I know. This Random Thought is so quick upon the one I sent out
Saturday. But,
it suddenly appeared yesterday and is pent up inside me, and I'll burst if I
don't get it
out and share it. So, please, be collegial and understanding, and bear with me
because I
think it is that important.
Do you know how many of us commit sacrilegious acts? By that I mean
far, far too
many of us, as my friend, Bri Johnson, wrote to me, don't love our fates; we
devalue our
challenges; we don't allow ourselves, as Nietzsche famously said, to become
stronger by
that which does not destroy us. Bri and Nietzsche were saying that life in all
of its
aspects just doesn't always go the way we want, and there isn't anything we can
do about
that. Yet, to wish for a life free of challenges is to wish for a life in
which it would
be impossible to find any kind of real fulfillment. It's our responses to and
handling of
those challenges, large and small, that we can find valuable and magnificent
opportunities
to see into, to learn, to develop, to grow, and to accomplish.
I told a dear e-friend, that a serious, life-threatening illness, like
any
personal or professional challenge or adversity, becomes sacred when we decide
to let it
educate us, when we decide to let it alter us from the inside out, when we
decide to let
it tell us to live life to its fullness, when we decide to let it provide
experiences and
knowledge and emotions that we could not possibly acquire in any other way,
when we let it
guide us onto a meaningful and purposeful course, and when we decide to apply
all that
learning to our personal and professional lives. What makes any challenge,
disappointment, or adversity a sacrilegious or sacred event, tumultuous or
peaceful, is a
matter of our attitude towards it. So often, too often, we let ourselves be
distracted,
diminished, slowed, or stopped by a piling up of negative and dismayed "why me"
or forlorn
"I wish" anger, anxiety, frustration, and/or resentment. That heap hides the
potential
peace hidden underneath and the possibility of bringing it to the surface.
Such it was
with my near-death cerebral hemorrahage. I have virtually no memory of that
week in ICU,
but Susan tells me that on that first day there, I told her that if I come
through this,
whatever the physical or mental consequences, we will not live in fear and
anger, that we
have to be at peace with what had happened and not live anxiously with what
might happen.
You see, until I had the CTA scan and we spoke with the neurosurgeon last
Thursday, we
knew that I had come through the experience unaffected, but we did not truly
know if the
prognosis was that I was going to be a walking time bomb and some day something
would pop
without warning, and my lights would dim or permanently go out. But, let me
tell you
something, during those seven weeks between the time of my hemorrahage and the
time when
the surgeon told us that there was no aneurism in my brain and a hemorrahage
would not
happen again, that peaceful acceptance and the willingness to learn from it,
opened the
door to everything. Let me tell you another thing. There's a power to inner
peace. In a
quiet, calm, relaxing, and healing repose, I could connect with what is truly
meaningful
and valuable in both my personal and professional life. Coming from an
experience with a
freeing perspective of peaceful acceptance rather than from a negative and
up-tight
perspective of fearful and anxious tumult, whether we're talking about a
life-threatening
cerebral hemorrahage or a challenging student or a quest for tenure or
promotion or
applying for a position or securing a publication or pressure from colleagues or
administrators, or anything and anyone else, you have a truer sense of
authenticity, a
greater trust and deeper confidence in yourself and others, a sharper clarity
to your
thinking and feeling and doing, a greater depth to your understanding, a more
sensitive
empathy for others, and a greater desire to live your vision.
I realize more intensely than ever before that if I want better
students, I have
to become a better person. So, I've been asking the ultimate question of
myself: what
can I both as a person and teacher do better for the betterment of someone
else? By that,
I dont' mean merely stuffing someone with information; I don't mean only
developing
someone's so-called critical thinking skills; I don't mean only honing
someone's technical
or technological know-how; I don't mean only credentialing someone for a
professional
position; and, I don't mean coming up with improved classroom methods,
techniques,
technologies, and assessments. However, they important all that may be, they
don't
collectively stack up to helping someone help her/himself to become a better
person and to
live life to its fullness.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of
History http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp
Valdosta State University www. halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__/\ \/\
/ \/ \_ \/ / \/
/\/
\ /\
//\/\/ /\
\__/__/_/\_\ \_/__\
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" -
---
