickly find their niche while others may wait years upon years to feel “right” with their lives. 2007 was the opposing poles of life: complete insecurity and the beginning of feeling good about life. Insecurity creates some good, such as a better understanding of yourself and a clearer image of the world’s philosophy towards you as an individual, but in general you find yourself so lost in emotion and desperation that you simply wish to find a piece of security–no matter how negative that security could be. But eventually light is found and you make it out with even better knowledge of who you are and what the world might expect of you.
And then something magical happens: you find true passion in the world. Passion for you, passion for your life, passion for knowledge, and passion for community. It isn’t always a place in a physical sense, but it can be. Sometimes those places are only the loose association you make with the emotional state. Nevertheless, it feels like moving on with your life needs to be a complete process. And whether or not that played into how I’m feeling about life today, it seems that a different place for work and home has made a difference in how my wife and I see each other and everything around us. 2008, I couldn’t be more pleased to see you. I look forward to all you may bring me and my loved ones, knowing that even the most testing moments in life can bring about beauty.