Daily Digest #55

Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. —Matthew 7:12

We can all be demanding sometimes. I, for example, get easily upset when someone doesn't make it on time, when I have been late a million times, especially at work (well, not anymore :p)... I hated waiting, being the impatient person that I am, but it didn't occur to me that people have waited for me a lot of times.

I have learned so many things from my work. I have been working in a school for 5 years now. And it was only a year ago when I realized how much work I had to do, with myself. I longed for change in most of my classes, in how things were run by the management, yet I wasn't doing much of my part. I lacked the intimate teacher-student relationship. I wanted to be really heard by the kids I taught, but it was all one-sided. All I knew was they were supposed to listen and pick up everything I taught them. I wanted to be greeted with a friendly smile, but I wasn't even smiling at them. I wanted a lot from others that I myself couldn't even do or provide.

I began to realize how much I have concentrated on myself, which usually caused extreme exhaustion with unsatisfactory results or response. One day, I experimented on the "smile". Since I wasn't used to smiling all the time, I felt I would be making a lot of effort doing so. Walking from my home to work, I started with the cleaning lady. Immediately after I smiled, she smiled! So I went on with the store owner, the banana-fritter lady, the guard, the students in school, then the other teachers. What great wonders one smile can make!

In my classes, I found out how the slightest interest a teacher expresses for a student could do for a child. I started with the most annoying kid in my class. He was so noisy and KSP, yet he was one of the dullest kids in school. At first it was really hard, I still had to build the trust he demanded. When I started to show my interest in football after seeing his football pictures in the computer, he started talking about his favorite players, and how he dreamt of going to Europe to watch the games. After that small talk, he started showing interest in my class, and actually finished the projects I assigned. He graduated from grade school already, but I still see him sometimes. Just yesterday, he dropped by the office to say hi.

Another kid from a much lower level used to piss me off for being so talkative (ehem, like me when I was younger...pag kinakarma nga naman). He was very bright though. One day, he came up to me to ask about HTML, a language for web pages. I was surprised of his enthusiasm that for the first time, I really tried explaining it in the level of a 9-year old. But it didn't matter if he understood, because he was starting to share a bit of himself to me, and it was very fulfilling. I guess teaching can be very personal, hehehe.

I believe we can do anything when it comes from the heart. For me, loving starts with the willingness to be a part of another person. Most of us are afraid to invest on anything that doesn't guarantee any return. But what do we have to lose anyway? We will learn to give without expecting anything in return. Any positive response we get is a bonus. When this becomes very hard to comprehend, I guess we have to start re-assessing the meaning of "love".

For this, may we learn to walk in Jesus Christ's steps. May we learn to love just as He did. May we look up to Him and ask for His guidance in everything that we do. Pray always.