Education...Does it really even make a difference?

For many, a good education is viewed as something only certain people can receive. It is one of those things valued in the American culture.  Maybe because it is considered rare. Those who have more tend to have a better quality of life.  In fact, there was a study done in Denver that found that low education levels were a direct link to lifespan.[i]  In this age of technology, knowledge is literally at our finger tips. But is that enough?
Knowledge alone is not education in its fullest.  Wisdom must be in tandem with knowledge to be considered a true education and to make a positive impact on a person’s life. So, what are knowledge and wisdom?  My neighbor plainly defined and differentiated the two.  He said that knowledge is the “what” and wisdom is the “how”.  In other words, we gain facts about a certain subject to increase in knowledge and learn how to apply it to grow in wisdom.  When one puts the facts and skill together, they become educated in that area. 
I love to learn.  Geeky or not, some of my favorite things to watch on TV are documentaries.  We can learn so much about the world around us in the comfort of our own home with a good documentary. In the past ten years I have watched many documentaries on nutrition.  I have learned so much about the needs of our bodies and why good food choices are necessary for a healthy life.  My interest in nutrition didn’t come out of nowhere. Nor did someone push it on me because they knew I’d need to know about it someday. Circumstances in my life led me to finding out more about why nutrition is so important.
I grew up in a large traditional family where my father worked and my mother stayed at home with my brothers, sisters and I.  My parents where amazing and sacrificed so much for their children.  The food bill was the highest bill of the month because feeding 8 children took a lot of money.  The best way to make the dollar stretch was to buy the prepackaged processed food.  It filled our tummies and we as kids liked the taste. (I have since realized how nasty that stuff is.) As a result, and in addition to other factors, I gained weight.  By 5^th grade I was a chunky kid. My weight problem persisted the rest of my growing up life into my twenties. My weight effected my self-esteem and I developed major body issues.  By the time I hit my later twenties I had flipped the other way. I was losing weight rapidly through constant exercise, very limited food intake, and the occasional food purging. I was heading towards anorexia. I had a problem.
With education so available to us, why do people not take advantage of such opportunities?  One reason is insecurity.  We are insecure when we do not feel safe in particular situations, usually within our own thinking. The ironic thing is that insecurities stem from the lack of education.  I have noticed powerful insecurities in my own life.  My eating disorder is one example. I lacked the knowledge, skills and tools to address my problem and thus headed down the wrong path. In my career, I have seen how education is power.  The more you can understand and figure out, the better off you will be.  When a person lacks education, they are not as effectively able to accomplish a task.  This ineffectiveness leads to lack of confidence which then can result in a deficiency of motivation and the task not getting completed.  There is then no growth and the insecurity that is impeding safety does not get resolved.  We are left stuck. So, instead of gaining power from knowledge and application we allow our insecurity to gain power over us.
I heard a story once where a college professor was trying to prove this point to his class.  He asked one of his students to come up and sit at the piano.  He then put music in front of him and asked him to play as if his life depended on it.  The student look lost and a bit frustrated.  He looked up at the professor and told him that he couldn’t play the music.  The professor asked why not.  The student then replied that he had never learned. Without the knowledge and skill the student was powerless.  He was subject to his lack of education. In other words, he was stuck.
The best way to regain power in your life is to educate yourself.  As mentioned before, education goes beyond learning the facts.  Instead of just knowing that 1+1=2 we must know why it equals two and how we are going to apply it in our lives. We must learn to think critically and how to solve our problems.  Gaining knowledge is the easier part. One way we can increase our knowledge is the traditional way with schooling.  In America, children are offered tuition free education.  And there are many ways we can affordably attend post-secondary schooling.  So, the opportunity is there, we just have to buckle down take it.
Wisdom, on the other hand, is where a lot of people stop in their education.  They have no idea what to do with the information they acquired. So, they end up not doing anything with it and it gets lost.  Also, wisdom takes time and diligence.  You must live and apply your learning to experiences to gain wisdom.  In the example of 1+1=2, a person must experience it in their life.  I teach my little kindergartners that if they bought a piece of candy at the store and then someone gave them a piece, they would then have two pieces of candy.  The wisdom develops when they think critically. They must ask themselves if two pieces of candy are too much.  Or, “if I already bought a piece of candy do I really need the one my friend gave me?”  This is when 1+1=2 becomes more than just knowledge because they understand what to do with it and apply it in their lives.
Obviously life is more complicated than simple math facts, but the concept of education is the same.  Many people tend to be lazy and place the blame and responsibility on others for their learning and problems.  Rather, it is their responsibly to take action.  I learned that first hand with my eating disorder.  I could have easily blamed my parents, leaders, teachers, and the list goes on for not teaching me how to eat properly.  But the blame was not theirs, it was mine.  I was the one with the problem and I was the one who needed to figure what to do about it.  So that is exactly what I did.  In addition to my own research through documentaries and books, I reached out to friends and leaders for help.  I went to my primary care doctor and she referred me for counseling. I didn’t have to do it alone.  There were people to help.  And through the application of my knowledge from experiences, I was able to recover.
I believe the findings in the Denver study are accurate.  People with higher levels of education do have a better quality of life.  But I’m not just talking about people with multiple college degrees.  I’m also talking about people who seek out knowledge and then apply it to life.  These people, in my book, are those who know what life really is and how to use what they know to their advantage.  The amazing thing: education is not something only certain people can have.  It is available to all. You just have to put forth the effort.  And when you do put for the effort, this is when education really is powerful. Because the more you know and apply the less you will fear. And when fear is taken out of the equation, you will be unstoppable.

