REMINDERS

W  H  A  T     I     L  E  A  R  N  E  D

                      

I was a teacher for the past 5 months. Sometimes I think I was a great teacher. (Some of my students wrote me emotional letters...after I gave them grades.) Sometimes I think I was a bad teacher, because there was so much I wanted to communicate, but could not. (Laziness? Language and cultural barriers? Just Life?)

Most of all, I was and always will be, a student....Paid more than my students. Treated with more respect than my students. With more life experience, self-confidence, and the "wisdom" of age (maybe), than my students.

What did I learn? (Of course, as soon as I learn something, I forget it and must continuously re-learn it.).....

I learned that everybody's pain feels the same.

From the intellectual safety of an outsider, a teen's loss of their sweet hopeful boy/girlfriend fantasy may seem not as great as loss of our spouses, lovers, and friends. Older adults know that such closeness can be replaced in young people's lives, but never in ours. A broken fingernail, acne or insecurity before a date are not the same as arthritis, diabetes, cancer, joblessness, bankruptcy, divorce....But the truth is that pain is not a competition. It is equally intense and real for whomever is suffering.

I learned that life in America or Taiwan, no matter how imperfect, frustrating, or even lonely, that it can be, is not the same as life in most of the world. If politicians call each other names and lie to the people, it is not equal to being bombed while talking to friends at a café in Afghanistan, being decapitated in the Mexican drug war while just trying to grow enough food to feed your family on a tiny dusty farm, being shot while taking a bus home from the market in the Middle East, starving to death in Africa, being collateral damage in shootings between youth street gangs without hope in American cities, or in the eternal battle between "good" (us) and "evil" (them).

I learned that everybody has at least one important opinion different than my own, though of course, I absolutely believe I'm right and smarter, and they are wrong.

I learned that there are only a few things in life that are universal and True:

*The most meaningful and fulfilling thing we can do in life is to really help the bodies, spirits, and lives of others....not accumulate money, awards, and possessions.

*Life constantly changes, and always in ways we do not expect and are not prepared for....from good and easy, to bad and hard, to better, to worse, to better, to worse, etc., in an endless cycle.

*We all constantly suffer losses. We all have enormous resiliency. We all choose when to fight and when to give up. We all make bad decisions. We all hurt people. We all get hurt.

*Life is much more pleasurable when we laugh, when we laugh at ourselves, when we can be silly and playful, when we have a sense of irony and perspective, when we smile and relax, when we create...anything.  Bitterness, blaming, carrying grudges, may make us feel better for a brief moment, but will kill us sooner, and we will be unhappy.

I welcome America and Taiwan into my life, and hope to share some of it with you.