I had a fascinating encounter with a genius today. While wandering over to my boss's office, I ran into Dr. Wardle, a brilliant and fascinating man who is an expert on child development. He was asking how I was and what I was doing. He actually asked if I was teaching, probably because it has been so long since I had class with him and I'm still here on campus or because I was walking around with my computer. Or, even better, maybe I look like a teacher already! In response, I told him I just doing my job as a TA, getting things done. It was then that he asked me what I have accomplished today, perhaps even at all. At the moment, I just replied with a sarcastic quip that we all accomplish what we can, or something like that. But later on, it I had an epiphany pertaining to his question and it caused me to think about something very profound: what have I accomplished today (or any day)?
I was floored. That simple, fundamental thought made me look back on the past couple of weeks and think hard about what I had done in that time. How I had worked, played, lived and so on. Then, even more surprising was the fact that I began to questing how I defined the word "accomplished" in the context of the question. What does it mean to accomplish something? and even then, is it an accomplishment. It was a paradigm shattering thought to my intelligent brain and it made me ponder my future plans for the day in the context of "accomplishing something" and I had the sincere hope that I could pull some kind of accomplishment off.
It is thought provoking experiences like that, that happen not often enough that make us pause and evaluate what we are doing in life. What we live for, work for, strive for, what does it all mean and what are we trying to accomplish in our endeavours? I hope to accomplish at least one very special thing in life: to leave a lasting impact on someone in a positive and enriching way, be they a student, person on the street or my daughter. I want to touch someone in a way that makes a difference in their lives, and maybe even in the world.
I was floored. That simple, fundamental thought made me look back on the past couple of weeks and think hard about what I had done in that time. How I had worked, played, lived and so on. Then, even more surprising was the fact that I began to questing how I defined the word "accomplished" in the context of the question. What does it mean to accomplish something? and even then, is it an accomplishment. It was a paradigm shattering thought to my intelligent brain and it made me ponder my future plans for the day in the context of "accomplishing something" and I had the sincere hope that I could pull some kind of accomplishment off.
It is thought provoking experiences like that, that happen not often enough that make us pause and evaluate what we are doing in life. What we live for, work for, strive for, what does it all mean and what are we trying to accomplish in our endeavours? I hope to accomplish at least one very special thing in life: to leave a lasting impact on someone in a positive and enriching way, be they a student, person on the street or my daughter. I want to touch someone in a way that makes a difference in their lives, and maybe even in the world.
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