I wonder what life would be like if I had the raw and determined courage to overcome what I fear most.
When used correctly, fear is my best friend in an unanticipated moment like walking in a dark and eery parking lot alone. It quickens my senses to be on guard. However, when fear is the default setting in my mind to anything or anyone pushing me outside the boundaries of comfort, fear becomes a downright bully.
Life is a classroom and the most demanding teacher is time. Professor chronology waits on no one and if the bully of fear sits at the desk with my name on it; the classroom goes silent and every teaching opportunity is paused. That is, everything but the clock on the wall. It ticks right on.
Our own mortality is the principal of the school called "life". We all have a meeting someday in that office. In complete honesty, I'm more afraid of the principal than the bully.
I know someday and in one moment, my summons to exit the premises will occur. Class time will be over and my teacher will retire. I don't know the exact moment the intercom will blare my name but it is inevitable.
I will exit never to return.
Lately, I've been more aware of other people exiting life's classroom much too early. I also have a favorite classmate, my 93 year old grandmother who is restless at her desk not wanting to leave but not wanting to stay either.
So here are the questions on the powerpoint slide of my classroom:
1. Will I meet my principal with a diploma in my hand? It isn't based on grades, achievements or advanced placement courses. It is the syllabus containing all the course objectives of my life that I embraced or ignored.
2. Will I graduate with honors? The honors are relationships I've been entrusted to nurture, develop and enrich. The irony is what I'm entrusted to nurture is the very thing that causes me to grow.
3. Will I meet my principal as a petrified drop-out, illiterate in perseverance and hope?
4. Did I excuse myself from fields trips because I couldn't muster signing the permission slip?
5. Did I take advantage of periodic recesses or have lunch at the table of community?
6. Did I participate in the endless opportunities for extra curricular activities that expanded my skills or connected me to people I wouldn't have met?
How about you? Do you wonder what your career or life would be like if you had the raw courage to punch the face of fear? Living life can be summed up in three major points.
I dedicate this blog post to Chris Edmonds, an amazing voice for effective leadership. As I sit next to him in the Twitter classroom #LeadFromWithin he has become a great blessing in my life.
When used correctly, fear is my best friend in an unanticipated moment like walking in a dark and eery parking lot alone. It quickens my senses to be on guard. However, when fear is the default setting in my mind to anything or anyone pushing me outside the boundaries of comfort, fear becomes a downright bully.
Life is a classroom and the most demanding teacher is time. Professor chronology waits on no one and if the bully of fear sits at the desk with my name on it; the classroom goes silent and every teaching opportunity is paused. That is, everything but the clock on the wall. It ticks right on.
Our own mortality is the principal of the school called "life". We all have a meeting someday in that office. In complete honesty, I'm more afraid of the principal than the bully.
I know someday and in one moment, my summons to exit the premises will occur. Class time will be over and my teacher will retire. I don't know the exact moment the intercom will blare my name but it is inevitable.
I will exit never to return.
Lately, I've been more aware of other people exiting life's classroom much too early. I also have a favorite classmate, my 93 year old grandmother who is restless at her desk not wanting to leave but not wanting to stay either.
So here are the questions on the powerpoint slide of my classroom:
1. Will I meet my principal with a diploma in my hand? It isn't based on grades, achievements or advanced placement courses. It is the syllabus containing all the course objectives of my life that I embraced or ignored.
2. Will I graduate with honors? The honors are relationships I've been entrusted to nurture, develop and enrich. The irony is what I'm entrusted to nurture is the very thing that causes me to grow.
3. Will I meet my principal as a petrified drop-out, illiterate in perseverance and hope?
4. Did I excuse myself from fields trips because I couldn't muster signing the permission slip?
5. Did I take advantage of periodic recesses or have lunch at the table of community?
6. Did I participate in the endless opportunities for extra curricular activities that expanded my skills or connected me to people I wouldn't have met?
How about you? Do you wonder what your career or life would be like if you had the raw courage to punch the face of fear? Living life can be summed up in three major points.
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| Death is as much a part of life as living is. |
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"Life is a classroom and the most demanding teacher is time" ~ this sums it all up. We have to live each moment of our life. For every moment holds the possibility for us to live up to our potential ~ to make ourselves, our parents, our teachers, our families, our communities proud.
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