.......Mr. Tanner.
Place: Dobson High, Mr. Turner's math class
Date: 1994
What: Inspiring Words that have never left me
Sometime this past week my oldest daughter decided to go through a box of my papers from high school and of course, they ended up scattered through out the house. Are you shocked? What else would my kids do with a box of my papers? It's a rule to throw them all over the place like a NYC ticker tape parade! She also had fun laughing at my old yearbooks and wondering why I wasn't a cheerleader, or should say scolding me for not being one.
So on Saturday I was hoovering (UK)/vacuuming (US) and my amazing new hoover (which actually works and does what it should) grabbed the corner of a paper sticking out from underneath my daughter's bedroom door into the hallway. See photo proof of how the piece of paper was almost completely destroyed.
I turned off the hoover and rescued the paper, of course I didn't know what it was but I never keep anything that isn't important so figured it was a birth certificate, or a first drawing or something equally as crucial.
But ironically it was actually something I was thinking about after I wrote my last entry about dreams. When I started asking in my last journal entry to start pondering about what happiness was, this paper was one thing that actually popped into my own mind. On this piece of paper were printed words that offered my younger self an early glimpse into what happiness should be, and from what sources it would never come from. As an adult the words mean more to me than they probably ever did to the 17 year old version of myself who originally held this piece of paper in her hands- an earlier version of myself who thought that by age 33 years old (a-hem, in other words by now) life would certainly be perfectly blissful all day every day, 24/7/365. This piece of paper contains some of the most awesome advice that a high school student could have ever hoped to receive- it is Mr. Tanner's "first day of math class" note.
For the record, I was, and am and will be forever more dreadful at math. If it weren't for my fear of math I would have become an oceanographer, or nurse, or architect, or any number of things that I wanted to be had it not been for my math struggles growing up. One time I even had a math teacher in junior high tell me that the left side of my brain must not have fully developed (at least he got fired for saying something so rude....I was a straight A student aside from math, but not because the left side of my brain never developed)!
I thought I would dislike Mr. Tanner based on the fact that I disliked math. Ended up I really liked him as a human being though and here is why, based on what he said to us in his note which reads:
"What is your passion? What is your dream? What drives you to accomplish that which no one else has? To be willing to stand up and make a difference in a society where people fear to be different? Are you one step ahead or one step behind the crowd? We cannot afford to waste our precious days for they will vanish as quickly as they come.
Will you be ordinary or extraordinary? Excellence has a price tag and many refuse to pay it.
Do you have a voice? Then speak out in the appropriate time. Use wisdom to guide your passion and reams to speak out that which burns in your soul. Let your tongue be set on fire to those words which are righteous and true.
Do you believe you were created for a purpose? Then set your sights on the things above and focus all your passion on that dream until you fulfill your destiny.
Will you be like the majority or the minority? Even if you lost everything but your life, your faith is more important than anything the world has to offer. Don't trade it in or pawn it off when times get tough or for the temporal pleasures of the world.
Never settle for second best for it will leave you like the rest. Easy paths are seldom fulfilling and often make crooked men. Take risks and soar above everyone else. Remember one final note. In all that you accomplish, keep your motives pure and never seek position or prestige. For by doing so you will the world by the motivation of love."
I don't know if Mr. Tanner actually wrote this, or if someone else did and he just loved the words as much as I do...but either way, I will always attribute it to him until I know someone else actually wrote it. My favorite line is about the idea of losing everything- and how faith is the one thing you can live with even with nothing else in the world. Maybe it's not just faith, but definitely love, family, friends and humanity of course. In this day and age, many of us are learning what is really important...the economy is stealing everything away from many of us. Suddenly the latest fashions, coolest gadgets and a brand new car every other year are things that many of us just cannot afford anymore, well, unless we don't want to put food on the table.
Mr. Tanner's note says it all to me really. Things in the end are nothing. Your outlook and the people you surround yourself with are really all that you can take with you in the end....and even if you don't believe you can take it with you (I do but know not everyone does), these are still the things that really make life worth living. It's probably illegal nowadays for a teacher to hand something like this out to students, sadly. Even if now, the state of the paper itself makes it look like could care less, the truth is that it's one of my prized possessions. I wonder if Mr. Tanner is still at Dobson?
