Attention Area Students: Today Is The First Day Of School; So Is Tomorrow

Published 3:47 pm Thursday, February 7, 2013

The first day of school is over.

Well, yeah.

Of course it is.

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But only for today, February 8.

The next one-if you adopt the attitude of seeing every day as fresh and new-comes tomorrow.

There's another the day after that.

And on and on and on.

Or, it can be. And should be. You deserve it to be.

Routine, on the other hand, has sticky fingers that pull us into what too easily feels like a rut and the “first day” excitement of August barely has enough energy left to roll over, hit the snooze button, and pull up the comfortable covers of apathy for another winter of dissing the content of our dreams.

Inspiration drifts into hibernation and transformation is lost in a maze of stagnation.

Don't let it happen.

When the school bell rings a new race has begun. Don't dwell on where you finished the day before, or that, perhaps, you didn't finish at all.

D's and F's?

Rearrange the alphabet. Be your own cheerleader.

Give me a C.

“C”

Give me a B.

“B”

Give me an A.

“A”

What does that spell?

Your potential.

Asking for a better grade doesn't work, because nobody's going to give away anything. We have to make the grade. The grade doesn't make itself. The grade doesn't make us, either. We make ourselves by making the grade.

Technically, sure, the first day of school was months ago, when all the leaves were green and all the heat pumps were set to “cool.”

But the wind has since changed.

The earth has literally tilted on its axis.

So, I must ask: which way are you leaning-toward your destination?

Or away from it?

Change your environment. Re-set the thermostat on your determination to feed and fuel yourself with knowledge, to seize this moment and shape your own destiny rather than be misshapen by the debris of broken dreams.

But what do I know about it, right? Sitting here in my editor's office, writing these words about making the grade, how could I have any idea of what it's like?

Good question.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I flunked typing.

A great big loud F.

In typing.

How could anybody fail typing?

I excelled at failing typing. I failed at typing so spectacularly that on the last day of class before summer vacation my typing teacher felt it necessary to loudly inform me, with the whole class listening, that I was so lousy at typing, an utter failure, that there was no way in the world that I would ever amount to anything at all in any career that required typing.

Oh, yeah?

Really?

Bear in mind that when I began working here in 1979 there were no spell-checking computers. We typed on ancient Royal manual typewriters. We had to pound those keys into submission and we needed to hammer accurately.

You can get an F, but that doesn't mean you are an F.

So, go on. Prove your own doubters, and, if you have them, your own doubts, wrong.

Tomorrow is the beginning of a new first day.

Starting now.

-JKW-