Challenges

A life presents a multitude of challenges. Eating right, dressing right, talking right, looking right, thinking right, acting right, behaving right,

reacting right.

Hmm, each challenge poses it’s own unique set of problems. And speaking of problems, I have a philosophy about them. In reality it’s more my philosophy on life as a human. Here it goes (warning: some people I have shared this with have vehemently disagreed with me, and that is ok!), yup, here it goes:

Life is a bunch of problems you have to solve, and then you die.

It’s not meant to be a negative philosophy, perhaps it is not truly a philosophy at all, just a pondering. It’s just that when I think about humankind, I feel kind of proud of all the problems we have solved, proud and impressed. We have solved problems that affect every aspect of human life (ok, it’s also true we created many of the problems, but really that is my point!), we don’t just sit back and moan about our problems, we tackle them! And this keeps us sharp, keeps us young, keeps us alive!

So why this post on this particular day?

It has nothing to do with eating right, dressing right, talking right, looking right, thinking right, acting right, or behaving right, it has to do with

reacting right.

Stay with me.

I spent today problem solving. An awesome way to spend the day! I worked with my third grade team to create more learning opportunities for our students involving the use of technology. Really cool because the kids love it and that alone solves a bunch of problems. But

being away from my class caused a really BIG problem.

Many (not all) of my students behaved very poorly while I was away. VERY poorly. So now we come back to my philosophy (my pondering if you will). How do I solve this problem. And though it has nothing to do with eating right, dressing right, talking right, looking right, thinking right, acting right, or behaving right, it has to do with

you got it, reacting right.

Because to solve a problem you must first react to the situation, and you must choose your reaction rather than let it choose you. So I will calmly sort out what happened today when I see my class tomorrow. And together we will sort out how to solve this behavior problem. And together we will meet our challenge and begin to solve some problems.

Wish me luck!