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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

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