Yesterday, I ended the blog with the suggestion that I'm not one to judge. Not true. In the interest of full disclosure, I judge every chicken that crosses a road, regardless of its motives. I would submit that most humans do. In my defense, I save the harshest judgments for myself, which again (except for narcissists) is the case, I suppose, for most people. I'm trying to change that. When I retired, I remember saying, "When I pull my hand out of the bucket, I'll just be out of the bucket". I made that statement as a pejorative about the effectiveness of my career, concentrating on the emptiness I felt after thirty-one years rather than accepting that while I might have caused some students some angst, I also inspired a few. That's the thing about acceptance and the bucket. It's tricky. I've often found myself standing beside some bucket gauzily dreaming about how nice it would be to see the bucket filled to over flowing. Other times I looked at the bucket with despair thinking how very far from full it was. And of course, I'm always aware of other people's buckets. It's hard to avoid comparison. If I could contain the need for judgment, I'd realize that all I need to do is keep putting drops into the bucket, and before I'd know it, the bucket would be full. That's the answer: drop by drop. And really, that's what I tried to do in my teaching career. It's what I try to do in all my endeavors. Every day I put my best drop into the bucket. Not every drop lands in the bucket, but I give it my best effort every day. The trick is to enjoy each drop for the complete effort it is, regardless of where it lands. I shouldn't worry about yesterday's drop. I shouldn't worry about tomorrow's drop. I should enjoy today's drop, and simply realize that life is good, especially today.
I might as well jump for joy.
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