One “Last Piece of Advice…”
This school year was TOO HARD… I didn’t do a good job! I kinda gave up in the end… I “failed”…
I am feeling very badly… I didn’t tell the “kids” at the alternative high school I would not be back next year. I just couldn’t… things were just TOO RAW & EMOTIONAL for me and I was barely keeping things together and… EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES… in the end, I just did not end things properly! In a way, I FAILED “my kids.” I WILL make it up to them… SOMEHOW… but for now, I just want to offer this one last piece of advice.
READ! BOOKS! READ BOOKS!!! Please! Please read books! ANY books! ALL books! Different kinds of books. Different kinds of authors. Different kinds of topics. Just… please, please, please read books! I like to think of myself as a “reader”… NOW. This has definitely not always been the case. In high school, I was NOT a reader at all… and looking back, I think if I HAD BEEN a reader in my high school days… I might have avoided some of the “difficulties” I encountered. But that is really not the point…
Recently, I have encountered some more difficulties… Life has been TOUGH… as it is prone to be… and I can honestly say the books I have read recently have been a saving grace. Quite literally, they have “changed my life.” They “have saved me.” This is NOT hyperbole… it is just personal honesty. Recently, I have read the Bhagavad Gita (translation, of course). I don’t even want to try to capture in words what this book “is”… in my mind, it is simply one of the “must read books in the World.” Currently, I am reading Atomic Habits, by James Clear. One of the highest compliments I can pay any author is that this is a book I WISH I had written. It is an AMAZING book and I am currently trying to simply improve my life and my habits “by just 1% each day. Thank you, Mr. Clear. Next, I am VERY EXCITED to read The Psychology of Money, by Morgan Housel. I have hopes it will be just as life-changing and life-improving as the others.
I guess that’s the thing I would like to stress in this post, not only for the students with whom I work, but for all of us. Yea, you can learn things on YouTube and maybe there is something on TikTok that will change your life forever. Maybe some Instagram Reel, or whatever, will save you… but, for me, there is NO BETTER WAY to gain knowledge and work to improve my life than simply picking up a book, opening to where I last left off, and entering a world only my mind will ever conceive. Books, magical things…
I hope this weekend you get to enter your own magical place and just enjoy some moments…