Sunrise at Deerfield Beach, Florida Hello, Tigers! Tonight I will write to you about the benefits of volunteering, but I woke up this morning thinking about my daily goals and I reminded myself to "live in the moment". I want to share my thoughts with you on this topic. I will admit that I personally struggle the most with this concept in my own life...living for the day and not for what the future will bring. I am constantly reminding myself to live in the moment.
My hopes for you are that by me sharing my own personal struggles, you will (in your youth) refrain from making the same mistakes that I have made in my life. So please know this; I have not mastered, "living in the moment" it is a daily life journey for me. I think of it like a tennis game. Sometimes I hit the ball right in the middle of the racket and make a great swing, other times I miss, but hopefully in the end I will win the game (despite a few bad swings). Sometimes that is what life is about, three steps forward, two steps backward. Just keep moving forward.
Have you ever heard the expression, "a carrot dangling on a stick?" This saying is a metaphor. The original metaphor tells of a boy sitting on a cart begin pulled by a donkey. The boy tied a carrot onto a long stick, and then he dangled the carrot in front of the donkey but just out of reach. As the donkey move forward to get the carrot, it moved the cart and the boy. But the point of the story is that the carrot always remained just out of reach...it was a trick.
Have you ever felt like there is a carrot dangling in front of you and you are constantly striving to get the carrot, but you never seem to reach the carrot? Let me illustrate it this way for you. Imagine that you are in elementary school and you are being bullied on the playground because you are smaller than the other kids. You say to yourself, "when I get to Jr. High they will stop bullying me because I will be bigger". So you wait in anticipation for Jr. High School. But then in Jr. High School things don't change....so you say to yourself, "once I get into High School it will be different". Then you are in High School and you face different challenges, so you say to yourself, "if I can only make it to college, things will be different". Then college comes and you find yourself with different struggles so you tell yourself that once I am married, then I will find happiness. Once you are married then you say, if only I had children, then I will be happy. The children come and you tell yourself that you will be happy when they go off to college. And so on and so on... never living in the moment, always thinking that happiness in 'ahead' of you but you never reach it just like the donkey never reached the dangling carrot.
I find myself constantly doing this in life. I need to remind myself that it's a 'trick'; just like the dangling carrot. I too fall in the trap of telling myself things like; once I get another degree, I will be happy. Once I move to another city I will be happy. Once a find the love of my life, I will be happy...all the while I am living in paradise with everything that I want right here with me now. This kind of thinking keeps me from, 'living in the moment'.
So as your teacher, (an encourager of students) I encourage you to wake up every day and embrace life "in the moment". You will never have this moment again; you are here now. Having goals for your future is a wonderful and necessary thing to have but don't forget about the 'now' in life. Enjoy this time in your life, even if you think it is a terrible time, trust me you will look back fondly at these years!
Enjoy your day, the ocean, the palm trees, your friends, and family. Enjoy your years in high school. You have only one chance to make today special. Today will be gone in a few hours. So ask yourself today, "what wonderful thing do I want to do TODAY...and just do it!
Today is called the 'present' because it is a gift to us. Be grateful for the gift of today.
Think about it... I love you guys, Ms. B.
My hopes for you are that by me sharing my own personal struggles, you will (in your youth) refrain from making the same mistakes that I have made in my life. So please know this; I have not mastered, "living in the moment" it is a daily life journey for me. I think of it like a tennis game. Sometimes I hit the ball right in the middle of the racket and make a great swing, other times I miss, but hopefully in the end I will win the game (despite a few bad swings). Sometimes that is what life is about, three steps forward, two steps backward. Just keep moving forward.
Have you ever heard the expression, "a carrot dangling on a stick?" This saying is a metaphor. The original metaphor tells of a boy sitting on a cart begin pulled by a donkey. The boy tied a carrot onto a long stick, and then he dangled the carrot in front of the donkey but just out of reach. As the donkey move forward to get the carrot, it moved the cart and the boy. But the point of the story is that the carrot always remained just out of reach...it was a trick.
Have you ever felt like there is a carrot dangling in front of you and you are constantly striving to get the carrot, but you never seem to reach the carrot? Let me illustrate it this way for you. Imagine that you are in elementary school and you are being bullied on the playground because you are smaller than the other kids. You say to yourself, "when I get to Jr. High they will stop bullying me because I will be bigger". So you wait in anticipation for Jr. High School. But then in Jr. High School things don't change....so you say to yourself, "once I get into High School it will be different". Then you are in High School and you face different challenges, so you say to yourself, "if I can only make it to college, things will be different". Then college comes and you find yourself with different struggles so you tell yourself that once I am married, then I will find happiness. Once you are married then you say, if only I had children, then I will be happy. The children come and you tell yourself that you will be happy when they go off to college. And so on and so on... never living in the moment, always thinking that happiness in 'ahead' of you but you never reach it just like the donkey never reached the dangling carrot.
I find myself constantly doing this in life. I need to remind myself that it's a 'trick'; just like the dangling carrot. I too fall in the trap of telling myself things like; once I get another degree, I will be happy. Once I move to another city I will be happy. Once a find the love of my life, I will be happy...all the while I am living in paradise with everything that I want right here with me now. This kind of thinking keeps me from, 'living in the moment'.
So as your teacher, (an encourager of students) I encourage you to wake up every day and embrace life "in the moment". You will never have this moment again; you are here now. Having goals for your future is a wonderful and necessary thing to have but don't forget about the 'now' in life. Enjoy this time in your life, even if you think it is a terrible time, trust me you will look back fondly at these years!
Enjoy your day, the ocean, the palm trees, your friends, and family. Enjoy your years in high school. You have only one chance to make today special. Today will be gone in a few hours. So ask yourself today, "what wonderful thing do I want to do TODAY...and just do it!
Today is called the 'present' because it is a gift to us. Be grateful for the gift of today.
Think about it... I love you guys, Ms. B.
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