Day 24: That’s why I’m here…Happiness is a mirror of your soul’s travels

Retrospection can be difficult for anyone especially if you have troubling times in your past but I guess who doesn’t right?  I have started looking backward as a part of my path to happiness.

This is a great idea for sure but it is difficult to be both honest and clear about the details.  We all have a tendency to rewrite our histories to suit the nature of our feelings today.  Revisionist history is even published by scholars in ivory tower universities so why shouldn’t that be good enough for me?  Treat the symptoms or treat the cause is my answer.

I prefer to treat the cause and then the symptoms will ease.  In the past, I had a tendency to push people away much like a lost child.  As a former foster parent of many children, I saw the pattern repeat each time, regardless of the particular issues related to any one child.  “I know you’re going to throw me out of your home so let’s speed up the process so we don’t waste time and throw me out now (so my heart doesn’t get broken again by another uncaring adult).”

What I didn’t realize until much later is that I did the same thing as a child.  As a former abused child, I carried the same mental message inside of my own head, “I know you’re not going to like me or want me around, so I’ll act out and cut to the chase…”

It wasn’t until the sixth grade when I met my match, my homeroom teacher, Mr. Grant, what a saint.  He never gave up on me and we had lots of personal time together since I had detention pretty much every day.  Since my own father was an unsuitable role model for me, I had no male role model to trust or believe in.

Mr. Grant took a personal interest in me and decided to delve into my strong and formidable façade.  He was relentless and caring at the same time.   He was instructive but warm; capable of creating a closeness between us but careful not to be too close.  Without a word of my home situation, (you didn’t ask questions in the 50’s and 60’s); he developed a place for me to feel safe.

We spoke about life; about people. He shared his personal observations and I listened at the foot of the great and not so worldly scholar.  Once I felt safe, I began to ask real questions and the most important being, “How do you get people to like you?”  His answer was straightforward and honest (is that redundant?) and simple.  He shared with me that he felt the same way at different points in his life and he learned the secret of success.

I froze with anticipation of his wisdom.  He told me very simply that all he did was find a characteristic of someone he liked and he copied it and practiced it until it became natural to him.  He immediately queried me to pick a characteristic of someone I admired.  I was so embarrassed because I just wanted to be like him, of course.  I mumbled something about wanting to know more about my family’s culture like my grandmother (I made this up).  She was Latvian and so he said that was a good start but how about picking something easier to copy. 

We agreed upon starting small with a “thank you.”  Grateful people are well liked he said.  No matter what someone said to me, he said, say thank you first before reacting.  This sounded like a very difficult task since I was explosive in my (usually)  justified anger. 

I tried with him, just in class and I was amazed at the response of students in my class.  At first, they were cautious about my “niceness” and then before I realized it; this practice became part of my personal culture.

To this day, I practice Mr. Grant’s suggestion.  Although he is long gone from this earth, he truly lives on in me and so many others.  He gave me a chance to become someone respectable, liked, and someone others could love.  Someone I could love.  Thank you Mr. Grant, you made me a better person and I have in turn learned how to share your life experience with others.  I became a teacher because of you; I became a better person because of you.