. . .and the 2013 FOLK Journal/Blog Challenge number 3!
From the time I was ten years old and began writing stories in spiral notebooks, I thought I wanted to be a writer. I had discovered the book Harriet the Spy and I so identified with Harriet that I, too, began writing my observations of the world along with my deepest feelings and thoughts in a diary.
In high school I joined the school newspaper staff and became newspaper editor my senior year. When I went off to college I chose journalism as my major. That's when I began to question my choice of careers. I soon found that I wasn't cut out to be an aggressive news reporter. I was too shy to approach people I didn't know, and my part-time job would not allow me to attend all the school events that I was supposed to report on, and when I finally was able to do some writing, my professor hacked my story to bits. Reporters were also expected to take photographs, but I couldn't quite get the hang of those bulky news cameras. I mean, what in the heck is an F Stop? And the darkroom scared me.
So I failed at being a journalist. I had no choice but to change my major.
In the meantime my biology teacher was making science come alive. I enjoyed my biology class much more than I would have ever imagined because she was such a bubbly, enthusiastic, and inspiring teacher. She awakened something in me, and I decided to change my major to pre-medicine. I decided I wanted to be a doctor.
But soon that plan was derailed when I failed chemistry. Feeling like a total failure, I "fell back" on teaching. So many of my pre-med classmates had looked down their noses at aspiring teachers and nurses. Little did I know that education was the field I should have been in all along. Little did those pre-med students know that teaching is the most noble of ALL professions! And I experienced immediate success, even accolades by professors who saw my potential before I graduated. The high school principal who hired me for my first teaching assignment told me that he had never seen a student teacher do as well as I did. He repeated that same thing to me last year when I attended his retirement party. I was destined to be a teacher!
And here I am, thirty years later, my teaching career behind me, thousands of students later, looking back on a successful career which wouldn't have been possible without those first few failures. How do I know it was successful? Because of the hundreds of former students who are responsible, contributing members of society and still keep in touch. (A great invention, that Facebook!) And what about my writing career? Once I gave myself completely over to teaching and raising my family, the Lord allowed me to publish two books, a dream come true! And today I am enjoying a new kind of writing--blogging!
So what have I done I never thought I could do? Teach for thirty years, raise two wonderful children, be married for 33 years, and have my writing published. As Robert F. Kennedy said, "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." I'm living proof!
XOXO
Labels: college, failure, photography, pre-med, school, success, teacher