Place: Dobson High, Mr. Turner's math class
Date: 1994
What: Inspiring Words that have never left me
Sometime this past week my oldest daughter decided to go through a box of my papers from high school and of course, they ended up scattered through out the house. Are you shocked? What else would my kids do with a box of my papers? It's a rule to throw them all over the place like a NYC ticker tape parade! She also had fun laughing at my old yearbooks and wondering why I wasn't a cheerleader, or should say scolding me for not being one.
So on Saturday I was hoovering (UK)/vacuuming (US) and my amazing new hoover (which actually works and does what it should) grabbed the corner of a paper sticking out from underneath my daughter's bedroom door into the hallway. See photo proof of how the piece of paper was almost completely destroyed.
I turned off the hoover and rescued the paper, of course I didn't know what it was but I never keep anything that isn't important so figured it was a birth certificate, or a first drawing or something equally as crucial.
But ironically it was actually something I was thinking about after I wrote my last entry about dreams. When I started asking in my last journal entry to start pondering about what happiness was, this paper was one thing that actually popped into my own mind. On this piece of paper were printed words that offered my younger self an early glimpse into what happiness should be, and from what sources it would never come from. As an adult the words mean more to me than they probably ever did to the 17 year old version of myself who originally held this piece of paper in her hands- an earlier version of myself who thought that by age 33 years old (a-hem, in other words by now) life would certainly be perfectly blissful all day every day, 24/7/365. This piece of paper contains some of the most awesome advice that a high school student could have ever hoped to receive- it is Mr. Tanner's "first day of math class" note.
For the record, I was, and am and will be forever more dreadful at math. If it weren't for my fear of math I would have become an oceanographer, or nurse, or architect, or any number of things that I wanted to be had it not been for my math struggles growing up. One time I even had a math teacher in junior high tell me that the left side of my brain must not have fully developed (at least he got fired for saying something so rude....I was a straight A student aside from math, but not because the left side of my brain never developed)!
I thought I would dislike Mr. Tanner based on the fact that I disliked math. Ended up I really liked him as a human being though and here is why, based on what he said to us in his note which reads:
"What is your passion? What is your dream? What drives you to accomplish that which no one else has? To be willing to stand up and make a difference in a society where people fear to be different? Are you one step ahead or one step behind the crowd? We cannot afford to waste our precious days for they will vanish as quickly as they come.
Will you be ordinary or extraordinary? Excellence has a price tag and many refuse to pay it.
Do you have a voice? Then speak out in the appropriate time. Use wisdom to guide your passion and reams to speak out that which burns in your soul. Let your tongue be set on fire to those words which are righteous and true.
Do you believe you were created for a purpose? Then set your sights on the things above and focus all your passion on that dream until you fulfill your destiny.
Will you be like the majority or the minority? Even if you lost everything but your life, your faith is more important than anything the world has to offer. Don't trade it in or pawn it off when times get tough or for the temporal pleasures of the world.
Never settle for second best for it will leave you like the rest. Easy paths are seldom fulfilling and often make crooked men. Take risks and soar above everyone else. Remember one final note. In all that you accomplish, keep your motives pure and never seek position or prestige. For by doing so you will the world by the motivation of love."
I don't know if Mr. Tanner actually wrote this, or if someone else did and he just loved the words as much as I do...but either way, I will always attribute it to him until I know someone else actually wrote it. My favorite line is about the idea of losing everything- and how faith is the one thing you can live with even with nothing else in the world. Maybe it's not just faith, but definitely love, family, friends and humanity of course. In this day and age, many of us are learning what is really important...the economy is stealing everything away from many of us. Suddenly the latest fashions, coolest gadgets and a brand new car every other year are things that many of us just cannot afford anymore, well, unless we don't want to put food on the table.
Mr. Tanner's note says it all to me really. Things in the end are nothing. Your outlook and the people you surround yourself with are really all that you can take with you in the end....and even if you don't believe you can take it with you (I do but know not everyone does), these are still the things that really make life worth living. It's probably illegal nowadays for a teacher to hand something like this out to students, sadly. Even if now, the state of the paper itself makes it look like could care less, the truth is that it's one of my prized possessions. I wonder if Mr. Tanner is still at Dobson?
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What great words to live by. Thanks for sharing. I am seriously going to print that out and share it with my family too. And if it makes you feel any better, I'm terrible at math too. I really don't know how I made it through so many classes.
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