Choose

Lessons I learned this week.

When you are looking to get your feelings hurt, you will get your feelings hurt.

When you are looking to be offended, you will be offended.

The universe is not mysterious. What we look for we will find!

Twice this week I found myself in the position where two very distinct roads appeared in front of me. One was a road that was full of offense and one was a road without.

The first happened at Back to School night.

Obviously with any new job there comes a certain level of anticipation, anxiety, and stress. Meeting the parents of all my students was going to be a stressful night. I know that a lot of what a parent thinks about the teacher is based on those first few moments of back to school night. I was stressed, but at the same time excited. I’ve worked really hard getting ready for this night so sink or swim it was go time.

Only go time started and none of my parents were showing up. I saw the other classrooms begin to fill with parents and children but mine remained empty. As I watched parents and children enter the other rooms my mind began to race down the offense road. No one likes me, they all want different teachers for their kids, they are in the office right this second trying to transfer their children out of my class, and they all hate me.

My mind was running and my eyes were filling up with tears and suddenly I heard a voice say, “STOP!” My thoughts stopped and I looked at the clock, it was two minutes pass the start time. I was getting worked up and looking for reasons to fail. I had given myself less than a minute to succeed. When I didn’t have total success I was determined to believe the worse.

I had one more situation occur where someone called me on the carpet about something I had done.

First, they were right I did it!

Second, they totally deserved it!!!

As they were telling me what I was doing my mind was thinking, yup and you did this, and this, and this, and this, and this. 

Again I heard that voice, “STOP!”

I looked at the person I was talking to and realized it didn’t matter what they had done. It was what I had done and they were right, I had done what they were saying.

Although, I felt my reasons were legit they were hurt and offended. I too had the option to be hurt and offended. However, I knew that it was a choice and I decided to accept responsibility for what I had done. I also realized that if I had taken responsibility sooner I may have avoided all the and this, and this, and this, and this.

Like I said the universe is not as mysterious as we would all like to think. We put ourselves out there everyday. We give off feelings of love, acceptance, happiness, and faith or we choose the opposite. Whatever we choose it comes back to us.