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[i] Ivins, Jessica (2015, July 9). Low education levels just as hazardous to your health as smoking, study reveals [News Report]. Accessed on August 25, 2018 at https://www.ksl.com/article/35426534/low-education-levels-just-as-hazardous-to-your-health-as-smoking-study-reveals

The Beauty of Failure

Failure….. It’s one of those words that make most people cringe. In fact, failure is one of the top leading fears in the world. There are many reasons why people fear failure so much, each linking to an event, situation, or thinking pattern in their lives. The demand we put on ourselves to be perfect is high.  This is so common that there is that popular phrase: We are harder on ourselves than others. But why?  We all know that each one living on this planet is human and part of being human is making mistakes. And yet, we still demand perfection from ourselves.  The ironic thing is that perfection is unattainable in our human existence.  We are here to learn and part of learning includes failure.

I have loved to dance as long as I can remember.  There is a saying that goes something like: Dance like nobody is watching.  Well, that is exactly what I did.  In the privacy of my own home I’d dance and dance.  It was the perfect way for me to express my emotions.  After wanting to learn the technical skills of dancing my whole life, I finally signed up for a dance class as an adult six years ago- tap dancing.  I loved to dance in the class, but I also had a problem.  There were people watching.  For some reason I had it in my head that I wasn’t allowed to mess up. If I did then I was a complete failure which led to thoughts related to low self-worth. I had myself fooled that my secret was hidden so perfectly. The truth was…it wasn’t.

Failure is something we cannot hide.  It is something we all do and should do.  In fact, when we try to hide our imperfections we end up enslaved to the lies.  We have to continue to put on a “show” so that everyone will continue to believe we have no flaws.  But a human being with no flaws is a person who has done nothing with their life.  But that right there is a flaw too because we are on earth to live and grow.  Failures happens daily in varying degrees.  It is our decision how we want to react to them.  Walt Disney said something to the effect that failure may either drown you or shape you.  Essentially, it is your choice.

One of the ways we can break the chains of hiding our failures is to own them.  When we allow ourselves to show our mistakes we are free from the effects of worrying about what others think or say. In essence, we become real people. Our flaws are part of what gives us character and beauty.  It’s just like the black lines in marble stone.  Without the lines, the stone looks fake, almost plastic like.  Also, when we own our failures we develop a positive relationship with them.  They become a tool for learning. We can then grow as an individual.

A positive relationship with failure has many attributes to offer. It creates clarity, creativity, and confidence.  When we fail we can look at a situation and see what we need to do to change.  We develop creativity by thinking of new ways of addressing our challenge and build confidence because we are working to solve a problem rather than being stagnate. Thomas Edison is a great example of seeing failures in a positive light.  He failed at many attempts of inventing the lightbulb until he was successful. But he said that when you feel you have exhausted all possibilities to remember one thing: you haven’t.  There is always a way.

