Tag Archives: joy

A dad’s secret

I love this.

I saw this TikTok last night and it really warmed my heart. A dad kept a childhood secret from his kid until she was 32 and had her own kids. Her dad would take her and her siblings to the beach to go shell fishing, but would go to a souvenir shop first and buy pretty shells. Then he’d throw them in the ripples of waves to be found.

How did she finally find out all these years later? Because he started doing it for her kids, his grandkids. Here is the video.

I grew up on a tropical beach. I still remember the joy of finding a beautiful, unbroken shell. I wish I did this for my kids… and one day I hope to do this for my grandkids.

Time dilation

Yesterday I experienced a bit of a time warp. My morning went a bit slow, both in my productivity and in how long it felt. After lunch it felt like everything was thrown my way, and I was constantly on my ‘to do’ list, which seemed to be filled with things that took longer than they should.

At one point a package arrived, and I thought I’d take a break and take it to the teacher who ordered it. When I passed my grade 9 classroom it was empty, and I wondered where they were? As I learned, they had left for home. I thought it was about 2:30 in the afternoon and it was actually 3:50. It was almost an hour and a half later than I thought!

I’m always amazed by experiences like this. How can one hour of busy work or fun disappear, and another hour of slow work or boredom feel like an eternity? Just like actual time dilation is about time being different based on relative velocity, it seems as though we can experience this based on the velocity of our thoughts relative to actual time.

I also wonder about how relative time is based on our age. Five years is half of a lifetime to a 10 year old, but just 1/11th of a lifetime for me. Does my perception of time change with age? Does the importance of events alter because of the relative time of the experience compared to how many more experiences the event is compared to?

And what makes a single day feel both short and long at the same time? It’s early April, and I already know that the school year will be ending before I realize it. I’ll be swept up in all the things that are coming up, like report cards and grad prep, and suddenly I’ll be saying goodbye to a whole group of students. On that journey I’ll have long and short days, but looking back at the end of June, I’ll think the days from now until then just breezed by.

It’s not just a day in time that dilates, but weeks, months, and years too. It just seems strange… We want to fill our time with activities and events that are enjoyable and thus tend to go by faster. So, we are literally speeding up our lives. But the alternative is to spend a perceptually longer life that is less busy and enjoyable. Is one of the goals of life to have it feel like it’s going too fast? Or is this just an outcome of a good life?

One cation I think this brings attention to is that if time is going to race by, we should at least do our best to make it joyful and not just busy. Because time can also race by when we are just busy, but to what end?

Tiny little moments

Some days slip bye and when you look back, it’s hard to say what you did to fill them. On those days I try to think of small yet special moments:

A laugh with colleagues.

A good conversation.

A delicious snack.

A kind gesture.

A selfish moment.

A selfless moment.

A single accomplishment.

It doesn’t have to be a big thing, it just has to be something that I can identify that made the day a good day.

When you read quotes about life, you read things like, “Life isn’t measured by the breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away.” That sounds beautiful, but how many daily ‘take your breath away’ moments do you really live in your daily life?

No, life’s not just about the breathtakingly special moments… it’s about filling you life with, and appreciating, the tiny little moments that make life worth living.

Delightful laugh

We have a student at our school with the most delightful laugh. She spends her day in the classroom across from our office and she finds many times during the day to share that laugh. My office staff have told me that the same students have to stay in that room, Room 8, next year, because they want to keep this student close (our other classrooms are quite far from the office). While this won’t work with our planning, I totally agree with them.

Isn’t it amazing how influential and powerful a wonderfully contagious laugh is? It makes us happy just to hear her, we don’t even know why she is laughing most times, and it doesn’t matter.

And for those wondering how there is ‘room’ in the day to hear so much laughter, the students in this class are working independently for about 30% of the day, and for up to 3/4’s of that time there might not be a teacher directly in that class… so is this student off task? About 90-95% of the time, I’d say ‘no’. How do I know this? Because this student and all the peers that sit around her get their work done on time and do a great job. Their report cards are great, and the presentations they do are outstanding. And when I randomly visit the class, I catch them on task rather than off task. They have created a culture where being self-directed learners is fun, and where laughter is part of their learning experience.

We are going to have to really appreciate the laughter this month, as the year comes to a close. We can’t keep this class in this room when they will be collaborating and taking senior courses with the grade above them next year. But I’m willing to bet we will miss and talk about that laugh next year… and when we do hear it, we will reminisce about the year of laughter in Room 8.

————

As a fun aside, this is the same student that called me ‘The Big Shebang‘.

Smile with your eyes

There is a huge difference between smiling by simply raising the edges to your mouth, and getting your whole face, or even your whole body involved.

When your expression is positively contagious everyone wins.

The next time you smile, remember to smile with your eyes.

appreciation

Appreciating this moment

We have so much to be thankful for. So much to appreciate. And so much to offer to others.

A smile.

A nod.

A pleasant greeting.

A hand.

A hug.

A patient ear.

We have so much to be grateful for. We are alive, we have a new day ahead of us that is filled with potential.

Yesterday is gone. It lingers only as much as we allow it. It can weigh upon us, or it can lift our spirits. It can take possession of our attitude in positive or negative ways, or it can be released to give us the freedom to enjoy the present.

Tomorrow can be a prison of anxiety and worry, or a reason to be excited; something to look forward to. But tomorrow is best left where it is, other than when making concrete plans.

That leaves us with now. The present is our present, our gift of being alive. It lets us seize possibilities if we allow it. We are so lucky to have this moment, right now… Thank you for sharing your present with me, for taking the time to read these words. Thank you for the good that you do to support others. Thank you for being kind.

I appreciate the moments you have shared with me. What comes next? What will you do with the gift of time that you have? How will you share that time with others? What can you do to seize the present moment? What can you now give that will also give you joy now?