Believe it and do it

Just think of all the people who knew, as teens, what they wanted to do when they when they grew up, studied, pursued it, and never looked back - then, there is the other 99.2 percent of America’s population.

Both of my kids had doubts of where their college majors were taking them about junior year. I changed my major, and so did Roger. Are we typical? I am thinking we are.

I did not start out as an English teacher. In fact, I was quite old when I entered the field of education, and never had aspirations of teaching, even though my mother taught as I was growing up. A little over a decade ago, I worked as a reporter at The Review Appeal in Franklin, Tennessee. Probably the coolest newspaper ever, but that is a story for another day.

At that time, my responsibilities included writing stories for the home and business sections of the paper. As I mused from time to time over what I wanted to do after newspaper, I thought about my skills, strengths, and weaknesses. Anything that had to do with math, I easily ruled out – don’t think anyone out there wants me as a personal accountant. I thought about corporate communications – I knew I could do that, and my mother suggesting studying for teaching licensure. Summers off, she exclaimed. (I hear all the teachers in this audience snickering at that ruse)

While Mom suggested teaching, and I thought in the direction of other channels, I had several interesting repeat occurrences that gave me pause for thought. It is so cool you can write, a Brentwood pediatrician told me. “I wish I could write.” I looked up from my notepad incredulously. Here a well-educated woman successful and respected in her field told me she wished she could write. Huh?

In the same week, I interviewed one of Franklin’s city administrators about development in Cool Springs. As I wrote notes, he commented on a recent story in the business section of the paper and said “I wish I could write.” This is someone who was very good at what he did and commanded great authority in the community, yet he told me he wished he could write. What?

I had a couple more similar occasions that made me ask the question – who on Earth was telling these people this nonsense? Who out there felt they had the authority or the right to strip intelligent and skilled people of the confidence to accomplish the simple task of telling a story? Goodness! Writing is no more than constructing a story with your fingers. We all can do it verbally; it just takes some fine tuning and training to move thoughts from tongue to finger tips. Simple for me to say because I have had a wealth of encouragement in my collection of careers, but I now had a new mission.

Less than two months later, I entered college as a very “non-traditional” student and started my journey of learning to teach. Goals and ideals change from year to year, but one thing never changes in what goes down in my classroom. I do everything in my power to instill confidence in kids that they have the ability and hold the power to put thoughts into words.

The key idea in this ramble is that we must encourage the people in our lives to follow their dreams and aspirations and never squash folks from believing in themselves. Some have greater strengths and aptitude than others in certain areas, but weak ability goes a long way with great confidence.

More than a few of us find ourselves at crossroads in life these days. We either want to or must shift gears and head into that dreaded intersection. If so, we must know we are not alone in life change; we can manage this glitch, then lift our feet from the clutch with attitude and forge ahead before the car stalls.