I believe the most valuable gift failure can give to us is experience.  Our experiences shape us into who we are.  We are forever changing, whether it be for good or bad.  Every day we wake up and have a day full of choices and opportunities.  We form opinions and learn something from everything we are involved in. Our failures become part of us.  They are engrained in our personalities.  As we learn from them, we are kept humble, learn to overcome fears, and build strength.  Our weaknesses eventually become our strengths while gaining empathy for those who are struggling with similar challenges.  Our hearts grow softer and we learn to love those we serve.  Failure is not meant to beat us down.  Rather, through experience with failure we become even more beautiful, knowledgeable, and loving.

My involvement in tap dancing has proven to be an experience with failure I will forever cherish. Last year I had the opportunity to start individual tap lessons. After a few months of struggling with some technical skills, my instructor videoed me dancing my routine.  Watching myself was meant to be a way I could see my mistakes so I would have a better idea how to fix them.  I took the video home promising to keep an open mind while watching (she knew me too well that I would come down on myself). That night I chose to own my failures instead of hiding from them. 

A few months later I performed my dance in front of many people.  I defiantly made some mistakes in my performance. But you know what?  I had the best time doing it.  My mistakes are more valuable to me than the steps I got right because they are the very experiences that are going to help me become a better dancer.

This past summer I had the opportunity to take a photography class.  I realized the pictures that are most beautiful are those that capture moments in real life- flaws and all. Life is made up of times of success and failure.  Everything has its opposite.  The gift in that is when we experience hard, excruciating times our successes become that much more exquisite.  We must change our thinking pattern from fearing failure to embracing it.  And it is only when we embrace it that we can receive the wonderful gifts it has to offer us. For failure is the gate to perfection.  

Choice: The Real Kind of Freedom

We have all heard the saying “free as a bird.” Freedom is a blessing that is valued all over the world.  Some countries have partial freedoms while other countries have complete independence. It made me wonder why freedom is so valued.  Do those who have total freedom value it as much as those who don’t? In a guided journal my mom gave me for Christmas last year it asked the question: What does freedom mean to you?  Let me ask you the same question: What does freedom mean to YOU?

I guess to really answer that question, one must know what freedom is.  Most people think freedom is to be able to do what you want, where you want, how you what, with whom you want.  The key word there is want.  In other words, we don’t have to cater to anyone or anything, including laws. But what if I told you that this definition was only partially correct, if at all?  In the Oxford dictionary freedom is defined as: the power to act, speak, or think as one wants. The state of being not imprisoned or enslaved.[1] So, what it is saying is: in the state of being in power to choose for one’s self.  The key word is choose.  There is no mention of being relieved from the responsibility to follow rules or laws.

Being a teacher I get so see my students make choices all day long.  Some are good and some poor.  But the choices are theirs to make.  In my classroom, I have a set of rules the students must follow.  Consequences follow no matter what choice is made.  This is justice is full action.  It is just like the law of gravity.  If I were to drop a ball then the consequence would be that the ball would plummet to the ground.  If left uninterrupted, the ball would hit the floor and disturb what was in its path.  However, if another person were to stick out their hand and catch it, the end result would be different.  The consequence still followed and the law of justice still was honored, but mercy was the factor that changed the course or the end result of the ball.

Many people get frustrated or even angry with the law of justice.  It has no regard for the feelings or condition of a person or thing.  However, it is the law that creates order in our world.  Without justice, trust would be diminished and chaos would rule.  People would be doing what, where, how, with whom they liked with no consequences and everything would be in an uproar. We would then be enslaved by chaos because without order our choices available would decrease and power to choose would weaken.

Luckily we have laws and rules.  Rules do not confine or restrict us.  In reality, rules and laws give us freedom.  They allow us multiple choices by the minute, even more if we choose to obey them.  In my kindergarten classroom I have a clip chart based on student behavior. Each student has a clothes pin with their name on it.  Each day students start in the middle green square entitled “Ready to Learn”.  Depending on their choices they can either move up or down.  As a natural consequence, those whom make more positive choices than negative tend to earn more trust in the classroom.  However, just because a student makes a great choice and moves up or a poor choice and moves down doesn’t mean they will stay there the entire day.  They are free to make choices, but justice will be honored and their clothes pin will move.  I am always there to encourage good behavior and show what it looks like.  Because I care for my students, I want them to do well. I can’t, however, force them to choose good by making their choices for them.  That would go against the very thing I was trying to teach them: how to better ones self.  The good news is that they have multiple chances to improve.  Mercy plays a role in my classroom as well.  If my students didn’t have a chance to try again, how would they learn?  There would be no motivation to even try.

