Skip to main content

Wise Words

 For the last couple of days I have been showing appreciation to and recognition of people and their actions which have had a significant and specific influence on me. 

If you're not sure what I'm on about please feel free to check back on my previous posts. 

Yesterday I received a message from someone, very concerned that I was reaching out for help and that I was contemplating suicide. I can assure you that I'm not and that I am totally ok. In fact I'm more ok than I think I've ever been in my whole life! 

This kind of thing is one of the reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm feeling great and I want to pass that feeling on to as many people as I can. That's my goal here.

So today is the turn of my fourth year middle school teacher at Oak Green - Michael Wise. I warn you this might be a bit long winded lol.

There were other, more popular teachers and I don't even think that I liked Mr Wise at the time if I'm honest, but he had one of the biggest impacts on my life at school. If not in life itself!

Throughout school (up to that point) I wasn't very academic. I knew that I was good at reading and was fairly good at English but that was about it and I never really made the top groups so was always middle or bottom. "Satisfactory" and "must do better" were my teacher's mantras.

When we reached the fourth year something odd happened. Mr Wise had made a mistake! At least I thought so. 

On one of the first days of September 1985, Mr Wise handed the class a piece of paper each, which informed them of the groups they were in for each subject that year. I had a quick scan down my page and everything looked ok but then I saw the mistake.  Maths - Group 1. Top group! That wasn't right it couldn't be.

I told by tablemates about it but they were so absorbed in their own pieces of paper. I then heard Mr Wise call my name.

He beckoned me to the sink in the corner of the room, instead of his desk, and explained to me that he'd been looking at my previous work and strongly believed that I had more potential than the other teachers had seen and therefore, as an experiment, he'd put me in the top group of maths to see how I would get on but that he would also pull me back to group 2 whenever there was a very tricky maths lesson. 

Lots of thoughts were going through my mind along with some panic and fear too, however the thing I remember most and much more vividly, was the massive boost of confidence that it gave me. My realisation that maybe he was right and that I was indeed MORE than "THEY" thought. Better yet, that I was MORE than I thought!

I was 11 years old and I have failed many times since then but I always use this experience to remind myself that I do have more in me than what those around me might be telling me and what I might have been telling myself. 

I met Mr wise accidentally about 25 years later at a Scouting event. Sadly he told me that he'd been in an horrific motorcycle accident and it severely affected his memory but, he said, he remembered me. I'm not sure if he was being truthful, but there he was, doing it again! 

I took the time to thank him there and then but I want to do it again here.

Thank you Mr Wise. Your single act of recognition taught me to have faith in myself! It will always serve as a reminder that there is more within me and that I should always take a chance on me! Also that people who you may not particularly like, or who you think may not like you, can actually be your greatest champions!

So I challenge you to pay it forward. Take some time to appreciate someone. Be vulnerable. It's actually a pretty amazing feeling.

Please feel free to tag me in your appreciation post you make for others  if you'd like to, or not it's cool and if this kind of thing annoys you, or makes you feel sick, please feel free to block or unfriend me, there'll be no hard feeling towards you 🙂 

I hope you all have a great day and I'll be back with a new name soon x

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TSgt (Ret.) James M. Adams Jr

Today's post is dedicated to TSgt (Ret.) James M. Adams Jr.  My dad.  For many different reasons we didn't really spend as much time together as we should have or could have done, and even though he wasn't physically in my life for much of it, I learned a great deal from him.  He was a bit of a Marmite character - you either loved him or hated him, and he appeared not to care about that, but appearences can be deceptive! I never really heard many good things about him - I mean he was no angel - but when I went back to Texas in '99, I got to know him a little better.  To my surprise, so many people loved and respected him. All of them in fact, apart from my Mom's best friend from when when lived there. This was all new to me and I found it a little hard to believe. I mean I knew my Dad right? Apparently I didn't! It seemed that despite his quirks and shortcomings (and sometimes his cruelty), he was (like it says on his father's grave) a friend to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

15

 Trigger Alert! This appreciation post is slightly different, but a lot darker, and a lot longer so strap yourselves in. Be warned there's talk of suicide! Facebook may jail me for this. As I said before, I had been bullied. A lot. Both on the outside from others but also on the inside, from me, echoing what the others had said. I also found other stuff to beat myself up about.  I felt unloved, unwanted, hated in fact. I loathed myself.  I was angry that I did or was the thing that bullies would make a beeline for. I would then hate on myself for being weak and not standing up for myself!  It was a constant cycle.  I avoided places I knew the bullies would be. I'd plan out my routes home so I knew I wouldn't cross paths with any one of them.  It was years before I could walk up to the shop at the top of my road because one kid would see me and come out of his house each and every time just to threaten me or intimidate me, so I would take the long way round ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Descartes got it wrong!

It is said that what you give out, you get back in the same form. Many of you will know this by its name. Karma.  Everything I say here is not new to me, but something I am remembering everyday. I am back on a journey that I began nearly 30 years ago. In fact, come to think of it, I don't think I ever left this journey, I just stopped a little longer at places en route. I've been working on re-knowing who I am, not the external me but the internal me. Not the ego but the essence of who I truly am.  Don't panic! I'm not about to sell you a religion! I'm merely telling you of my experience at this present time. What you do with the information is up to you, and quite frankly, none of my business.  I have been re-learning. Working on myself to be a person who does good things. A better person. The best person I can possibly be and a better person than who I was yesterday. To feel the fear and do it anyway. To lean in to my vulnerability, and to leave the wo...
Post a Comment
Read more