Monday, 22 April 2013

The Most Important Thing a Teacher Ever Told Me (And Why You Should Hear it)




Helloo0O Ladies and Gentlemen!

Welcome to the Inspire Halton Update feed, where we send you stories that improve your life and the lives of those you love.

For about 4 ½ months I was in a Kindergarten classroom as a co-op student. In that time, I'd assist the teacher with various tasks to gain job experience and hours towards completing a school course.

During that period, I, for one week, visited other classroom grades throughout the school. In one of the older grades, I helped walk lunch duty with the teacher I was tagged along with.

It was an indoor recess and, though students were confined to their classrooms unless they had a 'hall-pass', many individuals seemed to be walking the corridors.

The teacher would stop them, chat (she knew many of them by name) and ask them to politely return to their classroom if they weren't meant to be out of it. Even though they were blatantly breaking a school rule, she rarely gave them a huge speech or any severe punishment.

After a while, as if to explain her reasoning, she said, “You've gotta pick your battles”, quoting some anonymous philosopher (Richard Carlson, Phd., of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff fame said something to the same effect, but I think the idea goes back a long time before him).

In this world, in this life, we have only so much time. It's the only limited resource – trees can be replanted, water filtered, money earned, but time is constantly flowing away, never to return to the owner.

Only so many things are important to your success and those you love. Only so many arguments, so many books, so many dates, so many letters. Sure, some things we can deal with quickly and move on. But we, in our capacity, have only so many big fights we can take on. And we, in life and death, are remembered for what those are and how we deal with them.

Set priorities, remember what you stand for and what's important for you. Unless it's essential to your life purpose, let it go.

No one wants to miss their calling because they were too focused sifting through the laundry.

Alex H.

 

Check out Inspire Halton's Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/inspirehalton

If you like this Inspire Halton post, you might also like these other updates:

No comments:

Post a Comment