The power to improve one’s life is the motivation behind freedom. If we didn’t have rules we couldn’t learn and if we didn’t learn we couldn’t progress.  What a liberating thought to think that our power to choose can make us better people.  When we continually make poor choices with no effort to do better we are actually subjecting ourselves to bondage.  We are confined to a state of misery making no progress. And if we have no motivation to progress, then there is no point to freedom. However, because of the law of justice and mercy rolled into one, the more progress we make, the more choices become available to us.  The more choices we have, the freer we become.

So, to answer the question posed in my journal: What does freedom mean to you?.... it means everything.  I am tremendously grateful for my power to choose.  When we change freedom from a selfish perspective where all we think about is ourselves, to one that enables us to make this would a better place, the blessing has so much more value.  If we try to do better each day, we are doing good to our neighbors because it allows more freedoms or choices to take place. And that, my friends, is when we are truly free.

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[1] Freedom (2018) Oxford Living Dictionaries. Retrieved on August 11, 2018 at https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/freedom

The Art of Acceptance

Being a single girl in her early 40’s tells you a bit about myself.  I’m ambitious, a hard worker, self-sustaining, and independent.  As I ramble off that list, it may seem like an interview response.  But the more I think about it, when we want to be accepted don’t we all feel like we are in some type of interview?

The dating world has its ups and downs.  I’ve dated a fair share of guys.  In each relationship I learned something new. I had an enjoyable time getting to know some great guys and developed some deep feelings for a couple of them.  However, it seems many ended the same way: “I think all I can see you as is a friend.”  It’s like the word “friend” would somehow soften the blow.  It made me start to think….am I long-lasting relationship material? Or the real question: am I marriage material? Do I only qualify as a friend?  Could I ever be accepted- or more desirable, wanted- as a wife? Then I decided their opinion has nothing to do with my potential.

Maybe dating wasn’t or isn’t your “cross to bear”. My challenges are unique to me.  But I think we all come across those moments where we wonder if people will accept and want us for what we truly are. In the world of social media we portray ourselves as a person that people will most likely accept.  I’ve had many friends post picture after picture of their amazing life.  (Many of us do to some degree.) I wondered if their life could really be that great.  The answer is no.  Gary E. Stevenson said, speaking to a congregation about a social media post, “However, it doesn’t quite capture the full picture of what is actually going on in real life.”  

Sometimes, just like in social media, we put our best selves forward so we can hopefully be accepted by the other.  We don’t always show what’s actually going on. This is not abnormal.  In fact acceptance is one of the basic needs for survival, according to the American psychologist Abraham Maslow. But why do we want others to accept only part of us, not the whole of what’s really there?

For many people, opening up is hard.  That feeling of vulnerability is uncomfortable and life seems so much happier when we move along with that part pushed back into the shadows. But the ironic truth is that we are not happier, just insecure. I sat next to a man the other day who spoke about his struggle with acceptance.  He said he went along life going to work and earning money. He was very successful at what he did. He thought he was happy.  But he said the truth was he was just hiding.  He had anger from his childhood that was still very present in his heart and he came to a point that he couldn’t love.  The more life took its course, the more rocks he encountered on his journey. He came to a point that in order to be happier he had to be vulnerable.  He had to open up, forgive, and relearn to love.  He had to put down his guard and allow people to love him, the whole him, back.

Now, you may wonder what this story has to do with feeling accepted.  Well, because of the harsh things that happened in his childhood, he didn’t feel accepted by his family.  He chose to push them away and hide the hurt.  He chose to allow only one piece of his life to be portrayed and not the whole picture. I’m sure he thought why would anyone accept a broken man? And since he didn’t feel accepted, he chose to not fully accept others. Sadly, just like this man, many people struggle with self-love and acceptance. You can’t accept another’s whole self until you love and accept yourself.

The challenge is not to worry about how or if others accept us.  Rather, the challenge is to fear not, show your whole picture, and love yourself and others no matter what. In my case, I am in contact now and then with a few of the guys I dated.  I sometimes wonder if things could have happened differently.  Maybe we will never know.  And that’s not what is important. But, it has awakened me to realize that if I want someone to love me enough to be marriage material then I need to love myself enough to show them the true, whole me.  And yes, that shouldn’t all come shining forth right when I meet someone new.  But, I can’t hold back or cater to their opinion of me.  Either they love me or not.  That is their choice.  I can, however, show genuine love, kindness, and non-judgement towards them and anyone in my life, no matter what happens or happened in the past.  To me, that is what real acceptance is all about.

The Power of Grieving

It’s interesting to see the twists and turns life throws at you.  One such “turn” in my own life happened fifteen years ago from this summer.  I was in my later 20’s and a few years into my social work career. The future looked hopeful.  One day, while I was with my mom cooking dinner, she turned to me and said, “Dad was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer.” At that moment I didn’t know what to think or feel.  The grieving process for my dad had just begun.

As the days and months followed, I watched my father progressively get worse.  He was in and out of the hospital working so hard to fight this horrid disease.  I noticed his body getting weaker each day as we fed him though a feeding tube.  He was losing the battle and there was nothing I could do about it. The sorrow intensified as I said goodbye a little each day.  Towards the end, I listened to his pain as the tumors close to his heart gave him small heart attacks. Then the moment came….He was done fighting the battle.

Someone once told me that loosing a loved one suddenly is harder than loosing them to an illness.  I was troubled by that statement.  It saddened me to think that they only took their experience and feelings into account.  Life should not be a contest that we are trying to outdo someone on the struggles that we’ve been through.  Grieving is grieving. We do it in our own way and time with varying feelings and expressions at different levels according to the loss. In other words, we never grieve the same way twice or like another person. So no, it’s not harder, it's different.

Grieving is a part of life.  We do it with any kind of loss.  In fact it is necessary and healthy.  It helps us understand our situation. I remember a few years ago when I was looking to buy a new car, I decided that I would trade in my old Corolla.  I had grown attached to that car.  It was green, a standard stick shift (which I love to drive), and I had been through a lot with it. It was even given a nick name- the Turtle. My heart hurt a bit as I drove away from the car lot knowing that piece of my life was over.  Even though the grieving was on an absolute different plane and field from dealing with the death of my father, it was still a loss and something I could allow myself to be sad about.

Grieving gives us the ability to let go of what we are losing or have lost and then heal in order live a healthy life.  In the case of my car, from the moment I knew I was trading in “the Turtle” I had to grieve so that I could be excited about my new car.  For me, it was necessary to move on.  All our experiences change us in some way or another.  Grieving is the process that enables us to reset our life.  Sometimes we need to change our thinking patterns, directions we were going in life- such as goals- and the way we do things.  Allow it. Life changes and we must too. It takes time and self-discovery. On their website, the American Cancer Association stated, “Many people think of grief as a single instance or short time of pain or sadness in response to a loss... But grieving includes the entire emotional process of coping with a loss, and it can last a long time. ” [i]

I started to wonder why we don’t let ourselves grieve the amount of time necessary.  It’s almost like if we grieve too long then there is something wrong with us.  There are times I still grieve the loss of my father and I don’t think that makes me a “messed up” person.  That led me to wonder why some people don’t allow themselves to go through the necessary steps.  Grieving is expressed in many ways.  No way is better than the other.  And sometimes losing the “small” things can be more challenging than losing the “big” things.

Most people are aware of the 5 steps/stages to grieving or loss: 1-Denial and Isolation, 2- Anger, 3- Bargaining, 4- Depression, 5- Acceptance.  Some people go through all the stages and others may hit only a few. And we hardly ever go through them in order. And sometimes we may feel when we had already been through a stage it comes back (sometimes even years later) and we have to go through it all over again and sometimes with a whole other set of issues. Life is messy and so is loss.

The amazing thing about this whole process is that it is just that… a process.  We get to do it our own way and time and there is no need to feel pressure from others. They can help us understand our feelings but don’t get to tell us how we are “supposed” to feel. (We, likewise, need to offer them the same respect and allowance.) We need to permit ourselves time, space, and the ability to be sad, angry, in denial, at peace and the list goes on.  Emotion is not bad.  It is good.  That is why we are blessed with it, even though it may seem like a curse at times.  What we choose do with that emotion is what makes the difference. I feel the more we allow ourselves to work through the process, in a thoughtful and prayerful way, the better off we will be.

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[i] The American Cancer Society (2016). The Grieving Process. Retrieved on August 7, 2018 at https://www.cancer.org/treatment/end-of-life-care/grief-and-loss/grieving-process.html#written_by

The Bike in a Bowl- An Anology on Comfort Zones

In a class I took this summer, I was reminded of Newton’s first Law of Motion or otherwise called the Law of Inertia.  In this law its states, “An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”[i]  This law reminded me of a discussion on comfort zones my mom and I had last year.  She told me about an analogy of a bike in a bowl.  The bike was in a continuous cycle of riding around and around the outer rim of a bowl. It was headed nowhere. There was only one way it could get out of the so-called rut, or pattern, it was in.  The person riding the bike had to muster all the strength he could to turn the handle bars.  That small yet significant act would change his direction and he would fly out of the bowl.  I started thinking about the areas in my life I considered a comfort zone and the consequences I’ve had to deal with because I chose to say. It is always easier to stay, but the question I had to ask myself was if it was worth it. 

Sometimes comfort zones are a good place to be.  They help us recover from a tragedy or loss.  They give us time to breath and strength to stand back on our feet.  But what about those times when we get stuck, like the person on the bike?  I think we sometimes choose to say in our comfort zone because it is just that….comfortable.  Life is hard. I think we can all agree to that.  But I think it was meant to be.  Otherwise we wouldn’t grow.  And growth is a huge part of what this life is all about.

In the book “The Connected Educator” the authors Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall talk about the difficulty of change.  They state, “Change is hard because it involves re-culturing --re-examining values and dispositions and letting go of what we are vested in…. We all have a choice: A choice to be powerful or pitiful.  A choice to allow ourselves to become victims or activist” (145).  Now obviously it was addressing teachers but the more I reread and examined the statement the more I realized that it applied to the everyday person.  It applies to everyone. Why? Because change is hard and we do have a choice if we want to change or not.

For several years I was in a comfort zone with my career.  I was stuck in a place where I didn’t feel good about myself.  I would go to work emotionally numb because I didn’t want to feel the hurt when I was put down.  I stayed because I knew the routine and knew what was expected of me.  The problem was that I was just going through the motions.  There was no progress in my life.  Depression was present and I just accepted the fact that this is the way my life was going to be.  I was in a speed of motion going in no direction which felt bleak but familiar.  I was scared of what was “out there”.  I constantly asked myself if I was worth bigger and better.  I wondered if I could handle different or change.  I needed help but didn’t know how to ask for it or if I should even ask for it.  I was comfortable in my mindless but miserable state of motion and nothing but an “unbalanced force” could get me out.

An “unbalanced force” happened and at the time I wasn’t sure if I liked it.  But I knew something had to happen.  I wasn’t happy and deep inside, under the numbness, I wanted to change that. So one day I went to a friend’s house and received help on updating my resume.  I didn’t think anything would happen from it, but it was my small way to take a step in a different direction.  That small act of faith made all the difference.  A few months later I applied for a job that I had desired for many years.  The results: I got it!  I refer to it as a tender mercy. But it took my small steps (all that I had to give at the time) that turned my course in a different direction.  It got me out of my comfort zone.

I’ve learned that any small act will change your destination.  It will be that “unbalanced force” to get you out of the bowl and someplace where you can progress.  Digging in your heals and turning the handle bars may take all the strength you can muster.  But the good news: it is enough. 

Have you ever felt like you took that leap of faith and now you are in unchartered territory? In all sense of the word, you feel utterly and completely lost and wondered why you even tried. You feel that this lost feeling means you made the wrong choice and you desperately want to go back to that familiar zone because at least there you know what to expect. Maybe you even felt like there you were in control of your life.  Ironically, the harsh reality is that you didn’t have control.  You were just riding in circles letting the vehicle you were on do all the work.

Even though it may be a fearful place, the unknown can be good.  It helps us discover new things about ourselves, those we are in contact with, and our environment because we get to learn to make new choices.  We get to be in control again.  Although it is a very scary and uncomfortable feeling, sometimes there is no other way to lead us in a better direction.  We need to learn those things about ourselves.  They help us change and become stronger.  The key is to be prayerful and keep doing those small acts of faith.  Involve God in your choices.  And you will be on the road to progress…. out of your comfort zone.

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[i] Nussbaum-Beach, S & Ritter Hall, L. (2012). The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.